Posted on 04/20/2006 2:29:40 AM PDT by LibWhacker
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting on a military draft board is not a taxing job right now. With no draft, the boards have, well, no work to do — nearly 11,000 people training for a crisis that may never come.
"It's not hard at all. There's nothing to it," deadpans Michael Cohen, a Selective Service System board member from Highland Park, Ill.
That could change if there is a national crisis and if the government decides the crisis requires a return to the draft that ended 33 years ago. Officials say they don't expect to restart conscription — public sentiment is heavily against it — but should they, draft boards could face their biggest work load in history as they help decide who gets drafted and who doesn't.
Until then, a draft board member's main chore is training.
At half-day annual sessions, they keep up on rules for granting postponements, deferments, exemptions and conscientious objector status. They also learn how to hold meetings, judge evidence and elicit testimony.
Then, as boards have done since the system was created in 1980, they wait.
"It's a ghost of a job," said board member James Stephen Brophy of Burke, Va.
And a ghost of its former self.
Before the draft ended in 1973, some people demonstrated outside of draft board offices and burned their draft cards to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Many baby boomers still remember the names of board members who judged their cases.
Today, most people don't know the boards exist.
An agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System trains board members and plans alternative national service for objectors, but its main task is keeping an updated registry of males aged 18-25 — now some 16 million individuals — from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement the professional all-volunteer armed forces.
Conscientious objector groups, and occasionally some members of Congress, oppose the idea of keeping the Selective Service at the ready.
But few opponents focus on the boards, which wouldn't be activated unless there's a draft.
"Nobody's complaining about what we're doing," said Brophy, an attorney who was appointed a board member five years ago. "It might change if there was a crisis."
Indeed, repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft. Yet with President Bush saying U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for years and with the Pentagon now calling the war on terrorism the "Long War," many Americans find it hard to believe repeated government assurances that there are no plans to revive conscription.
"Beware of attempts to revive military draft" has been a typical Internet headline in recent years.
If the government restarted the draft, here's the plan:
_A lottery would choose the order of callups from those millions registered.
_Draftees would report for physical, mental and moral evaluations.
_When evaluation results are in, they'd have 10 days to appeal their status.
Training has taught board members to expect a range of claims — "students who want to finish college ... ministers ... people that don't believe in fighting," said board member Helen Obernagel, 45, of New Athens, Ill.
"We're here so that they don't have to go scrambling around looking for people qualified to determine who's eligible and who isn't," said Cohen, a 66-year-old retired firefighter who is one of America's 10,300 local board members. There are also several hundred appeals boards above the local boards.
Board members are young, old, of different races, incomes — dentists, secretaries, maintenance men and real estate agents.
There are long lists of volunteers for the unpaid positions, which are filled through nomination by each state's governor.
Officials say diversity on the boards would make any new draft the most equitable ever. And draft boards could have more work than ever.
More people could apply for exemptions because more men have custody of children now. And more might be supporting parents because of the increasingly graying society and looming Social Security problems, Brophy said.
What would happen if there were no draft boards ready?
"If everyone said 'no, no, no,' who would decide?" said Obernagel, a board member since 1992 who works two jobs: massage therapist and hospital secretary.
"When you see a war like we're in now, you don't know what will happen," she said. "We're always ready to be called up, in case they need us."
I guess we will start hearing more of these "draft" stories the closer we get to the election...
The Dems are going to push hard on this, as a way of gumming up any front against Iran: "Don't make plans about Iran unless you're willing to spread the pain" blah blah...
They either don't know that this is the kind of talk that made UBL and Saddam think the US didn't have the guts to go to war, or they don't care.
How Patriotic they are. I used to restrain myself from that kind of talk, but it's so blatanly obvious with this and the Dems' immigration stand that they just don't give a **** about this nation; they would prefer if it collapsed so they could rebuild it into a socialist paradise.
I do not disagree with you.
I wish *I* did--disagree with my stated position. I just can't listen to the nonstop anti-Americanism (which is not the same as anti-Bushism) I hear in and out of work, and read what I read, and while I was the one getting into arguments with people who called libs anti-American, I'm eating crow now.
I support a draft. It should've never been done away with.
However, not one American should be drafted until the law is changed to include women.
The media is horrible.
It's awful early in the day for the media to be doing a drive-by shooting. They got no class.
We could require illegals to serve 2 years before they become citizens.
More leftist "stirring the pot" pointless "news". Must be a REALLY slow news day if they're dredging this crap up again.
Surely, a Katrina victim died of overindulgence at the taxpayer's expense or something overnight. There just HAS to be a better source of Bush-bashing "news" than just regurgitating manufactured military "draft" stories.
LOL!
Illegals would make lousey soldiers, all they do well is RUN!
yeah - in the MEXICAN Army.
Point is no ILLEGAL should ever be granted US Citizenship - ever. From the moment they ILLEGALLY crossed the border to when they ILLEGALLY bought their phony ID they have showed nothing put contempt for our laws.
Screw em all. Ship them home in cattle cars. And I mean all; men, women, children, babies. I don't give a cr*p.
Would you say that President Bush doesn't give a **** about this country? His stand on immigration is the same as the Dems. As far as the draft goes the president would have to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell" before he could institute the draft. Otherwise draftees would suddenly become gay if their number was called.
Who knew?
And every Illegal alien male of proper age that fails to register is a felon.
I'm in 100% agreement with you, LP (as long as women are only drafted to fill supporting roles and are never placed in active combat zones). But we're in a minority around here, lol. I just can't stand the thought of liberal SOBs thumbing their noses at the country and refusing to serve. It's their duty.
"(as long as women are only drafted to fill supporting roles and are never placed in active combat zones)"
It just seems logical to draft women in numbers that would keep the proportion what it is now, and the jobs that they now perform.
If we (as a country) aren't willing to do that, we need to get woman out of the military altogether.
I believe the right federal court could find the current system unconstitutional (woman can be in the military but they don't have to register for the draft).
Don't know what article of the US Constitution it is but I believe it say, "you can't have your cake and eat it too."
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