What was selective service system

If you are an immigrant man living in the United States, documented or undocumented, and are between the ages of 18 and 25, you are required to register with few exceptions.

If you are a military veteran or a military reservist, you are still required to register with Selective Service. However, if you served in the Armed Forces and are 26 or older, but failed to register, your DD Form is evidence that your failure to register was not knowing and willful. Parents should help young men become aware of their civic and legal responsibilities.

By registering, your son remains eligible for benefits that are linked to registration, like state-based student aid, grants, job training programs, government jobs and citizenship. It's Your Country Take one minute to protect it. To do so, fill out this online verification form from the Selective Service System.

If Congress and the president authorize a draft :. The Selective Service System will start calling registered men age for duty. The men will be called in a sequence determined by random lottery number and year of birth. If you never registered and are being denied federal student aid, job training, a federal job, or citizenship , you may still be able to get it.

To do so, you must provide evidence that you didn't intentionally avoid registering. Ask a real person any government-related question for free. They'll get you the answer or let you know where to find it. Exemptions and deferments apply only in the event of a draft. The Selective Service System is a relatively low-cost insurance policy for our nation. Currently, more than 90 percent of eligible young men are registered. Israeli is another country where all citizens men and women over the age of 18 are liable for conscription into the Israeli Defense Forces IDF.

Some exemptions are granted to Arab citizens of Israel, and to other citizens for religious, physical or psychological reasons. There is an alternative service option called Sherut Leumi for a period of 12 to 24 months. Men who request an exemption from the Army may do Sherut Leumi in lieu of military service. The options for service under this program include work with hospitals, nursing homes, education, disadvantaged communities, immigrant assistance, environmentalism, and other non-profit organizations.

Placement organizations conduct interviews to match youth with jobs based on individual skills and interests. Regardless of the approach taken, the Commission also recommended that Congress require the Secretary of Defense to generate and maintain a list of the type and number of currently needed critically skilled personnel.

The Commission made several other recommendations to modernize the SSS and to prepare it for future national emergencies. One of these recommendations is to require regular, periodic exercises of military draft mobilization processes. The commission noted that "since , no significant tests of the system have been undertaken to assess whether it [the SSS] can fulfill its mission during an emergency.

The commission's draft legislative proposal would require such an exercise every five years and would involve the SSS, the DHS, Department of Commerce, Department of Labor, and other relevant interagency stakeholders.

Another finding of the commission was that DOD is structurally unprepared "to efficiently and effectively integrate conscripts into the total force" due to outdated personnel requirements and timelines and a lack of central authority for managing such requirements. Table A The federal government had called state militias into compulsory service.

Conscription differs from militia activations in that the federal government calls individuals directly into federal service without going through the states. The provost marshal general was an Army appointment first used in the American Revolutionary War, and thereafter, mainly during periods of war.

Currently, the provost marshal general serves in a law enforcement-type role for the U. Quotas were based on the number of eligible men, not the total population, and also took into account the number of men already serving in the district.

All registered men had their names entered into their local district lottery and were required to report in the order that their names were drawn. Some men would volunteer and collect a bounty in one locality, then desert their unit and reenlist in a new district to collect another bounty. Rioting was largely led by the white working class, who could not afford exemptions under the law.

Racial tensions also contributed, as most black workers were not considered citizens and thus not eligible for the draft. White laborers were also concerned about job competition from freed slaves following the January Emancipation Proclamation. Bernard D. Rostker, I Want You! The act exempted federal and state officials and ministers and theological students. Members of religious sects forbidding participation in war were to be held for noncombatant service only.

John L. District of Columbia: U. GPO, , p. Classifications included "eligible and liable for military service," temporary deferments and exemptions, and full exemptions based on individual circumstances.

Draft numbers were placed in capsules and drawn from a large fishbowl to establish the order for reporting for induction. Those whose draft number was called first were the first to be required to report for induction. The Navy followed and Marine Corps stopped accepting volunteer enlistments after August 8, II CQ Press, GPO, In testimony, General Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, stated that he was in favor of a selective-training bill, and in media interviews stated his concerns that expansion of the Army beyond , could not be achieved through voluntary enlistment alone.

Patch, B. First Report of the Director of Selective Service: Stephen E. Accessed 27 Apr. As manpower needs for the war grew, some men initially deferred were reclassified and amendments were made to change the age bracket for eligibility. This complicated the lottery system to a point where the House Armed Services Committee assessed it as "an involved and tiresome procedure which imposed an unnecessary operational burden on all echelons of the Selective Service," and thus created "considerable injustice and confusion.

I CQ Press, Rafuse, John L. Franklin D. Roosevelt, State of the Union Address, January 6, , p. The bill text clarified that "wherever the word 'female' or 'she' is used, it shall be deemed to include male nurses. Statement of Mrs. Proposals for compulsory military service garnered support from the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Selective Service Director, and many in Congress.

Huddle, F. Gus C. Lee and Geoffrey Y. Also known as the Elston Act. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, Universal military training is a term used to describe a variety of concepts under which all typically male citizens would receive some minimum amount of compulsory training. Following the training some may enter active status, some would enter active reserve units, and others could be placed on inactive status to be subject to a draft if needed.

However, individuals were not liable to be drafted until 18 years and six months, and not allowed to be inducted until they reached the age of Precedence policy at the time was to fill quotas with delinquents first those who had failed to register or had otherwise failed to meet requirements of the selective service law , followed by volunteers for induction, then year-olds down to year-olds.

Marshall, Burke, In Pursuit of Equity? Burke Marshall, In Pursuit of Equity? The allied specialist category included veterinarians, optometrists, pharmacists, and osteopaths. A," U. Armed Forces Medical Journal , vol. VIII, no. The plan offered three choices, 1 service immediately after internship, 2 service after one year of residency following internship with a return to the residency post-service, and 3 full residency training in a specialty of the doctor's choice prior to service.

Berry, M. The male youth cohort age in was approximately By , this age cohort was Previous arguments against the all-volunteer force had been that the cost of recruiting and retaining such a force would put a significant strain on military budgets, and that it would not be viable in the event of a large scale conflict with high casualties. According to the Commission's report, the deciding factor in rejecting an exclusively all-volunteer force was the inability of such a system to rapidly procure large numbers of men if they were needed in a crisis.

Compulsory universal national service was rejected by the commission who cited a lack of constitutional basis for such service. In some case, the board composition was not demographically representative of the population that they served. The commission found that members of local boards were all male, mostly veterans, mostly white-collar workers, and almost exclusively white. This Administration proposal, called the FAIR fair and impartial random system, had been a key component of the proposed reform package.

Due to a lengthy debate in Congress and fierce opposition to maintaining the draft, the legislation was delayed and the draft was not in effect for nearly three months from July 1, , to September 28, , when the draft extension P. The last man was a draft evader who actually had been called in , but fought his induction.

The federal government responded with an indictment for failure to report. Finally, facing a courthouse offer to serve or be imprisoned, he reported for induction. Dwight Elliott Stone, the last draftee, was inducted into the United States Army on June 30, , the last day inductions were authorized. Prior to being placed in standby, the SSS was supported by nearly 1, area offices, state headquarters, and between 3, and 4, local volunteer boards. The day time frame was based on DOD's projected wartime mobilization requirements.

The question posed was "Would you favor or oppose the registration of the names of all young men so that in the event of an emergency the time needed to call up men for a draft would be reduced. Former Director of the Selective Service System from November 26, , to July 31, , Bernard Rostker, attributed the high rates of compliance and accuracy to the individual accountability imposed by face-to-face registrations.

The amendment was introduced in the Senate by Senator Strom Thurmond with broad support, and became known as the "Thurmond Amendment. The report also noted training and proficiency deficiencies for combat-oriented care among existing Army medical personnel, p. Rpt For example, H. For example, S. According to P. For a description of those who might be eligible to for deferments or exemptions, please see text box titled " Categories for Exemption or Deferment under Current SSS Operating Procedures.

Handwritten paper registration forms require manual entry of data by Selective Service System staff. The Alaska Permanent Fund was created by the state of Alaska to pay Alaska residents a cash dividend from oil revenues. Under Alaska state law, before Alaska male residents can qualify for benefits from the Alaska Permanent Fund, they must be registered with the Selective Service System.

Therefore, in Alaska there is limited value in DLL since the overwhelming majority of Alaska male residents are either already registered or will register to qualify for the benefits of this Fund. According to an internal memo from the Immigration and Naturalization Service INS on June 18, , "Section a of the Immigration and Nationality Act INA requires a naturalization applicant to prove that he or she is, and has been for the requisite period, a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed toward the good order and happiness of the United States.

Section a 5 A of the INA also requires applicants to declare under oath his or her willingness to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law.

Currently new voluntary recruits do a majority of their entry processing and testing at regional MEPS. Ibid, p. Reserve Force Officers RFOs are maintained at a maximum level of , which includes funded and 25 unfunded. See for example, S. Quinnipiac University Poll, February 7, How about for no one? Benjamin W. The Individual Ready Reserve is composed of former active duty and reserve military personnel and is authorized under Chapter of Title 10 United States Code.

IRS officials were also concerned that such an approach would also raise the rates of tax evasion from those seeking to avoid draft registration. In , the Office of Management and Budget proposed this possibility for the agency in a "deep standby" mode.

James T. Coast Guard. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U. Customs and Border Protection, U. Secret Service, and the Transportation Security Administration. USCIS assists with the registration process by transmitting the appropriate data to the Selective Service System SSS for male applicants between the ages of 18 and 26 who apply for adjustment of status. The Obama Administration did not take an official position on whether to register women form the draft.

National Coalition for Men, et al. Selective Service System , U. Patricia Kime, "Appeals court weighs constitutionality of excluding women from the draft," MilitaryTimes , March 3, In July a teenage girl from New Jersey brought a federal class action suit against the Selective Service claiming the refusal to allow women to register is discriminatory now that women are eligible for combat roles.

Ian Janssen et al. Dan Lamothe, "Marine experiment finds women get injured more frequently, shoot less accurately than men," Washington Post , September 10, Carter, C. Rennie, and M. Tarnopolsky, "Substrate utilization during endurance exercise in men and women after endurance training," American Journal of Physiology; Endocrinology and Metabolism , June Simon Usborne, "Why women are outperforming men at the extremes of endurance," Financial Times , January 22, Charlie Dunlap, "Register Women for the Draft?

Not So Fast," Lawfire , January 30, When registering women for the draft was considered in the early s, some raised equity concerns about draft calls since combat positions were closed to women, therefore, men and women would not likely be drafted in equal numbers.

Proponents of registering women asserted that conscription would be based on military personnel needs and men and women would serve "in proportion to the ability of the Armed Forces to use them effectively. For example, in the Army started moving towards a "Modular Redesign" for rotation, training, and readiness reasons. These support brigades were often collocated with the BCTs and included noncombat personnel, many of whom were women. As a consequence, non-combat designated personnel were often exposed to combat action.