Signing up for The Draft

[nerfherder]

Since there are a lot of guys here my age, or close to it (41), I thought I'd bring this topic here.

Non-Americans:
Is there a conscription law in your country? How does it work and how do you feel about it?

What I'm asking with "how did you feel about it?", I'm not talking about it on a overall, political beliefs level. I mean on a personal, gut feeling level.

Bullgrit

I'm 41, and we currently have no conscription in the UK. It ended 6 weeks before my father was due to do his National Service.

I was in the Air Cadets when I was a teenager, and decided that there were other things I wanted to do more than have a career in the military. I'm personally glad we don't have National Service here, as I think it would have been a waste of my time. I know that the British military prefer to be all volunteer, too.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes, I registered. It's the law and it would be a bad idea to commit a crime that they'll be able to catch you on the moment you file your first income tax return.

How did I feel about it? I felt like there was little to no chance of a draft (I'm the son of a man who was drafted for Vietnam), and it didn't phase me at all.

This is all pre-Gulf War, pre-9/11.

 

[Steve Jung]

Americans:
Did you register with Selective Services when you turned 18?
Yes, it was the law.
Was it before or after the Gulf War of 1991?
This was a couple years before then.
Was it before or after the events of 9/11?
Way before, of course.
How did you feel about it?
It was sort of a rite of passage. But I don't remember giving it much thought after I got my card. I actually found it in some papers I was sorting out here.
Were world events at the time a factor in how you felt about it?
It was near the end of the Cold War. I didn't feel we'd have a restoration of the draft.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Americans:
Did you register with Selective Services when you turned 18?

Yeah.

Was it before or after the Gulf War of 1991?

After.

Was it before or after the events of 9/11?

After. I must've done so in...2003. I'm 24 now.

How did you feel about it?

Sickened and disgusted. I wish there were some other way. Like the guy from Germany who can choose to instead do civil service. It should be my choice if I want to die for my country. I found any kind of argument about it being the cost of living in such a great country to be pretty hollow considering the one massive block of people who get to enjoy all those same freedoms without the specter of death hanging over their heads solely because of how they were born...

That entry will probably get deleted or edited, but that's about as un-political as I could make it, and it WAS how I felt at the time (and still do).

Were world events at the time a factor in how you felt about it?

Well, I had no choice but to do it, in order to drive...go to college...etc... But yeah, I was afraid that I had "come of age" for being drafted during the wrong presidential term, to put things as vaguely as I can. Yeah, 9/11 would make any leader more likely to go to war, but some are more quick to the trigger than others.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'll be making 42 this year, and I signed up for the draft within the week of my 18th.

I felt proud to do it, too- my Dad was in the reserve service (Army Medical as an MD) at the time, and had been active most of my life to that point.

I love my country, and if I had been asked to serve, I would have done so without hesitation- its a small price to pay to protect what we have here.

However, I also think that the draft should 1) be open to women, and 2) that there should be a provision for alternative (civil) service. Again, doing something for our country is a small thing.

And I say ALL of that with my parents nearly having been bankrupted when my Dad was called up for service in the Gulf War. His reserve unit was recalled to active service and he had 3 days to close his (solo) medical practice and report for duty...and he was in the process of building a new medical office building (in partnership with other MDs).

Fortunately for all of us, he served his entire 6 month tour in a hospital in Germany awaiting casualties that never came.

For the record, I also have several relatives besides my Dad- Uncles, Aunts, cousins, etc.- as well as a number of buddies who either served or are serving in some branch of the military. I don't want to see anyone get stuck on the front lines, but I'm damn proud of those who serve.

 

[Dioltach]

I'm British, but I've been living in the Netherlands since I was four, and having both British and Dutch nationality I fall under Dutch national service rules.

Until the mid-1990s the Netherlands had the draft for men (or alternative national service for conscientious objectors, like Mustrum Ridcully described for Germany). Around your 18th birthday you'd be summoned for a physical and mental check-up, and if you passed you'd be drafted. You could get the draft postponed if you were still following some form of education, though, and since most forms of higher education are virtually free here, most men would keep studying for as long as possible.

Of course there were all kinds of protests in the early 1990s, mostly to do with the fact that it was considered unfair that men had this obligation and women didn't, and in the post-Cold War era it was felt that the draft was no longer necessary. Toward the end, a lot of people simply refused to show up when they got drafted, and eventually it was abolished, just before I graduated university.

My check-up was scheduled for 8 am on the morning after the last day of Carnival, and in the southern -- predominantly Catholic -- provinces of the Netherlands Carnival is a big deal: basically five days of drink and dissipation. Needless to say, most of the lads at the examination centre (and to be honest most of the staff there too) were severely hung over and desparately short on sleep. I have no idea how I passed: my eyes were so blurry I could barely make out any of the letters on the eye chart and my ears were ringing so hard that I couldn't hear any of the beeps.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Sickened and disgusted. I wish there were some other way. Like the guy from Germany who can choose to instead do civil service. It should be my choice if I want to die for my country.

That reminds me of something:
I think my choice to do my duty was in the end the only I could pick. I would want to fight (not necessarily die, but fight) for my country if it was attacked. I wouldn't want to fight in Afghanistan, though. But I like my country enough that I think that anyone attacking it would want to destroy also the things I like about it. And I wouldn't want to let that happen.

Of course, whether I am actually able to kill people for that, I don't know. Probably I am, because most people in the past have been able to do so, too. Which is kinda a frightening thought, since I don't like "real" violence in any form. (violence in media and games is fine with me. But there, I am not hurting real people and taking away real peoples friends, spouses or children...)

 

[Relique du Madde]

Since there are a lot of guys here my age, or close to it (41), I thought I'd bring this topic here.

Total Bullgrit

Americans:
Did you register with Selective Services when you turned 18?

Yes. It was required in order to get federal student loans.

Was it before or after the Gulf War of 1991?

After.

Was it before or after the events of 9/11?

Before.

How did you feel about it?

I wouldn't want to die in a war unless the US was being Invaded, and I was helping to defend the US. Course, only one nation has the manpower to invade the US so it's not likely (since China already owns us through debt). But in all I didn't care about having to do the selective service since it is unlikely that the US would force a draft unless WWIII began.

Were world events at the time a factor in how you felt about it?

It was 1997... so I'm not sure anything was really going on besides the whole Lewinsky Scandal... So nothing influenced how I felt about doing the selective service.

 

[ProfessorPain]

Did you register with Selective Services when you turned 18?

Yes. Its the law here. You have to. But there isn't an active draft, and likely wont be in the near future.

Was it before or after the Gulf War of 1991?

After

Was it before or after the events of 9/11?

Before

How did you feel about it?

9/11: Worried. My father was on a plane from Logan airport to a western state (I didn't know which one at the time). And he left around the time of the hijacked planes. Thankfully he was fine, but we didn't know for almost 8 hours because my mother lost his flight number.

Registering with selective service: I didn't like being forced to sign up for it. Even if it was just a token gesture.

Were world events at the time a factor in how you felt about it?

It was the 90s. Not much going on. So we complained about everything.

 

[ProfessorPain]

2) that there should be a provision for alternative (civil) service. Again, doing something for our country is a small thing.
.

There is. If there is an active draft you can apply for conscientious objector status. basically you need to prove you are a pacifist, and you must demonstrate a clear history of it (through religious involvement, writings, etc). My father recieved it during the Vietnam war, and had to perform public service to fulfill his selective service obligation in place of fighting. For several years he worked as a counsilor at large prisons in the US. Work like that. I don't how it would be today. But conscientious objector status was tricky to get back then.