Push for all younger women to register with Selective Service gaining steam

Days after the Pentagon cleared women to take certain combat roles, advocacy groups for military women say another new hour has arrived for all young female adults to register with Selective Service, the giant pool of names collected by the government should America ever opt to revive the draft.

The movement to require women ages 18 to 25 to sign up for Selective Service — mirroring the law for all U.S. men in that demographic — is rooted in both active-duty and veteran circles.

The Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), which strives to represent all women in the armed forces, believes such a change is simply the logical next step to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s decision last week to erase the long prohibition on females in combat.

“SWAN advocates for the inclusion of women into Selective Service,” said Anu Bhagwati, executive director of SWAN and a former Marine Corps captain. “Lifting the ban on women officially serving in combat is about giving qualified women the opportunity to serve and making our military stronger, and that would include having women register for Selective Service."

“If you are going to say ‘total equality’ in the military, that has to include Selective Service registration,” agreed Cassaundra StJohn, founder and CEO of F7 Group, which provides resources, training and mentoring to female veterans. StJohn served in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve between 1985 and 1998, reaching the rank of staff sergeant.

Amid his historic announcement last week, Panetta alerted administrators of the Selective Service System “to exercise some judgment based on what we just did.”

Selective Service officials heard that remark. Since then the agency — an independent office within the executive branch — has been conducting a "what-if drill" in case a Defense official or Congressional member asks what adding women to agency's workload would cost the country, said Pat Schuback, spokesperson for Selective Service.

"We're not the policy-making group. We're kind of like mechanics. We just do what we're told to do. We have the mechanism. We don't hold a position on whether to draft women or not," Schuback said.

Should that change occur, Selective Service — which has about 130 full-time employees across the country — would "need to be probably resourced a little bit," Schuback added. "But we don't anticipate that it would be a lot because the machinery's the same. It would be in the man hours of answering the inquires, handling questions and doing direct mails out to people to remind them" to register.

Panetta also set a May 15 deadline for each service branch to provide “detailed plans for implementation” on how female service members will be placed into combat duties, said Nathan Christensen, a Pentagon spokesman.

“Following that, a formal notification to Congress will be made, detailing (combat) occupations that will be opened to women,” Christensen said. “Selective Service requirements are determined by law, and we can't speculate on any changes to law.”

However, federal law does require DOD — after making such sweeping policy changes — to provide a breakdown of the impact those shifts may have on the Selective Service Act, senior Defense officials said in a briefing last week. That analysis, they added, “will be part of the notification to Congress” made by DOD after each branch reports back to Panetta in May.

One female veteran who was attached with an infantry team in Ghazni, Afghanistan, argues that with the female-combat ban gone, women should now be Constitutionally guaranteed the right to be eligible for Selective Service — and a possible military draft.

“It can be hard to adapt to new customs. There will be some feathers ruffled,” said Courtney Witt, a former Air Force senior airman, who also served in Iraq. “... It is a little difficult, for some, to see our daughters, sisters and wives go off into war.

“I can’t explain the feeling you have when you have fought alongside brothers and sisters in arms. It’s a bond that can never be broken ... It’s an amazing patriotic feeling,” Witt said. “Shouldn’t any man or woman be a part of that?”

The drawdown of U.S. forces and the pullout from Afghanistan make the chances of a draft reinstatement far less likely than, say, even eight years ago when Coalition forces were battle-thin and bogged down in Iraq, experts say.

But there are some in Washington who still favor bringing back the draft — as a deterrent to war.

In 2010, Rep. Charles Rangel, D.-N.Y., reintroduced a bill that would require all U.S. men and women between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either in the military or in a civilian service that helps national defense. The bill died in committee.

At least four times before, Rangel has written similar bills that would have restored the draft.

“There's no question in my mind," Rangel told the New York Times in 2007, "that we wouldn't be in Iraq ... if indeed we had a draft, and members of Congress and the administration thought that kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way."

For so long as women (esp. young, single women) are a D-leaning voting bloc, SS registration won’t happen. Illegals have reached critical mass as a voting bloc. That gives them all the leeway they want and need.

I agree with the woman quoted in the article as saying full equality means SS registration. But that is not (for now) a political reality.

The endless drumbeat of gays and women for equality grows tiresome when so few of either group actually undertake the dangers of military life. They are merely trying to make their political point and, among other things, weaken the military.

I don’t get how is it that males have had to register for SS for generations, with and without the draft, but they don’t “belong to the state” for merely registering, yet somehow it would be different for females?

Ready? Because boys and girls are different. Need more? Girls don't belong in combat. We send boys into combat to protect our society's future, which includes its women front-and-center, since only women can have children. Girls don't belong in close-quarters environments with strange men. At all. Nor do mothers and wives, whose vocation consists in maintaining a physical and spiritual home stateside for their children and husband (whether he is home or in uniform), rather than in tottering around in some foreign desert trying to move an ammunition case.

Any politician who suggests that our women exist to be called up to become cannon fodder or torture-toys for America's enemies is trying to destroy the family itself, and make everyone the perpetual infant-slaves of the state.

This is not a small matter. It's an existential matter for a society. Nothing else counts—especially not . . . college scholarships, was that?—if your government is kidnapping the women from families. Guerrilla war or exile is actually preferable to obedience.

You are conflating two different things: registering with the Selective Services is not the same thing as being sent into combat. Not even close. I’m at a loss to understand why my daughter wasn’t required to so register while my sons must.

Surely you know the US eliminated the draft and created an all volunteer military? Happened in the 70s. Nonetheless, mandatory Selective Service registration continues to this day, but for men only.

Since then men have not been drafted nor have most volunteered to serve a day in the military, much less in combat. It’s all optional now. But registering for men isn’t. Failure to do so carries a fine of up to $250K.

Since women have pushed successfully to serve in combat with very few actually serving, then, like all men, all women should be required to register. That doesn’t mean women will be sent into combat any more than a man registering with SS will be either drafted or sent into combat.

For generations women served on the front lines as nurses and in support roles; that was and is considered quite honorable. Most of those women returned stateside to have and raise families after having done their patriotic duty.

For generations women served on the front lines as nurses and in support roles. . .

All true, in fact, one daughter wants to be an army nurse. But it's the context that's changed. The world you described was when the Presidency was in the hands of men who were more or less normal Americans. The purpose of this Klingon in the White House in pushing fags and women into combat—and maybe women into the draft—is different. That's why it's a no-go.

I don't think we conservatives should get distracted about whether our sons and daughters are being treated differently. With 0bummer, it's not about military realities at all. His military meddling (through his surrogates in the Senate and at Defense) is strictly to advance his agenda—probably to dilute and compromise the conservative core of military culture so it will serve him instead of the Constitution.

I agree with you. Take me before my boys or girls, esp. under this Despot we have occupying the office of President.

Re: Rangel, he is still operating under the bogus theory that “minorities” are over-represented in deaths in the military. His introduction of Bills to reinstate the draft are the result solely because of that lie. Next he’ll introduce a Bill to only send “Whites” to Afghanistan, Iraq, and every other cesspool around the World to be murdered. The racists have been emboldened by this Administration.

Seems only equal, fair, and just......written with maximum contempt for those who use such terms to justify government policy - I'm just thinking that those who are now so happy with the idea of women in combat might have second thoughts if they believed that what seems the logical, fair next step were on the way - since men could be drafted to serve in combat, it would only be just that women be drafted too - maybe the whole women in combat thing would lose support......

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.