Today, in 2025, every male in the United States between the ages of 18 and 25 must register for the draft with the Selective Service System. Ever since World War I, our government has used the draft to fill the ranks of the Armed Forces with involuntary conscripts. Every male between the ages of 18 and 25 still must register. Although we no longer have a draft, the Selective Service System still requires every male to register by law. Every male? Only males? Is this Woke? Anti-Woke or just wrong?
Today, women make up almost 18 percent of our active-duty force. Women make up a little more than 17 percent of our enlisted force. Twenty percent of our Commissioned Officers are women.
You know who the enlisted are, don’t you? These are the young men and women who do the work, the heavy lifting for our military. Or, as Lt. General Chesty Puller said to his Noncommissioned Officers about to ship out to fight the Empire of Japan in World War II:
“You, noncommissioned officers, you are the sinew and the muscle of the Corps. The orders come from the brass, and you get it done. And whenever this war is over—the victory will have been won by you—you, the NCOs, with the chevrons on your sleeves, and the instincts in your guts, and the blood on your boots.”
This quote exemplifies Chesty Puller’s belief in the indispensable role of NCOs, recognizing their hard work and unwavering dedication as the driving force behind the success of the Marine Corps. Puller is the most decorated Marine in American history. He earned five Navy Crosses, our nation’s second-highest military award for valor.
Today, ten percent of all enlisted Marines in our beloved and most honored Corps are women. Women make up 20 percent of our enlisted active-duty Navy and Air Force.
As a male teenager in the late sixties and early seventies, the Vietnam War was the featured tragedy on the nightly news. Every hometown in America has at least one young man fighting there. Many of these places erected small monuments to their honored dead.
On January 27, 1973, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced the creation of an all-volunteer force, eliminating the need for a draft. For men like me born in 1956, the Selective Service System held the final lottery drawing on March 12, 1975. Luckily, they issued no new draft orders after 1972.
I wanted to know if the draft had continued to include males born in 1956, like me. Would I have been one of the lucky ones? The chosen?
Recently, for reasons I can’t explain, I wrote to the National Archives for my Selective Service records. As a reminder for those who lived through this era, and an explanation for those who didn’t, the lottery was a system for randomly selecting men based on their birthdays. They literally had a cage and white balls with random numbers, much like you see at a bingo hall. For example, if you look at the Lottery information attached to this post, you will see that Fred Moore was born on March 31 and received the number 326. I, who had never won much in my life, was presented with the number 112 based on my birthday of March 3. Yes, the lucky lottery ball spit out number 112 for me.
With a C+ average in high school and being a perfect male specimen, I would have had no chance of a deferment.
My low number meant the Selective Service System would have sent me into the Army to fight in the rice paddies of Vietnam. I would have been expendable just like the 55,000 who died in the 19 years of the Vietnam War.
Had the draft continued, Uncle Sam would have served me the big shit sandwich.
Gary, or were you contemplating “Reverend” Gary? I was not drafted. I enquired about a position in the Air Force. Then they came and got me. There was no war at that time, and there were no women, either. Not a single woman in my squadron, my classes, my k-p, even in my sight, for four years. Then, forty years later I had a medical appointment at my local veterans’ hospital; I entered the waiting room jammed full of men, and I saw a woman sitting on the back row. She was about my age. She looked familiar. No, she wasn’t a fellow airman; she was a fellow writer. I sat beside Carol and asked her if she had been in the army. “Navy,” she said. What kind of desk did you fly? I asked. “A P3 Orion,” she said. She was a submarine hunter. I shoved my jaw back up to my face and apologized.
nuff said
Do we have to register now that we are entering our second childhood?
I was in basic with a member of the last round of draftees.
I volunteered because, as we used to say, my number was up.
Yes, my friend, we all used to be somebody.