Selective services draft registration

Young men 18 through 26 must register for the draft. If they don’t they potentially face criminal penalties and loss of federal and state benefits.

There is not currently a draft, which puts the United States in the strange situation of requiring draft registration but not having actual conscription. This gives the draft a peculiar twilight status which, to my knowledge, has no parallel in any other country. In theory, draft registration exists so that, if Congress restores conscription, the Selective Service System would be able to promptly find and classify potential soldiers.

If you register for the draft, you will not be classified at once. Classification will only take place if the draft-not just draft registration-is reinstated. The main classification is the combat-ready classification, which means that the registrant will be forced into the military if the need arises. There is a non-combatant classification for young men who refuse to kill people in war, but who would be willing to take desk jobs or medic positions in the military (Seventh-Day Adventists often accept non-combatant status, and at least one Seventh-Day Adventist got a medal for his courageous service as a medic). A young man could also be classified as medically or morally unfit for service, which means the young man is exempt from the draft (for instance, certain ex-convicts may be deemed morally unfit, and someone with a prosthetic leg may be considered medically unfit). Other exemptions are applicable to people performing essential war work, certain agricultural workers, fathers of families, ministers of religion, divinity students, and National Guard members. Deferments are available for students, but, on account of abuses of the student deferment during the last draft, students will probably be monitored more closely during a future draft to make sure that, after finishing up their academic work for a semester, their deferments expire and they are reclassified. There are also deferments for state legislators, presumably out of a reluctance by Congress to interfere with the operation of state governments (or perhaps because of a belief that state legislators are serving the public better as politicians than as soldiers).

Conscientious objectors will either be given noncombatant assignments in the armed forces (see above) or will be given civilian jobs to perform. Conscientious objectors (COs) are people who, by reason of religious training and belief, are conscientiously opposed to war in any form. War does not include eschatological war, which means wars which (according to some religious traditions) will be fought between the forces of good and evil at the end of the world. However, if a person is a selective objector-supporting some wars but not others, then he doesn’t count as a CO under the law. For example, a devout Muslim who believes that war is legitimate for the purpose of spreading the Islamic faith, but that war is not otherwise justifiable, cannot claim CO status. Similarly, a person who believes in the “just war” theory-by which certain types of wars are considered “just” and other wars are considered “unjust”-cannot qualify as a CO, since the law implicitly assumes that all wars which the U. S. gets involved in are “just,” and no individual citizen is allowed to second-guess the decision of the U. S. government on such issues. Soldiers theoretically have a right, even a duty, to refuse participation in war crimes, such as the indiscriminate killing of civilians, but in practice any soldier who claims that performing his duties will involve war crimes, and who refuses on that basis to take part in a war, will be convicted of a military offense (often by a court-martial) because U. S. courts (and courts-martial) are highly unlikely to rule that the U. S. is engaging in war crimes.

Conscientious objectors who refuse to cooperate in any way with the military-by refusing to register, for example-will probably go to prison during a draft. During draft registration, some COs refuse to register because there is no method of getting their CO status recognized-classification as a CO would only take place in the event of a draft. However, COs are obliged to register for the draft without having their CO status recorded.

By law, failing to register for the draft is a federal crime, subject to a prison term. While there was a draft, this law was sometimes enforced. However, I am not familiar with a case after 1985 in which anyone was convicted under the criminal law. The government has other methods of making young men comply with draft registration.

Congress, in the Solomon and Thurmond amendments, has required young men to register for the draft in exchange for receiving certain kinds of federal aid. For instance, young men can’t get federal student grants/loans if they haven’t registered, nor can they get job training assistance or be eligible for federal employment. State and local governments, either at their own initiative or in response to hints from the federal Selective Service System, have imposed similar restrictions on young men who haven’t registered. About half of the states have laws which cut off certain kinds of state aid (such as education aid and state jobs) to non-registrants.

The restrictions on government aid to non-registrants have hurt conscientious objectors who, for reasons discussed above, have refused to register for the draft. These restrictions also affect young men who, although not opposed to military service in principle, simply forget to register. The Selective Service System has acknowledged that poor people, including minorities, are the victims of this situation on account of the federal and state benefits they forego. The solution to this problem, proposed by the Selective Service, is twofold: First, educating young men about their obligation to register in order to obtain benefits. Second, encouraging states to submit to the Selective Service the names of young men who apply for driver’s licenses, with automatic draft registration being the result. Two states-Delaware and Oklahoma-have already passed such driver-registration laws, and the Selective Service thinks that other states should follow Delaware and Oklahoma. If we assume that every American-no matter how poor-has access to a car, then the driver-registraton policy will deal with the problem of under—registration by the poor and minorities. However, conscientious objectors who already object to draft registration might stop applying for driver’s licenses in those states where license applicants are automatically registered.

In addition to penalties for not registering. the law prescribes penalties for those who fail to accept the classification they receive in case of a draft. For instance, a person who has been classified eligible for military service but who refuses to join the military will be subject to criminal prosecution. Likewise, a person who has been given Conscientious Objector status and ordered to perform non-combatant civilian labor will be prosecuted if he doesn’t show up for work or if he leaves work without permission.

A conscientious objector who is improperly classified as eligible for military service will, naturally, refuse to accept such service. Upon being prosecuted for draft-resistance, one might think that the jury would decide if the defendant was a genuine CO or not. Since the law provides that during a draft, no CO shall be inducted into the military (except for noncombatant service), one might think that the jury would be asked to decide if the defendant was a CO or not. However, the jury is denied the opportunity to rule on this issue, which is usually the only issue in this kind of prosecution. Therefore, the right to a jury trial is pretty much meaningless for a conscientious objector who is accused of draft resistance. In rare cases, the judges (but never the jurors) may rule that the Selective Service has improperly classified a Conscientious Objector as combat-ready, but usually the courts will defer to the decisions of the Selective Service.

The same applies if a person who is entitled to a complete draft exemption is improperly denied exemption, or given only a partial exemption, by the Selective Service. For example, ministers of religion are supposedly exempt from the draft. They don’t have to perform any kind of military or civilian service so long as they stay in their ministerial jobs. Usually, the kind of ministers who apply for the ministerial exemption are the ministers, rabbis and imams who conduct worship services in churches, synagogues and mosques. This is the image which springs most readily to mind when one thinks of a minister of religion.

However, sometimes the Selective Service has wrongfully denied ministerial exemptions to legitimate ministers on the grounds that the ministers did their work in an unconventional way. The best examples of this kind of situation involve the members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious group. According to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theology, every JW member is a minister of the gospel, responsible for bringing the good news of the gospel to the unsaved. Many readers may have encountered JW members who were doing their missionary rounds.

During the draft, every JW member considered himself eligible for the ministerial exemption, but the Selective Service has often been hostile and suspicious toward such claims. For one thing, Jehovah’s Witnesses are an unpopular group precisely because of their evangelistic practices, as well as their denunciation of flag-salutes and of other religions (especially Catholicism). For another thing, the Selective Service usually thought of “ministers” in accordance with the establishment paradigm of leaders who supervise worship services each week. And a final consideration provoking suspicion of the Jehovah’s WItnesses was the fact that JWs, who are rarely wealthy and often not even middle-class, support themselves by secular employment, rather then drawing their income from preaching the gospel.

Often, Jehovah’s Witnesses were were ordered by the Selective Service either to serve in the military, or to perform civilian alternative service as conscientious objectors. When Witnesses refused to do the duties assigned them, maintaining that they were entitled to a full draft exemption as ministers, then prosecution would result. In some cases, Witnesses went to prison, but there were some enlightened court decisions which recognized the ministerial status of at least some Witnesses. Some judges realized that being a minister doesn’t necessarily mean that you get your income from preaching the gospel-under that definition the apostle Paul, who was a tentmaker, would not qualify as a minister. Leading weekly worship services, enlightened judges recognized, was not the only task of ministers; ministrial duties included missionary work. Finally, the enlightened judges recognized that the ministerial exemption should be applied to members of unconventional religions as well as members of mainstream religions, or else the U. S. would be discriminating against unpopular religious groups, which would be unconstitutional.

I have discussed people who, for reasons of conscience, resist the draft laws. Of course, there are people who resisted the draft laws from less lofty motives, and who used less than honest methods of avoiding the draft. Such people are called draft evaders. During the last draft, people stayed out of the Army by joining other branches of the military, such as the Navy or the National Guard. In the Navy or National Guard, you were a member of the military but you didn’t have to worry so much about sitting in a foxhole with enemy shells falling on you. Other young men, if their families had enough money, prolonged their stay in college and university so as to take advantage of student exemptions (theoretically, this sort of abuse by students is supposed to be curtailed if the draft is reinstated). Poor draft-evaders, lacking the resources to keep themselves in graduate school indefinitely, either failed to register or else got married in hopes of getting a head-of-household exemption (although this kind of poor-man’s draft-dodging was less likely to succeed than the draft-dodging techniques available to the rich). Some young men stayed in agricultural employment, availing themselves of the generous exemptions Congress provided for farmers.

More blatant forms of draft-dodging included feigning illness (including homosexuality, which was then considered a mental illness), self-mutilation (so as to render oneself unfit for service), and fleeing the country. Canada was a favorite draft-dodger destination in the Vietnam era, although the tightening of Canadian immigration laws since that time may make Canada a less welcome haven for American draft-dodgers today. Sweden, which maintained neutrality during the Cold War, was another favorite destination.

The respectability of draft-dodging may be illustrated by enumerating some of the prominent people who engaged in it. Grover Cleveland, future U. S. President, hired a substitute to fight in his place during the Civil War (hiring substitutes, or paying a “commutation fee,” was an old method of getting exempt from the draft, but such an option is not available under current draft laws). George Wallace bravely served in many bombing runs over Japan during World War II, but finally Wallace decided he wasn’t going to fly any more raids. Wallace received a discharge based on alleged mental illness. Whether this counts as draft-dodging or simple war-weariness is hard to tell. Dan Quayle (future Vice-President) got into the Indiana National Guard, which was never sent abroad even though the Vietnam War was going on (the President now has the power to deploy National Guard units abroad, which contradicts a long-standing Constitutional tradition). The current President of the U. S., George W. Bush, also had a stint in the Texas National Guard during Vietnam, although presumably the President would deny having dodged the draft. Former President William Clinton took various available options to keep himself from going to Vietnam while at the same time preserving his “political viability.”

These are a few of the noteworthy facts concerning draft-registration laws and the draft law.