Today I saw on the side of a Metrobus an advertisement reminding the young of their duty to register with the Selective Service. It seemed to me that the last men drafted into the US military must have been born in 1953. On getting back to a computer, I looked it up, and found that
- Some men born in 1952 were inducted into the military in 1972. No men born in 1953 or after were drafted.
- The draft lottery continued through 1976 even so. I imagine that few men born between 1954 and 1956 could tell you the order in which their birthday was drawn; many of those born between 1950 and 1953 must still remember it. Certainly it was a matter of conversation.
Those due to register next year are therefore fifty years younger than the last men drafted. The Pentagon has been quite clear for many years that it has no interest in expanding the military to a size that would require a draft. Yet the young must still register, and penalties attach to a failure to do so. The Selective Service's FAQ says that
Registration is a way our government keeps a list of names of men from which to draw in case of a national emergency requiring rapid expansion of our Armed Forces. By registering all young men, Selective Service ensures that a future draft will be fair and equitable.
Well, maybe. The WW II draft was more or less fair and equitable, but then the US military had something around 14 million in uniform from a much smaller population--the 1940 census counted 132 million persons.
I have the impression that the draft has been an efficient recruiter for the Navy at various times.
ReplyDeleteThe vagueness of "fair and equitable" amuses me, because any given demographic's sense of fairness and equity is bound to be based on whether they'll want to serve in some hypothetical future conflict in the first place. Some groups might not complain if they're drafted in disproportionately low numbers.
ReplyDeleteI think that conscription has generally been resented by all subject to it. Maybe WW I and WW II were for part of the time exceptions, and the peacetime draft in the US between Korea and Vietnam. But I remember the line from Hadji Murad, "in those days, conscription was like death".
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