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Conscription in the United States
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- The Draft redirects here. For other uses, see Draft.
Conscription in the United States (also called compulsory military service or the draft) has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War. The United States discontinued the draft in 1973, moving to an all-volunteer military force, thus there is currently no mandatory conscription.
However, the Selective Service System remains in place as a contingency; young men between the ages of 18 and 25 are required to register so that a draft can be readily resumed.
In colonial times, the Thirteen Colonies used a militia system for local defense.
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- The Draft redirects here. For other uses, see Draft.
Conscription in the United States (also called compulsory military service or the draft) has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War. The United States discontinued the draft in 1973, moving to an all-volunteer military force, thus there is currently no mandatory conscription.
However, the Selective Service System remains in place as a contingency; young men between the ages of 18 and 25 are required to register so that a draft can be readily resumed.
In colonial times, the Thirteen Colonies used a militia system for local defense. For long-term operations, conscription was occasionally used when volunteers or paid substitutes were insufficient to raise the needed manpower. During the American Revolutionary War, the states sometimes drafted men for militia duty or to fill state Continental Army units, but the central government did not have the authority to conscript. President James Madison unsuccessfully attempted to create a national draft during the War of 1812.
The United States first employed national conscription during the American Civil War. The vast majority of troops were volunteers, however: of the 2,100,000 Union soldiers, about 2% were draftees, and another 6% were paid substitutes. Resistance to the draft touched off the New York Draft Riots in July 1863. The Confederate States of America instituted conscription in 1862, and resistance was both widespread and violent, with comparisons made between conscription and slavery. Both sides permitted conscripts to hire substitutes. In the Union, many states and cities offered bounties and bonuses for enlistment. They also arranged to take credit against their quota for freed slaves who enlisted.
World War I and World War II
The military birthed the modern draft mechanism in 1926 and built it based on military needs despite an era of pacifism. Working where Congress would not, it gathered a cadre of officers for its nascent Joint Army-Navy Selective Service Committee, most of
whom were commissioned based on social standing rather than military experience. This
effort did not receive congressionally approved funding until 1934 when Major Lewis B.
Hershey was assigned to the organization. The passage of a conscription act was opposed by some, including Dorothy Day and George Barry O'Toole, who were concerned that such conscription would not provide adequate protection for the rights of conscientious objectors. However, much of Hershey's work was codified into
law with the Selective Training and Service Act (STSA) of 1940.
President Roosevelt's signing of the STSA on September 16, 1940 began the first peacetime draft in the United States. It also established the Selective Service System as an independent agency responsible for identifying and inducting young men into military service. Roosevelt named Hershey to head the Selective Service on July 31, 1941 where he remained until removed by Nixon in 1969. This preparatory act came when other preparations, such as increased training and equipment production, had not yet been approved. Nevertheless, it served as the basis for the conscription programs that would continue to the present. The act set a cap of 900,000 men to be in training at any given time and limited military service to 12 months. An amendment increased this to 18 months in 1941. Later legislation amended the act to require all men from 18 to 65 to register with those aged 18 to 45 being immediately liable for induction. Service commitments for inductees were set at the length of the war plus six months. As manpower need increased during World War II, draftees were inducted into the Marine Corps as well as the Army. During the same time period the U.S. lowered the draft age to 17.
By 1942, the SSS moved away from administrative selection by its more than 4,000 local boards to a system of lottery selection. Rather than filling quotas by local selection, the boards now ensured proper processing of men selected by the lottery. This facilitated the massive requirement of up to 200,000 men per month and would remain the standard for the length of the war. The WWII draft operated from 1940 until 1947 when its legislative authorization expired without further extension by Congress. During
this time, more than 10 million men had been inducted into military service. With the expiration, no inductions occurred in 1947. However, the SSS remained
intact.
Protests also arose against the World War II-era draft. Most of the violent events occurred in the northern states where African-Americans protested the injustice of the draft in the face of segregation and other civil rights abuses. Some Socialists and Communists also opposed support for the war until Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Of the more than 72,000 men registering as conscientious objectors (CO), nearly 52,000 received CO status. Of these, over 25,000 entered the military in noncombatant roles, another 12,000 went to civilian work camps, and nearly 6,000 went to prison. Draft evasion only accounted for about 4% of the total inducted. About 373,000 alleged evaders were investigated with just over 16,000 being imprisoned.
The second peacetime draft began with passage of the Selective Service Act in 1948 after the STSA expired. The new law required all men, ages 18 to 26, to register. It also created the system for the "Doctor Draft" aimed at inducting health professionals into
military service. Unless otherwise exempted or deferred, these men
could be called for up to 21 months of active duty and five years of reserve duty service. Congress further tweaked this act in 1950 although the post-World War II surplus of military manpower left little need for draft calls until Truman’s declaration of national emergency in December 1950. Only 20,348 men were inducted in 1948 and only 9,781
in 1949. However, between June 1950 and 1953, Selective Service inducted 1,529,539 men. Another 1.3 million volunteered. Most joined the Navy and Air Force.
Cold War/Korean War
Congress passed the Universal Military Training and Service Act in 1951 to meet the demands of the Korean War. It lowered the induction age to 18½ and extended active-duty service commitments to 24 months. Despite the early combat failures and later stalemate in Korea, the draft has been credited by some as playing a vital role in turning the tide of war. A February 1953 Gallup Poll showed 70 percent of Americans surveyed felt the SSS handled the draft fairly. Notably, the demographic including all draft age men (males 21 to 29) reported 64 percent believed the draft to be fair.
To increase equity in the system, Eisenhower signed an executive order on July 11, 1953 that ended the paternity deferment for married men. In large part, the change in the draft served the purposes of the burgeoning Cold War. From a program that had just barely passed Congressional muster during the fearful prelude to WWII, a more robust draft continued as fears now focused on the Soviet threat. Nevertheless, some dissenting voices in Congress continued to appeal to the history of voluntary American military service as preferable for a democracy.
The United States breathed easier with the Korean Armistice in 1953; however, technology brought new promises and threats. U.S. air and nuclear power fueled the Eisenhower doctrine of "massive retaliation." This strategy demanded more machines
and fewer foot soldiers, so the draft slipped to the back burner. However, the head of the SSS, Maj. Gen. Hershey, urged caution fearing the conflict looming in Vietnam. In May 1953, he told his state directors to do everything possible to keep SSS
alive in order to meet upcoming needs.
Following the Armistice, Congress passed the Reserve Forces Act of 1955 with the aim of improving National Guard and federal reserve readiness while also constraining its use by the president. Towards this end, it mandated a six-year service
commitment, in a combination of reserve and active duty time, for every line military member regardless of their means of entry. Meanwhile, the SSS kept itself alive by devising and managing a complex system of deferments for a swelling pool of candidates
during a period of shrinking requirements. The greatest challenge to the draft came not from protestors but rather lobbyists seeking additional deferments for their constituency groups such as scientists and farmers.
Government leaders felt the potential for a draft was a critical element in maintaining a constant flow of volunteers. On numerous occasions Gen. Hershey told Congress for every man drafted, three or four more were scared into volunteering. Assuming his assessment was accurate, this would mean over 11 million men volunteered for service because of the draft between January 1954 and April 1975.
The policy of using the draft as a club to force "voluntary" enlistment was unique in U.S. history. Previous drafts had not aimed at encouraging individuals to sign up in order to gain preferential placement or less dangerous postings. However, the incremental
buildup of Vietnam without a clear threat to the country bolstered this. Some estimates suggest conscription encompassed almost one-third of all eligible men during the period of 1965-69. This group represented those without exemption or resources to avoid military service. During the active combat phase, the possibility of avoiding combat by selecting their service and military specialty led as many as four out of 11 million eligible men to enlist. The military relied upon this draft-induced volunteerism to make its quotas, especially the Army, which accounted for nearly 95 percent of all inductees during Vietnam. For
example, defense recruiting reports show 34% of the recruits in 1964 up to 50% in 1970 indicated they joined to avoid adverse placement via the draft. . These rates dwindled to 24% in 1972 and 15% in 1973 after the change to a lottery system. Accounting for other factors, it can be argued up to 60 percent of those who served throughout the Vietnam Conflict did so directly or indirectly because of the draft.
In addition, deferments provided an incentive for men to follow pursuits considered useful to the government. This process, known as channeling, helped push men into educational, occupational, and family choices they might not otherwise have
pursued. Undergraduate degrees were valued. Graduate work had varying value over time, though technical and religious training received near constant support. War industry support in the form of teaching, research, or skilled labor also received deferred
or exempt status. Finally, marriage and family were exempted because of its positive societal consequences. This included using presidential orders to extend exemptions again to fathers and others. Channeling was also seen as a means of preempting the early loss of the country’s “best and brightest” who had historically joined and died early in war.
In the only extended period of military conscription of U.S. males during a major peacetime period, the draft continued on a more limited basis during the late 1950s and early 1960s. While a far smaller percentage of eligible males were conscripted compared to war periods, draftees by law served in the Army for two years. Elvis Presley and Willie Mays were two of the most famous people drafted during this period.
Public protests in the United States were few during the Korean War. However, the percentage of CO exemptions for inductees grew to 1.5% compared to a rate of just .5% in the past two wars. The Justice Department also investigated more than 80,000
draft evasion cases.
Vietnam War
There was some opposition to the draft even before the major U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The large cohort of Baby Boomers who became eligible for military service during the Vietnam War also meant a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college and graduate students. This was the source of considerable resentment among poor and working class young men, who could not afford a college education.
As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, more young men were drafted for service there, and many of those still at home sought means of avoiding the draft. For those seeking a relatively safe alternative, service in the Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard was an option (provided one could meet the more stringent enlistment standards). Since only a handful of National Guard and Reserve units were sent to Vietnam, enlistment in the Guard or the Reserves became a favored means of draft avoidance. Vocations to the ministry and the rabbinate soared, because divinity students were exempt from the draft. Doctors and draft board members found themselves being pressured by relatives or family friends to exempt potential draftees.
Some conscientious objectors objected to the war based on the theory of Just War. One of these, Stephen Spiro, was convicted of avoiding the draft, but given a suspended sentence of five years. He was later pardoned by President Gerald Ford.
According to the Veteran's Administration, 9.2 million men served in the military between 1964 and 1975. Nearly 3.5 million men served in the Vietnam theater of operations. From a pool of approximately 27 million, the draft raised 2,215,000 men for military service during the Vietnam era. It has also been credited with "encouraging" many of the 8.7 million "volunteers" to join rather than risk being drafted.
Of the nearly 16 million men not engaged in active military service, 96% were exempted (typically because of jobs including other military service), deferred (usually for educational reasons), or disqualified (usually for physical and mental deficiencies but also for criminal records to include draft violations). Draft offenders in the last category numbered nearly 500,000 but less than 10,000 were convicted or imprisoned for draft violations. Finally, as many as 100,000 draft eligible males fled the country.
End of conscription
During the 1968 presidential election, Richard Nixon campaigned on a promise to end the draft. He had first become interested in the idea of an all-volunteer army during his time out of office, based upon a paper by Professor Martin Anderson of Columbia University. Nixon also saw ending the draft as an effective way to undermine the anti-Vietnam war movement, since he believed affluent youths would stop protesting the war once their own possibility of having to fight in it was gone. There was opposition to the all-volunteer notion from both the Department of Defense and Congress, so Nixon took no immediate action towards ending the draft early in his presidency.
Instead, the Gates Commission was formed, headed by Thomas S. Gates, Jr., a former Secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower administration. Gates initially opposed the all-volunteer army idea, but changed his mind during the course of the 15-member commission's work. The Gates Commission issued its report in February 1970, describing how adequate military strength could be maintained without having conscription. The existing draft law was expiring at the end of June 1971, but the Department of Defense and Nixon administration decided the draft needed to continue for at least some time. In February 1971, the administration requested of Congress a two-year extension of the draft, to June 1973.
Senatorial opponents of the war wanted to reduce this to a one-year extension, or eliminate the draft altogether, or tie the draft renewal to a timetable for troop withdrawal from Vietnam; Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska took the most forceful approach, trying to filibuster the draft renewal legislation, shut down conscription, and directly force an end to the war. Senators supporting Nixon's war efforts supported the bill, even though some had qualms about ending the draft. After a prolonged battle in the Senate, in September 1971 cloture was achieved over the filibuster and the draft renewal bill was approved. Meanwhile, military pay was increased as an incentive to attract volunteers, and television advertising for the U.S. Army began. With the end of active U.S. ground participation in Vietnam, December 1972 saw the last men conscripted, who reported for duty in June 1973.In 1973, the Selective Service randomly selected 25 numbers or birthdays in case the draft was extended.
Post-1980 draft registration
In 1980, Congress re-instated the requirement that young men register with the Selective Service System. At that time it was required that all males, born on or after January 1, 1960 register with the Selective Service System. Currently, male U.S. citizens if age 18 through 25, are required to register with the Selective Service System on their 18th birthday. The Selective Service System describes its mission as "...to serve the emergency manpower needs of the Military by conscripting untrained manpower, or personnel with professional health care skills, if directed by Congress and the President in a national crisis." Registration forms are available either online or at any U.S. Post Office.
The Selective Service registration form states that failure to register is a felony punishable by up to five years imprisonment or a $250,000 fine. In practice, no one has been prosecuted for failure to comply with draft registration since 1986, in part because prosecutions of draft resisters proved counter-productive for the government, and in part because of the difficulty of proving that noncompliance with the law was "knowing and willful." Many people do not register at all, register late, or change addresses without notifying the Selective Service System. Not registering can also lead to loss of federal employment, sometimes after the registration window has already passed.
Health Care Personnel Delivery System
On December 1, 1989, Congress ordered the Selective Service System to put in place a system capable of drafting "persons qualified for practice or employment in a health care and professional occupation", if such a special-skills draft should be ordered by Congress. In response, Selective Service published plans for the "Health Care Personnel Delivery System " (HCPDS) in 1989 and has had them ready ever since. The concept underwent a preliminary field exercise in Fiscal Year 1998, followed by a more extensive nationwide readiness exercise in Fiscal Year 1999. The HCPDS plans include women and men ages 20-54 in 57 different job categories. As of May 2003, the Defense Department has said the most likely form of draft is a special skills draft, probably of health care workers.
Legality
In 1918, the Supreme Court ruled that the World War I draft did not violate the United States Constitution. Arver v. United States, 245 U.S. 366 (1918). The Court summarized the history of conscription in England and in colonial America, a history that it read as establishing that the Framers envisioned compulsory military service as a governmental power. It held that the Constitution's grant to Congress of the powers to declare war and to create standing armies included the power to mandate conscription. It rejected arguments based on states' rights, the Thirteenth Amendment, and other provisions of the Constitution.
Later, during the Vietnam War, a lower appellate court also concluded that the draft was constitutional. United States v. Holmes, 387 F.2d 781 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 391 U.S. 936 (1968). (Justice William O. Douglas, in voting to hear the appeal in Holmes, agreed that the government had the authority to employ conscription in wartime, but argued that the constitutionality of a draft in the absence of a declaration of war was an open question, which the Supreme Court should address.)
During the World War I era, the Supreme Court allowed the government great latitude in suppressing criticism of the draft. Examples include Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919) and Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U.S. 325 (1920). In subsequent decades, however, the Court has taken a much broader view of the extent to which advocacy speech is protected by the First Amendment. Thus, in 1971 the Court held it unconstitutional for a state to punish a man who entered a county courthouse wearing a jacket with the words "Fuck the Draft" visible on it. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971). Nevertheless, protesting the draft by the specific means of burning a draft registration card can be constitutionally prohibited, because of the government's interest in prohibiting the "nonspeech" element involved in destroying the card. United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).
In 1981, several men filed lawsuit in the case Rostker v. Goldberg, alleging that the Military Selective Service Act violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment by requiring that men only and not also women register with the Selective Service System. The Supreme Court upheld the act, stating that Congress's "decision to exempt women was not the accidental byproduct of a traditional way of thinking about women," that "since women are excluded from combat service by statute or military policy, men and women are simply not similarly situated for purposes of a draft or registration for a draft, and Congress' decision to authorize the registration of only men therefore does not violate the Due Process Clause," and that "the argument for registering women was based on considerations of equity, but Congress was entitled, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, to focus on the question of military need, rather than 'equity.'"
Conscientious objection
According to the Selective Service System,
- A conscientious objector is one who is opposed to serving in the armed forces and/or bearing arms on the grounds of moral or religious principles.
- [...]
- Beliefs which qualify a registrant for CO status may be religious in nature, but don't have to be. Beliefs may be moral or ethical; however, a man's reasons for not wanting to participate in a war must not be based on politics, expediency, or self-interest. In general, the man's lifestyle prior to making his claim must reflect his current claims.
The Supreme Court has ruled in cases United States v. Seeger (1965) and Welsh v. United States (1970) that conscientious objection can be by non-religious beliefs as well as religious beliefs; but it has also ruled in Gillette v. United States (1971) against objections to specific wars as grounds for conscientious objection.
There is currently no mechanism to indicate that one is a conscientious objector in the Selective Service system. According to the SSS, after a person is drafted, he can claim Conscientious Objector status and then justify it before the Local Board. This is criticized because during the times of a draft, when the country is in emergency conditions, there could be increased pressure for Local Boards to be more harsh on conscientious objector claims.
There are two types of status for conscientious objectors. If a person only objects to combat but not to service in the military, then the person could be given noncombatant service in the military without training of weapons. If they object to all military service, then they could be given "alternative service" with a job "deemed to make a meaningful contribution to the maintenance of the national health, safety, and interest", see Alternative Service Program.
Selective Service reforms
The Selective Service System has maintained that they have implemented several reforms that would make the draft more fair and equitable.
Some of the measures they have implemented include:
- Before and during the Vietnam War, a young man could get a deferment by showing that he was a full-time student making satisfactory progress towards a degree; now deferment only lasts to the end of the semester. If the man is a senior he can defer until the end of the academic year.
- The government has said that draft boards are now more representative of the local communities in areas such as race and national origin.
- A lottery system would be used to determine the order of people being called up. Previously the oldest men who were found eligible for the draft would be taken first. In the new system, the men called first would be those who are or will turn 20 in the calendar year or those whose deferments will end in the calendar year. Each year after the man will be placed on a lower priority status until his liability ends.
Because there has been no draft since 1973, it remains to be seen how any future drafts would be conducted.
Perception of the draft as unfair
Some people feel that the draft is fundamentally unfair (or illegal in a way) because only males must register with the Selective Service. Many masculists as well as feminists hold this view. For example, the National Organization for Women, a feminist organization, passed a resolution in 1980 opposing males-only draft registration as discriminatory, and the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project provided aid to the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Rostker v. Goldberg, in which the plaintiff unsuccessfully challenged males-only draft registration. Congress retains the right to conscript women and considered doing so during the Second World War.
Other discriminating factors regarding conscription include age, with a preference for younger draftees, and residency, since only those in the U.S. may be drafted.
The draft has been perceived by some as unfairly targeting the poor and lower middle classes. Because of college deferments, children of wealthy and upper middle class families that could afford to send them to college could avoid the draft. The fact that President Bill Clinton had been attending college during the time period in which conscription was active and received a collegiate deferment caused controversy during his campaigns and during his time in office. Similar controversy has surrounded prominent figures in the Bush Administration, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
During the Vietnam War some children of wealthy families wished to avoid a perception of avoiding military service. Those individuals often signed up for the National Guard, which at the time seldom sent troops overseas. The fact that some were able to use their family's connections to gain a position when spots in the Guard were limited also led to a perception that the wealthy were using the National Guard to ensure that their children were assigned low-risk duty in the U.S. Much as President Clinton's obtainment of a deferment based on his attendance of college caused controversy, President George W. Bush's service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War also attracted controversy during his election campaigns.
During the Vietnam Era it was often quite easy for those with some knowledge of the system (or from guidance by draft counselors and draft attorneys) to avoid being drafted, or to defend prosecutions by submitting themselves to induction after indictment, and then being found disqualified. A simple route, widely publicized, was to get a medical rejection. This was possible because the draft laws after World War II mandated that the medical standards for conscription should not be less stringent than they were during the war. However, advances in diagnostic medicine lead to a much larger pool of young men being subject to disqualification. (Homosexuality was also a disqualifying condition, although most men did not wish to assert this status during that era.) Men who received induction notices could often manipulate where they were examined by showing up at induction centers far away from their actual residences on the mandated date for examination (either for a pre-induction physical or the induction physical examination). It was advantageous to be examined in induction centers adjacent to heavily populated metropolitan areas, where it often was not worth the Army's time to dispute their claims.
One scene in a film that accurately captures the chaotic situation in the lower Manhattan draft center where people slipped through the cracks is in "Alice's Restaurant." In this case the young man was rejected for having a criminal record (for littering). Conversely the poor and uneducated were often conscripted without any understanding of how to escape the system. However, many law schools, notably Harvard University, had draft counseling centers where law students helped young men in poorer areas assert their rights and seek exemptions from induction.
U.S. Representative Charles Rangel argued in 2004 that poor men were far more apt to enlist for military service. He called for a reinstatement of the draft to ensure service in the Iraq War was spread equally among the rich and poor. After the November 2006 elections, Rangel again suggested the draft be renewed, this time because he thought it was less likely that a democracy with conscription would engage in pre-emptive wars such as the current American military involvement in Iraq.
The provisions for conscientious objection to the draft have also been viewed as unfairly discriminatory, favoring religious objection over non-religious objection. Alternative mandatory service can assuage objections based on peace and non-violence but does nothing for those whose objections arise from strongly held convictions about freedom.
Conscription controversies since 2003
No attempt to reinstate conscription, since the effort to enforce Selective Service registration law was abandoned in 1986, has been able to attract much support in the legislature or among the public. However since early 2003, when the Iraq War appeared imminent, there have been attempts through legislation and through campaign rhetoric to begin a new public conversation on the topic.
In 2003, several Democratic congressmen (Charles Rangel of New York, James McDermott of Washington, John Conyers of Michigan, John Lewis of Georgia, Pete Stark of California, Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii) introduced legislation that would draft both men and women into either military or civilian government service, should there be a draft in the future. The Republican majority leadership suddenly considered the bill, nine months after its introduction, without a report from the Armed Services Committee (to which it had been referred), and just one month prior to the 2004 presidential and congressional elections. The Republican leadership used an expedited parliamentary procedure that would have required a two-thirds vote for passage of the bill. The bill was defeated on October 5, 2004, with two members voting for it and 402 members voting against.
In 2004 the platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties opposed military conscription, but neither party moved to end draft registration. John Kerry in one debate criticized Bush's policies, "You've got stop-loss policies so people can't get out when they were supposed to. You've got a backdoor draft right now."
This statement was in reference to the Department of Defense use of "stop-loss" orders, which have extended the Active Duty periods of some military personnel. All enlistees, upon entering the service, volunteer for a minimum eight-year Military Service Obligation (MSO). This MSO is split between a minimum active duty period, followed by a reserve period where enlistees may be called back to active duty for the remainder of the 8 years. Some of these active duty extensions have been for as long as two years. The Pentagon stated that as of August 24, 2004, 20,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines had been affected. As of January 31, 2006 it has been reported that more than 50,000 soldiers and reservists had been affected.
Despite arguments by defense leaders that they had no interest in reinstituting the draft, Representative Neil Abercrombie's (D-HI) inclusion of a DOD memo in the Congressional Record which detailed a meeting by senior leaders signalled renewed interest. Though the conclusion of the meeting memo did not call for a reinstatement of the draft, it did suggest Selective Service Act modifications to include registration by women and self-reporting of critical skills that could serve to meet
military, homeland defense, and humanitarian needs. This hinted at more targeted draft options being considered, perhaps like that of the “Doctor Draft” that began in the 1950s to provide nearly 66% of the medical professionals need by the Army in Korea. Once created this manpower tool continued to be through 1972. The meeting memo gave DOD’s primary reason for opposing a draft as matters of cost effectiveness and efficiency. Draftees with less than two years retention were said to be a drain on military resources without providing much commensurate benefit.
Mentions of the draft during the presidential campaign led to a resurgence of anti-draft and draft resistance organizing. One poll of young voters in October 2004 found that 29% would resist if drafted.
In November 2006, Representative Charles Rangel again called for the draft to be reinstated.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has rejected this proposal.
On December 19 2006, President Bush announced that he was considering sending more troops to Iraq. The next day, the Selective Service System's director for operations and chief information officer, Scott Campbell, announced plans for a "readiness exercise" to test the system's operations in 2009, for the first time since 1998.
On December 21 2006, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, when asked by a reporter whether the draft should be reinstated to make the military more equal, said, "I think that our society would benefit from that, yes sir." Nicholson proceeded to relate his experience as a company commander in an infantry unit which brought together soldiers of different socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels, noting that the draft "does bring people from all quarters of our society together in the common purpose of serving." Nicholson later issued a statement saying he does not support reinstating the draft.
On August 10 2007, with National Public Radio on "All Things Considered," Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, National Security Adviser to the President and Congress for all matters pertaining to the United States Military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, expressed support for a draft to alleviate the stress on the Army's all-volunteer force. He cited the fact that repeated deployments place much strain upon one soldier's family and himself which, in turn, can affect retention.
A similar bill to Rangel's 2003 one was introduced in 2007, called the Universal National Service Act of 2007 (H.R. 393), but it has not received a hearing or been scheduled for consideration.
Civilian service
Conscription has been used nationally only to provide men to the military. The most common form of compulsory civilian service in the U.S. is the much shorter obligation of jury duty.
Mandatory public service of a non-military nature is required as part of the high school curriculum in many school districts across the nation. Since 1992, the state of Maryland has required a total of 75 hours of "developmentally appropriate service-learning activities" over the course of grades 6 through 12. During the 2004 campaign, Kerry proposed a similar program nationwide, to be implemented by each school district but federally funded. He added an additional voluntary option for students to receive four years of college tuition in exchange for a commitment to two years of national service.
Mandatory full-time service on a national scale has been proposed many times and was backed by, for example, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Recent proposals have been modeled after the Americorps program, but necessarily much larger in scale when made mandatory. Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution estimates the cost for a program of one year for all high school graduates at $25 billion.
Non-citizens
The Selective Service (and the draft) in the United States is not limited to citizens. Howard Stringer was drafted in 1965, six weeks after arriving from his native Britain. Today, non-citizen males of appropriate age in the United States, who are permanent residents (holders of Green Cards), seasonal agricultural workers, refugees, parolees, asylees, and even illegal immigrants, are required to register with the Selective Service System. Refusal to do so is grounds for denial of a future citizenship application. In addition, immigrants who seek to naturalize as citizens must, as part of the Oath of Citizenship, swear to the following:
... that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law;
The USCIS website also states however:
In some cases, USCIS allows the oath to be taken without the clauses:
". . .that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by law. . ."
Non-citizens who serve in the United States military enjoy several naturalization benefits which are unavailable to non-citizens who do not, such as a waiver of application fees. Permanent resident aliens who die while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces may be naturalized posthumously, which may be beneficial to surviving family members.
See also
Sources
GIs Speak out against the War: The Case of the Ft. Jackson 8. 128 pages. New York: Pathfinder Press. 1970.
External links
- - official website
- - information and resources on the draft, draft registration, and draft resistance; includes statistics on draft registration compliance and enforcement since 1980
- - FAQ's on the medical draft ("Health Care Personnel Delivery System")
- - analysis of proposals based on Americorps
- - by Rolling Stone magazine,
The Return of the Draft 2005 - includes a review of public service programs in other countries tooHow To Beat The Draft Board: A wikibook on the subject by a draft board member. , The Wall Street Journal editorial, November 25, 2006 by Walter E. Williams argument diagram at by Rod Powers. Discusses the improbability of the draft returning.
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