Selective Service notice creates flurry of press reports suggesting return of draft

Associated Press ^ | 11-10-03

[Brian S]

A routine notice advertising the need for people to serve on the nation's draft boards has prompted a flurry of press reports suggesting the Pentagon may restart the military draft.

Officials denied any such thing is afoot.

"There are no secret discussions," said Pat Schuback, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, the government agency that would be in charge of conscription if the United States had it. "We aren't doing any planning that we don't do on a routine basis."

[Voteamerica]

Sometimes the liberal press makes me want to scream. There is no reason for a draft, they have a better quality military without one, and this is just to scare people into thinking about the war. It won't work, people will know that a draft again is impossible.

[Salman]

The left wants "another Vietnam" so bad.

[El Gato]

Indeed, the draft boards have been kept in existance since the ending of draft 30 years ago, just in case. A woman in our office is an Air Force reservist, her M-day assignment is with the local draft board, I think. It has been since I've worked hear, which goes well back in the the regime of the Impeached One. At least she supports the draft board in an inactive duty and active duty for training status. I guess I never asked her about her M-day assignment.

[Mark]

I saw a funny political cartoon that was first published in a different paper. You'll like it- date is Nov 3

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/politicalcartoons/pccartoons/archives/koterba.asp?Action=GetImage

[MarkM]

Yes, we have a better military, and a freer country, without the draft. If we need more people in the military, raise the pay and bonuses for military people. These military people are putting their lives on the line for all of us, for all of civilization really. They deserve the best pay we can give them.

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

"DRAFT COLLEGE TRASH FIRST"!

[So Cal Rocket]

This is interesting. I wasn't aware of the volunteer local Draft Boards... I looked into it and requested an application to serve.

[Servant of the 9]

A good way to get Liberals to pass the message for the administration, that a shortage of troops will never curtail the War on Terror.

So9

[ConservativeMan55]

College Trash?

I happen to be part of that so called "trash."

We make up a nicely sized portion of the Republican party.
While our parents may have been liberals...we are not.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1006714/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/907231/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1008918/posts

[BurbankKarl]

This could be a good thing.....it could empty out the US of lefties, and they can join their compadres in Canada.

[GeronL]

A draft is the worst thing that could happen to the GOP.

[Slog1]

>This could be a good thing.....it could empty out the US
>of lefties, and they can join their compadres in Canada

Lefties to Canada and righties to war?

All we'll have left in the States are the few folks who can't
tie their shoe laces...

What bothers me deeply, about the talk accompanying
this discussion of the draft, is the debate over registering
women. I have two teenage children, my son is 19 my
daughter 15. I find it deeply disturbing that we'd be back
to playing russian roulette with the lives of our boys, (something
as deeply important as the military should be a "choice") but to
add our women into the mix as well is downright breathtaking.

Should we be approaching a state of war consciousness
where our whole culture is obsessively focused on the
unrestrained projection of an all encompassing military mindset?

I strongly support our troops! There are those of us who
respond to the calling to embed heart and soul into the
defence of our country. A call just as admirable as those of us
called to the cloth, those called into business to provided needed
services, of those called to teach, or to police our countries streets.

The draft short circuits the balance of this naturally occurring
system. It robs us of the balance a healthy country needs.
It also converts the honor of the military into an institution to be
feared, it waters down our countries respect for our fellow devoted
military personal, confusing the service of the dedicated with
the angst of the forced.

And I agree with GeronL

>A draft is the worst thing that could happen to the GOP.

[BurbankKarl]

This country drafted people for sixty years....I dont think our armed forces were "watered down" during WW2.

http://www.sss.gov/induct.htm <--induction stats

As for women...as long as men are required to have registered to attend college, or apply for government employments, is that not some type of discrimination?


BACKGROUNDER:
WOMEN AND THE DRAFT IN AMERICA

While women officers and enlisted personnel serve with distinction in the U.S. Armed Forces, women have never been subject to Selective Service registration or a military draft in America. Women who served in the past, and those who serve today in ever increasing numbers, all volunteered for military service.

The U.S. came close to drafting women during World War II, when there was a shortage of military nurses. However, there was a surge of volunteerism and a draft of women nurses was not needed.

After America’s draft ended in 1973, the Selective Service System was maintained in a standby status, just in case a return to conscription became necessary during a crisis. After March 29, 1975, men no longer had to register and Selective Service was placed in "deep standby." But then, in 1980, President Carter reactivated the registration process for men in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and in reaction to reports that the standby Selective Service System might not meet wartime requirements for rapid manpower expansion of the active and reserve forces.

Although the specter of a future draft remained solely the concern of young men, discussions in Congress and the Administration about registering and conscripting women periodically took place. Section 811 of the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1980 (P.L. 96-107, Nov. 9, 1979) required the President to send to the Congress a plan for reforming the law providing for the registration and induction of persons for military service. The President sent his recommendations for Selective Service reform in a report dated Feb. 11, 1980. As noted above, the President requested reactivation of registration for men. But another recommendation to the Congress was that the act be amended to provide presidential authority to register, classify, and examine women for service in the Armed Forces. If granted, the President would exercise this authority when the Congress authorized the conscription of men. Although women would become part of the personnel inventory for the services to draw from, their use would be based on the needs and missions of the services. Department of Defense (DOD) policy, which was not to assign women to positions involving close combat, would continue. In response to these recommendations, the Congress agreed to reactivate registration, but declined to amend the act to permit the registration of women. In the legislative history for the Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1981, the Senate Armed Services Committee report stated that the primary reason for not expanding registration to include women was DOD’s policy of not using women in combat. Additional reasons cited in the report included agreement by both civilian and military leadership that there was no military need to draft women and congressional concerns about the societal impact of the registration and possible induction of women.

The exclusion of women from the registration process was challenged in the courts. A lawsuit brought by several men resulted in a 1980 U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania decision that the MSSA’s gender-based discrimination violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the District Court enjoined registration under the Act. Upon direct appeal, in the case of Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981), the Supreme Court reversed the District Court decision and upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion, ruling that there was no violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Supreme Court based its decision largely on DOD’s policy that excluded women from combat. The Court reasoned that since the purpose of registration was to create a pool of potential inductees for combat, males and females could be treated differently. The Court also noted its inclination to defer to Congress since draft registration requirements are enacted by Congress under its constitutional authority to raise armies and navies, and observed that Congress had in 1980 considered but rejected a proposal to expand registration to women.

In 1992, a Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces reexamined the issue of registration and conscription of women. In its November 1992 report, by a vote of 11 to 3, the Commission recommended that women not be required to register for or be subject to conscription. The Commission cited the 1981 Supreme Court decision in Rostker v. Goldberg upholding the exclusion of women from registration as the basis for its recommendation. The Commission also discussed enacting existing ground combat specialties exclusion policies into law to provide an additional barrier to the amendment of the MSSA to provide for the conscription of women. However, an appendix to its report suggested that public opinion was divided on the issue. The appendix, which included the results of a random telephone survey of 1,500 adults, showed that, in the event of a draft for a national emergency or threat of war (and assuming an ample pool of young men exists), 52 percent of respondents indicated women should be drafted, about 39 percent of respondents indicated women should not be drafted, and 10 percent responded they did not know.

In May 1994, President Clinton asked the Secretary of Defense to update its mobilization requirements for the Selective Service System and, as a part of the effort, "continue to review the arguments for and against continuing to exclude women from registration now that they can be assigned to combat roles other than ground combat." In its subsequent report, the DOD position remained "that the restriction of females from assignments below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground, provides justification from exempting women from registration (and a draft) as set forth in the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Rostker v. Goldberg (1981)." However, the report also recognized the vastly increased role being played by women in each of the Armed Services who, in Fiscal Year 1994, comprised 16 percent of recruits. "Because of this change in the makeup of the Armed Forces," the report observed, "much of the congressional debate which, in the court’s opinion, provided adequate congressional scrutiny of the issue...(in 1981) would be inappropriate today." While maintaining that it was not necessary to register or draft women, the DOD review concluded "the success of the military will increasingly depend upon the participation of women."

In 1998, at the request of U.S. Senator Charles Robb (D-VA), ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Readiness, Senate Armed Services Committee, the General Accounting Office (GAO) addressed a variety of questions related to gender equity in the military. Included was a budget and resource examination of the impact of requiring women to register with Selective Service. The GAO report* did not address the pros and cons regarding the exclusion of women from ground combat positions or from the Selective Service registration requirement, nor did it make any policy recommendations. Instead, GAO simply described the DOD position that there is no need to register women as "being consistent with its policy of restricting women from direct ground combat."

GAO examined the issue from Selective Service cost and staffing points of view, recognizing that registration of women would require legislative action and operational and budgetary changes. "Selective Service System could register women if its authorizing legislation, the Military Selective Service Act, is amended to allow registering women," the report stated. The report provided cost estimates for expanding the registration program to include women, and included an historical summary providing perspectives on women and the draft since America’s transition to an all-volunteer military in the 1970s.

(Complied and Edited by The Office of Public and Congressional Affairs, Selective Service System,July 1998)

*Appendix I of the GAO report is entitled, "Historical Perspectives on Women and the Draft." It provides an excellent chronological summary about this issue and nearly all of it is incorporated, verbatim, in this paper.

[BlueElephant]

Hey I am a college student and I don't appreciate being called trash.

[stands2reason]

LYING TROLL ALERT

  Posted by BlueElephant to gcruse
On News/Activism 11/11/2003 10:21 PM CST #10 of 26

I was there during Vietnam. I lost friends due to this debacle. Yes, it was a debacle! Ask anyone who was around during that time. I don't want Iraq to turn into a "Vietnam." We have to get this under control and the paradigm of Vietnam is NOT a good example

Hey I am a college student and I don't appreciate being called trash.

So, were you "there" during Vietnam, and are now a college student? Make up your mind, troll.