This story is the third in a three-part series covering aspects of the military draft and its effect on young adults.
This isn’t your father’s draft. Or, at least, in the event the federal government ever restored the military draft, conscription would differ significantly from its previous incarnation during the Vietnam War.
The agency in charge of administering a draft, the Selective Service System, has implemented several reforms since the Vietnam conflict aimed at ensuring a more equitable and less agonizing conscription period.
College students lie at the forefront of one of the biggest changes to be initiated to the draft. Whereas before 1971 a full-time college student would qualify for deferment if he could prove he was making progress toward a degree, students today may only postpone their induction until the end of the current semester. Seniors are exempted until the end of the academic year.
“You have to understand in the 1960s, there was resentment from some who said college was a haven for draft dodgers,” Dan Amon, public affairs specialist with the SSS, said. “Great effort has been made to make it as fair and equitable as possible to ensure inner-city youth, farm youth and upper-class youth all are equally represented.”
Replacing a formerly haphazard selection process, a lottery would now pick draft inductees from the eligible pool of men ages 18-25. Men in the 20-year-old bracket would be most likely to be chosen, with decreasing probability each year thereafter — so that men do not fear the draft all the way through their 26th birthday.
“It was a desire not to have a man hanging in limbo,” Amon said. “It was impossible to plan his career and family. [Twenty-year-olds] represent the best compromise between maturity and life planning.”
Local boards, the bodies that select draftees from a certain area, have changed since Vietnam as well. Personal friendships sometimes plagued the selection decisions of the five-man boards, but the lottery system and a new rule requiring the boards to racially and ethnically represent the area they serve have eliminated the favoritism.
More recent reform efforts have centered on the issue of women and the draft. In the bill he introduced during the current session of Congress, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., would have required all young persons in the United States, including women, to serve a mandatory period of military service.
Future of the draft
Despite the changes, college students in their young twenties need not fret, Amon says, because reports of the Selective Service System preparing for a draft are greatly exaggerated.
“I understand where the rumors are coming from,” he said. “People read the paper and think we’re going to need more troops [overseas]. But the facts get in the way: our budget continues to be flat-lined, as it has for the last 30 years, and the president and secretary of defense have definitively said we do not need a draft.”
Rangel’s House bill failed by a 402-2 vote in October. And despite rumors to the contrary prior to his reelection, President Bush has continued to voice opposition to a draft.
For those seeking further proof that a draft is not imminent, Amon suggests naysayers consider the history of an Illinois congressman who, in the early 1970s, led the charge for discontinuing the draft.
The young legislator’s name? None other than current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
“There’s no denial that his prestige would be at stake with a draft,” Amon said.
But University of Wisconsin junior Louis Martinucci said talk of the draft should not subside completely, citing the possibility of attacking Iran or other countries in the near future.
“There’s still the high possibility of invading other countries, and we’re going to need troops to do that,” he said.
