Maybe the draft shouldn't exist.
@Dexter, the shortest posts are usually the best. The idea the draft shouldn't exist? It's worth pondering, because the registration system is not free.
So, I'll see if I can remember the deal last time we had a draft. It was Vietnam. I was 14 when it ended...the war and the draft. All males had to register at age 19 and get Classification. They were assigned codes...1-A meant one is fully capable and ready to go. 4-F meant not qualified at all. The list of Classification codes is interesting, find it here:
https://www.sss.gov/ClassificationsIn addition, Selective Service created a lottery they drew from a computer "basket" every year, with 365 balls (366 for a leap year) for days. The first ball out of the "basket" was position 1, for first choice and 365 for last. I think they used a random number generator.
Registration ended in 1975 (the year before I turned 18, BTW). The Selective Service went into a "deep standby" status, which is not quite closed. In the Summer of 1980 Registration resumed.
From the SSS dot gov site:
TODAY, approximately 124 full-time paid employees of the Selective Service System are primarily civilians hired under the rules prescribed by the Officer of Personnel Management (formerly U.S. Civil Service Commission). Reserve forces are composed of approximately 150 National Guard and Reserve officers who are assigned to Selective Service for their monthly drills and two-week active duty training sessions each year. In the event of an emergency, these officers could be called to active duty to augment the full-time staff.
The present structure of the agency consists of the National Headquarters, Data Management Center, and three Region Headquarters. State and local offices were closed in 1976 and would be reactivated only if inductions should be resumed.
So that's how we got to where we are today.
"Maybe the draft shouldn't exist?" I'd add, "Is it even desirable?"
A standing argument is, "Modern soldiers require years to properly train with the high-tech equipment." It's a compelling argument, and probably why nobody seems to be advocating restarting induction. Conscripts would typically serve a year or so, and it would take that long just to get them field capable. What's the point in that? If you assigned them to a lesser trained job (there are plenty) they won't have much rapport with the Combat Soldiers who trained for years..the "professional army." That's been the paradigm so far.
So why register if the government has no intention of using the information? I've wondered that for years. The reason to exist has gone obsolete. But, as government institutions are wont to do, the bureaucrats staked out their turf and refuse to agree to shut it down and throw all their families out of work. They lobby Congress to keep it in the budgets and CRs. Oh, and they need to keep the Social Experimentation Labs primed. If dumping SSS can help collapse that, then I think it deserves a good hard look.
The only purpose is to keep bullshit stories like the original article at the top of the thread and in turn keep feminist controversy alive and a political football. That and neither the Congress or the President don't want to be faced with "raising an army of conscripts" when contemplating a war, it would require explaining to the Proles.
For the record: I never registered, and it was perfectly legal. Like I said, I turned 18 about 6 weeks after the registration stopped. When it resumed in 1980, the upper limit in age for registration was 21 and I was 22. They never asked me.
