A Short History Of The Draft In The USA
High School Essay #1
This is an essay I wrote in the spring of 2024, directly before my high school graduation. I will plan on putting more of my old essays out on here as time allows.
I believe I was inspired by a debate that my online LOS class had about the draft—I wanted to know more. However, I think by this point in high school I was very bored of writing research essays, as I believe this paper gets across. I knew the formula but I don’t think I put a huge deal of effort into it.
So this might be boring, but my next post is supposed to be funny. I hope I succeeded.
Military conscription, commonly known as the draft, has been utilized a total of six times by the federal government of the United States. It was used in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the two World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. This does not include the peacetime conscription set up between World War I and World War II. I will cover specific instances of where Selective Service Acts were implemented between 1917 and 1980, since a great deal of changes to draft laws took place in that period. There have been many changes and re-changes made to laws by various presidents, but the basic concept of the draft remains the same. The draft still exists today.
The first Selective Service Act that I will address was signed into law in 1917 by President Woodrow Wilson. This followed the declaration of war on Germany by the United States. Conscription was allegedly necessary because the United States army had failed to meet its goal of expanding to a million men after a period of six weeks. The Selective Service Act gave the president the power to conscript men for military service. All men from ages twenty-one to thirty years old were required to enlist in military service for a period of twelve months. All those registered were placed in one out of five classifications, from Class I, which was the first to be drafted, down to the lower classes, which were usually not preferred. Later, the age limit was raised to forty-five. The draft was discontinued in 1920.
The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 was the next enactment of the draft. It was the first peacetime conscription in the history of the United States, requiring all men between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four to register with the Selective Service, whereupon they would complete a Registration Card issued from the Director of Selective Service. In total, over forty-nine million draft cards were filled out. Originally, men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five were conscripted to serve a period of twelve months, but the service period was extended in 1941 to eighteen months and the age bracket to include men anywhere from eighteen to thirty-seven. After Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States declared war on Japan and Germany, the service period was prolonged to last the duration of the war, with an additional service period in the Organized Reserves for six months. This draft period contained the “Old Man’s Draft,” which encompassed men from ages forty-five to sixty-four, hence the name. The purpose of this was indirect, because these men were too old to actually serve in military service. The Old Man’s Draft was a very broad inventory of the manpower and skills available to the war effort. Basically, it would bring men who were unemployed or underutilized into jobs, freeing up younger, fitter men to fight in the war effort. In this period there was also a move by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to include female nurses in the draft, because there was a shortage that put military medical care in danger. His request started a debate concerning the drafting of all women, but that was defeated in the House of Representatives. Later, a bill to draft nurses was passed by the House, but died, voteless, in the Senate. The publicity over the question did, however, encourage more nurses to volunteer, while agencies streamlined recruiting. The draft system created by the 1940 act was terminated in 1947.
A Selective Service Act soon returned, creating a new, separate system. This was the basis for the modern draft. All men ages eighteen and up were required to register with the Selective Service; those between eighteen and twenty-five were eligible to be drafted for a service term of twenty-one months, followed by a commitment to either twelve months of active service or thirty-six months of service in the reserves. The term was set at a minimum of five years; conscripts could volunteer for military service in the United States army for a four year term or the Organized Reserves for a term of six years. Since there were several budget cuts following the war, only one hundred thousand men were conscripted in 1948. In 1950, the number of men conscripted increased quite a bit to meet requirements for the Korean War, even though students were granted an exemption if they requested one.
In 1969, President Nixon signed an amendment to the Selective Service Act that changed the selection process to a random selection, or a lottery. The first of these lotteries was held on December 1st, 1969. In 1971, the Military Selective Service Act was further amended to make registration required; all men were required to register within a period thirty days before and twenty-nine days after their eighteenth birthdays. Those who registered were classified into one of several categories, ranging from 1-A, which meant that the man was eligible for unrestricted military service, to 1-O, a conscientious objector available for alternate community service, to 4-F, which were men who were incapable of service because of medical or psychological unfitness. Failure to register in 1980 by those who knew that they were required to register could land a man with a fine of fifty thousand dollars and/or five years in prison. The fine was later increased to two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Many presidents have amended the Selective Service Act, but their amendments generally were, in the end, rejected. In 1963, Kennedy passed an order that granted an exemption from conscription to married men between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one, but Lyndon B. Johnson later rescinded the exception, making it nonapplicable to married men without children, though the order still applied to men who were married with dependents. Reagan later revoked both the original order and its edit. President Ford, at one point, ended the registration requirement for the draft for all males from ages eighteen to twenty-five, just because his son had failed to register for the draft. In 1980, President Carter signed a proclamation re-establishing the Selective Service registration requirement for all males eighteen to twenty-six.
A bill to abolish the Selective Service System was introduced in the United States House of Representatives in 2016. There have been some legal issues regarding the draft, but I will not go into detail.
In January of 2020, the Selective Service website crashed due to an Internet meme which said that the U.S. airstrike on the Baghdad International Airport was the beginning of World War III. The meme was so popular that there was a huge influx of visitors to the website, which was not prepared to handle it.
Now, you may wonder, who needs to register for conscription today? The answer to that is all males between ages eighteen and twenty-five must register within thirty days of their eighteenth birthday. This includes various non-U.S.-citizens like permanent residents, refugees, asylum seekers, and illegal immigrants. Other foreign men lawfully present in the United States, such as international students, visitors, and diplomats, are not required to register as long as they remain in their current status. If their non-immigrant status lapses while they are in the United States and they are under twenty-six years of age, they will be required to register. Failure to register is required as grounds to deny a petition for citizenship. Today, the Selective Service bases registration upon one’s birth sex instead of one’s “gender identity,” though it has been looking into more diverse designation options for the future. Women are not banned from military service, but are not currently required to serve or register for the draft. If a modern draft were to be conducted today, a lottery (to select men for the draft) would be held publicly.
Military conscription, known more commonly as the draft, has been utilized six times by the government of the United States. These were the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the two World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, not including the peacetime conscription constructed between World War I and World War II. This essay covered specific instances of Selective Service policies implemented between 1917 and 1980, as there were a great deal of changes to draft laws made in that period. Many presidents have tweaked and un-tweaked the draft, but the draft today is much the same concept as it was a century ago, except that if it was held today, it would be a lottery. All men are required to register with the Selective Service within thirty days of their eighteenth birthdays, but women—though not banned from serving—are not required to serve. Many moral questions have been called up against the draft, but there are too many to expound upon in this essay. I only hope that the United States continues to exempt women from the draft and continues to base their requirements upon an individual’s birth sex. This country may be going downhill, but at least it hasn’t gotten to these particular horrors—yet.
SOURCES
Wikipedia contributors. (2024c, April 22). Selective Service system. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System
Wikipedia contributors. (2023, December 2). The Old Man’s draft. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man%27s_Draft
Wikipedia contributors. (2024c, April 18). Conscription in the United States. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States
Absher, J. (2023, October 16). Everything you need to know about the military draft. Military.com. https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/everything-you-need-know-about-military-selective-service-system.html
I haven’t read this yet but I will when I get the chance