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Conscription

For decades, American men over the age of 18 have gone through the ritual of registering with the government in case of a military draft. The maximum age for being drafted is 26, after which individuals are no longer eligible for conscription. The age of military conscription is a topic with a deep history and often surrounded by controversy. This subject has been the center of numerous debates, with varying viewpoints from different sectors of society. Sometimes parents simply don't like the possibility that their son might have to go to war.

Since the late 1700s the United States has had some type of system to enroll able-bodied men into military service. On March 3, 1863, Congress passed a draft act enrolling men ages 20-35 into the draft system. On May 18, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Selective Service Act. The act enrolled men ages 21-30 and later it enrolled men ages 17-35 into the draft system. The act eventually required all men between the ages of 21 to 45 to register for military service. Under the act, approximately 24 million men registered for the draft. Of the total U.S. troops sent to Europe, 2.8 million men had been drafted, and 2 million men had volunteered.

In 1918 the draft was discontinued and the United States returned to voluntary military service.

On 16 September 1940, Congress, by wide margins in both houses, passed the Burke-Wadsworth Act. While there were wartime drafts during the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War I, this draft was different. It was the nation’s first peacetime draft. The registration of men between the ages of 21 and 36 began exactly one month later. There were some 20 million eligible young men — 50 percent were rejected the very first year, either for health reasons or because 20 percent of those who registered were illiterate.

Modifications to the age necessary to register for the draft were made prior to the United States involvement in World War II, where Congress approved lowering the draft age to 18 and raising the upper limit to age 37. Following Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 13, 1941 in 1941, Congress amended the act to require all able-bodied men ages 18 to 64 to register with their local draft board for military service for the duration of World War II plus six months after. In practice, however, only men 18 to 45 were drafted. In these times it was necessary to expand the range in which the draft applied because of the extremely low literacy rates (20% rejected), overwhelming numbers of health issues (50%) and the racial issues with allowing the African American community to be able to participate within the war efforts.

Black people were passed over for the draft because of racist assumptions about their abilities and the viability of a mixed-race military. But this changed in 1943, when a “quota” was imposed, meant to limit the numbers of Black men drafted to reflect their numbers in the overall population, roughly 10.6 percent of the whole. Initially, Black soldiers were restricted to “labor units,” but this too ended as the war progressed, when they were finally used in combat.

By the end of WWII in 1945, 34 million men [other accounts report 50 million men] between 18 and 45 had registered for the draft and 10 million had been inducted in the military.

On March 31, 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed a new act to create the Office of Selective Service Records which abolished the Selective Service System. The moder draft system began on June 24, 1948, when Congress passed and the President approved the Selective Service Act of 1948. Able-bodied men ages 18-26 were required to register for a 21 month space of service. In 1951 the draft was extended indefinitely and the ages changed from 18-26 to 18 1/2-26 with a 24 month span of service. This was the first time in American history that men were drafted into the armed forces during peacetime.

Among the notables drafted after World War II were singer/actor Elvis Presley and baseball star Willie Mays.

The Selective Service had three basic responsibilities according to Lt. General Lewis B. Hershey:

1. To provide the armed forces with the number of men they need when they want them.
2. While doing this, to cause as little disturbance as possible in the civilian economy.
3. To guide deferments into areas considered to be in the national interest by competent authority, such as the Department of Commerce, Department of Labor, scientific and educational groups.

As growing numbers of 18-old young men were conscripted to fight in the war in Vietnam, this helped drive the push to lower the voting age to match the draft age. The Nixon Administration onsidered draft reforms such as the "Hershey Plan," "Mark Clark Conveyor Belt Plan," "Laird Plan," and the Herb Klein promotion program. The lottery involved pulling numbers corresponding to birth dates from a capsule, with those possessing lower-drawn numbers being called up first for active duty. The lottery was conducted beginning with two large air mix drums, much like any other lottery. One drum is for balls with a date and month on them and the other has balls with numbers from one to 365. One ball is drawn from each drum and those with the dates are each paired with one that has a number.

This method had proven effective at randomizing conscription throughout history, such as during the Vietnam War, where annual lotteries were conducted from 1969 until 1975 when changes in US military policy ended the draft.

Over 8,700,000 Americans served in the Armed Forces during the Vietnam era from 1964 to 1973. More than 3,400,000 were deployed to Southeast Asia and approximately 2,700,000 of those served in the Republic of Vietnam. Over 47,000 lost their lives as a result of combat [nearly 2% of the total, not quite the death sentence it seemed at the time]. Nearly 11,000 perished from other causes. More than 300,000 were also wounded during the war. Over 153,000 of the wounded required hospitalization and another 150,000 suffered other injuries.

Estimates of the total number of Vietnam era draft evaders and military deserters ranged from about 113,000 [a bit more than 1% of service members] to over 300,000 [a bit more than 3% of service members] or more. There does not appear to us any way to resolve the difference in these estimates because, among other reasons, if individuals never registered for the draft and they were never discovered, they never became part of the statistics.

On September 16, 1974 President Gerald R. Ford signed the proclamation [4313] and an Executive order [11803] for the establishment of the Clemency Board, followed by the signing of an Executive order [11804] for the Director of Selective Service, who will have a prime responsibility in the handling of the matters involving alternate service. The program provides for administrative disposition of cases involving draft evaders and military deserters not yet convicted or punished. In such cases, 24 months of alternate service will be required, which may be reduced for mitigating circumstances.

Out of an estimated 113,000 to 300,000 who were eligible, about 21,700 participated with 13,750 assigned to alternate service, 6,052 receiving pardons, 911 denied clemency, At Selective Service, 2 years after the program began, 74% of those assigned alternate service had not shown up cr had been dropped, 15% were in alternate service Jebs or waiting or placement, and about 11% had completed alternate service. On January 21, 1977, President Carter issued a pardon proclamation for certain violations of the Military Selective Service Act. The pardon relates to draft-evasion acts or omissions during the Vietnam War-era.

The mandatory draft went dormant shortly after that and the country stopped registering young men. Then, in 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation reinstating the Selective Service requirement for males aged 18 to 26, and the country has registered young men ever since. It is a felony not to register for the draft. The punishment includes fines of up to $250,000 and up to 5 years in prison. the Selective Service and driver's license application systems are linked in more than 40 states. A young man cannot get a driver's license if he has not registered. Students who fail to register are not eligible for student loans or college grants, government jobs, or federally-funded job training. And immigrants who do not register may be denied citizenship.