If you're a man that didn't sign up between 18 and 25, you permanently lose student aid in most states along with federal employment eligibility. Some even ban getting a driver's license.
In practice, it's young men of lower socioeconomic statuses that are failing to register. This is due to lack of knowledge or presence in the system more than conscientious objection. e.g. Prison or being homeless.
Many choose to get their life together in their late 20s and 30s, only to find out they can't get job training or student aid. These are legislatively mandated penalties and cannot be unilaterally removed by the current administration.
There's no clause for late signups outside of that window.
The only way out is to prove that you didn't know, which is difficult. There's about 40,000 people a year requesting the paperwork to appeal their loss of benefits.
The burden of proof is on the government to prove that any violation of the Military Selective service Act was "knowing and willful". That's almost impossible without a public confession, signature on a registered letter, or testimony of an FBI agent who served an order or notice to register or report for induction.
According to the Federal Office of Personnel Management, only 1% of cases of nonregistrants adjudicated by OPM result in denial of Federal employment. Almost everyone who appealed a denial got their job restored:
Empirically, administrative hurdles are successful at reducing benefits claims rates. Florida found that understaffing their unemployment offices led to steep drops in unemployment benefits claims. The conclusion is only the most desperate people will tenaciously pursue benefits. Most will self-fund.
The merits of such a system do exist. However, the public will withdraw political support for benefits if the number of covered individuals is very low.
I still don’t understand why, if they are having trouble with recruitment, they simply won’t raise the pay to entice more recruits? We have a seemingly unlimited budget for bombs but god forbid you pay for smart, qualified people willing to actually do the work. It is as simple as that and not anymore complicated
This selective service policy change is unrelated to any prospective or ongoing military operations.
Enlisted personnel typically out-earn civilian counterparts when tax-free allowances are accounted. Officers have accepted comparably low pay for the history of the U.S. armed services. Cited reasons include prestige, networking opportunities, and as a distant third, sense of duty to nation.
> Enlisted personnel typically out-earn civilian counterparts when tax-free allowances are accounted.
Citation heavily needed. When I was a junior non-com, my civilian colleagues made way more than I did, even including the (quite nice) military benefits, even when ignoring the fact that 80 hour workweeks are commonplace on deployment.
Did you calculate pension benefits? That military pension should be worth millions since you can start earning it young in life and it's based on your highest pay during the career.
It ought to be worth millions, given that you work your tail off, for significant less pay, and get that pay instead of the civilian 401(k) you could have.
Let's look at an E-9 Master Chief, the highest enlisted rank. Their basic pay is $9267 a month[0]. If they're in for 30 years, and get the High-36 retirement plan[1], then they get 75% of that — $6950/mo — afterward. That's certainly not chump change.
However, the kind of person with the drive, leadership skills, political savvy, and work ethic to become a Master Chief would rise to least a director or VP, or a senior VP, at a civilian company. So yes, their military retirement's quite good, but at a substantial opportunity cost.
To be super clear, my main argument is that the military should earn more, especially for the sheer amount of work they put in. They earn it.
This is an absurd comparison. You neglect to include BAH or other tax-free allowances; your figure significantly deflates total compensation. Command Sergeants Major comparing themselves to VP of Human Resources is a meme in veteran circles; as in, those who do it fail miserably to get hired when applying to these positions. They are not comparable.
I don't deny that servicemembers earn their pay. There is a premium to accepting the upheaval of a cross-country move every 3 years. But to assert that the average E-9 is equivalent to a director or VP position is incorrect. People of that rank are told in TAP to accept positions of perceived lower authority. Those who are successful in going from E-8 or E-9 to Director or VP roles are extraordinarily rare.
The DoD publishes an annual schedule comparing civilian wages in most MOS's and rates. I couldn't find it within 10 seconds of searching, but I found this old study [1] posted on a mil website, stating that average compensation was significantly higher for enlisted personnel.
For your individual experience, consider the years of experience and education of your contractor / DA civilian counterparts. Furthermore, consider your CZTE and danger pay. It's possible that your individual experience might have you earning less in pro-rated annual income during deployments. Does that also apply when you were in garrison? Did it account for your free occupational training (that you were paid to attend)? Tricare? Tuition assistance?
The fact you're even posting on the orange site to begin with implies you received some expensive training that would ordinarily require a university degree.
It's not a problem that money can solve. If you think it is, it's over.
It wasn't that long ago that men would sign up for almost-certain death in defence of their families, their people, their nation. Recognise that young men have nothing worth fighting for now. There is a much larger issue that can't be solved by throwing a few more shekels at disillusioned mercenaries.
Washington wouldn't have had an army if he didn't pay them, you can't have wars between nations that rely on the morale of the public to sacrifice themselves and their children to the front lines in order to protect the wealthy's interests, you'll run out of true believers very quickly.
You'll need to pay people not to defect, desert or try to get their family asylum somewhere that isn't a warzone. That, or you force them through conscription.
For most of history, soldiers were drawn primarily from the farmers (99% of people). They were employed for fixed time periods; if they didn't go to war then they would be subject to corvee and be put to work on national infrastructure. Military service was involuntary, but also closely tied to status. Additionally, enslaving defeated combatants was lucrative for winning armies. Belief in the campaign was rarely an important factor.
None of the wars the US has started or gotten involved in since WW2 involved defense of "their families, their people, their nation". The 'War on Terror' was advertised as that, except oops, actually it wasn't and nothing was gained from it! Of course young men don't want to sign up.
1 point by ehasbrouck 1 minute ago | root | parent | next | edit | delete [–]
The Selective service System is required by law to maintain readiness to activate either of two types of draft: a "cannon fodder" draft of males 18-25, or a "Health Care Personnel Delivery System" for men and women up to age 45 in 57 occupations:
https://medicaldraft.info
Congress could decide to expand the latter to other non-medical occupations as a broader "special skills" draft.
Not to mention, in the event of required increase in personnel, why "pay to entice" when you can "legally compel" without needing to pay more to the plebs?
In fact, one of the things we should have is a military union that fights for the pay of enlisted men (officers are management and therefore Pinkertons) instead of the controlled opposition we have now. Imagine if we could just strike for higher pay on the eve of Normandy. How effective that would be for labor rights!
And then we could follow the predominant feminist opinion and make the draft illegal entirely and disband the military except in times of extreme need. Our people need universal healthcare not air to ground missiles.
The military budget would be better served by being entirely redirected to those who have been disabled in our military through our foolish actions.
Maybe if we made a true overture of peace, others would love us instead of always arriving with missiles. With some neurodivergent people at the top, we could handle this well.
- The US has had record breaking recruitment in the last 1.5 years.
- This policy is a readiness, not an activation. It's not related to current recruitment.
Traditionally the US believes arming the people (2nd Amendment) means we're a stronger nation. Having bases globally makes us a stronger nation. Having everybody registered to the draft makes us a stronger nation.
The big problem is that having a demented and kompromised "president" whose handlers launch ill-advised unwinnable wars that give away needless victories to our adversaries makes us a weaker nation.
> But former President Jimmy Carter in 1980 reinstated the Selective Service in the event of a “national emergency,” where the registry could be used to “provide personnel to the Department of War and alternative service for conscientious objectors, if authorized by the President and Congress.”
I found that strange as well. Who were they quoting, given that the Department of War hasn’t existed since 1947 and as far as I know Jimmy Carter didn’t pretend that it still did.
I think perhaps this is overly associated with violence. Have we just consider calling it something neutral like Department of Loss Management? This is another crucial thing an armed forces union that actually cared about human rights and the need for more underrepresented people in the armed forces could do. We need more neurodivergent and disabled people in the Department of Loss Management.
Renaming a department requires Congress's approval. If you give the department an alias that points to the original name like a pointer, and thereafter everything references it only through that pointer, then there's no problem. Isn't that interesting? The White House hasn't officially seen the term "Department of Defense" in a long time.
Quit being obnoxious and have something of substance to say. It’s disrespectful to the author, senior defense reporter Ellen Mitchell, who is simply pulling from Selective Service’s materials.
Automatic registration means young adults will not have the consciously confront the possibility. This will certainly decrease the number of people establishing the paper trail that they are contentious objectors.
There was a lawsuit about the constitutionality of only requiring men to register back during the first Trump administration that won at the District Court level but lost on appeal in the Fifth Circuit. SCOTUS declined to take the case at the time because Congress was considering changing the Selective Service System. Then Congress ultimately did nothing, and the same people are now suing the government again in a different circuit.
This article takes for granted the success of this attempt to "automagically" identify and locate all potential draftees, and doesn't mention the practical difficulties, the opposition, or the legislative alternatives.
Here's why this won't work and is such a bad idea, and why dozens of organizations have already issued a joint call to "repeal* the Military Selective Service Act instead of trying to step up preparations for a draft:
If you're a man that didn't sign up between 18 and 25, you permanently lose student aid in most states along with federal employment eligibility. Some even ban getting a driver's license.
In practice, it's young men of lower socioeconomic statuses that are failing to register. This is due to lack of knowledge or presence in the system more than conscientious objection. e.g. Prison or being homeless.
Many choose to get their life together in their late 20s and 30s, only to find out they can't get job training or student aid. These are legislatively mandated penalties and cannot be unilaterally removed by the current administration.
There's no clause for late signups outside of that window.
The only way out is to prove that you didn't know, which is difficult. There's about 40,000 people a year requesting the paperwork to appeal their loss of benefits.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/02/failin...
The burden of proof is on the government to prove that any violation of the Military Selective service Act was "knowing and willful". That's almost impossible without a public confession, signature on a registered letter, or testimony of an FBI agent who served an order or notice to register or report for induction.
According to the Federal Office of Personnel Management, only 1% of cases of nonregistrants adjudicated by OPM result in denial of Federal employment. Almost everyone who appealed a denial got their job restored:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2024-02-07/pdf/2024-0...
Empirically, administrative hurdles are successful at reducing benefits claims rates. Florida found that understaffing their unemployment offices led to steep drops in unemployment benefits claims. The conclusion is only the most desperate people will tenaciously pursue benefits. Most will self-fund.
The merits of such a system do exist. However, the public will withdraw political support for benefits if the number of covered individuals is very low.
Thanks, I don't like there and this is very important for context.
Thank you!
I still don’t understand why, if they are having trouble with recruitment, they simply won’t raise the pay to entice more recruits? We have a seemingly unlimited budget for bombs but god forbid you pay for smart, qualified people willing to actually do the work. It is as simple as that and not anymore complicated
This selective service policy change is unrelated to any prospective or ongoing military operations.
Enlisted personnel typically out-earn civilian counterparts when tax-free allowances are accounted. Officers have accepted comparably low pay for the history of the U.S. armed services. Cited reasons include prestige, networking opportunities, and as a distant third, sense of duty to nation.
> Enlisted personnel typically out-earn civilian counterparts when tax-free allowances are accounted.
Citation heavily needed. When I was a junior non-com, my civilian colleagues made way more than I did, even including the (quite nice) military benefits, even when ignoring the fact that 80 hour workweeks are commonplace on deployment.
Did you calculate pension benefits? That military pension should be worth millions since you can start earning it young in life and it's based on your highest pay during the career.
It ought to be worth millions, given that you work your tail off, for significant less pay, and get that pay instead of the civilian 401(k) you could have.
Let's look at an E-9 Master Chief, the highest enlisted rank. Their basic pay is $9267 a month[0]. If they're in for 30 years, and get the High-36 retirement plan[1], then they get 75% of that — $6950/mo — afterward. That's certainly not chump change.
However, the kind of person with the drive, leadership skills, political savvy, and work ethic to become a Master Chief would rise to least a director or VP, or a senior VP, at a civilian company. So yes, their military retirement's quite good, but at a substantial opportunity cost.
To be super clear, my main argument is that the military should earn more, especially for the sheer amount of work they put in. They earn it.
[0] https://www.military.com/benefits/military-pay/charts
[1] https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Retirement/
This is an absurd comparison. You neglect to include BAH or other tax-free allowances; your figure significantly deflates total compensation. Command Sergeants Major comparing themselves to VP of Human Resources is a meme in veteran circles; as in, those who do it fail miserably to get hired when applying to these positions. They are not comparable.
I don't deny that servicemembers earn their pay. There is a premium to accepting the upheaval of a cross-country move every 3 years. But to assert that the average E-9 is equivalent to a director or VP position is incorrect. People of that rank are told in TAP to accept positions of perceived lower authority. Those who are successful in going from E-8 or E-9 to Director or VP roles are extraordinarily rare.
The DoD publishes an annual schedule comparing civilian wages in most MOS's and rates. I couldn't find it within 10 seconds of searching, but I found this old study [1] posted on a mil website, stating that average compensation was significantly higher for enlisted personnel.
For your individual experience, consider the years of experience and education of your contractor / DA civilian counterparts. Furthermore, consider your CZTE and danger pay. It's possible that your individual experience might have you earning less in pro-rated annual income during deployments. Does that also apply when you were in garrison? Did it account for your free occupational training (that you were paid to attend)? Tricare? Tuition assistance?
The fact you're even posting on the orange site to begin with implies you received some expensive training that would ordinarily require a university degree.
1. https://militarypay.defense.gov/Portals/3/Documents/Reports/...
It's not a problem that money can solve. If you think it is, it's over.
It wasn't that long ago that men would sign up for almost-certain death in defence of their families, their people, their nation. Recognise that young men have nothing worth fighting for now. There is a much larger issue that can't be solved by throwing a few more shekels at disillusioned mercenaries.
Washington wouldn't have had an army if he didn't pay them, you can't have wars between nations that rely on the morale of the public to sacrifice themselves and their children to the front lines in order to protect the wealthy's interests, you'll run out of true believers very quickly.
You'll need to pay people not to defect, desert or try to get their family asylum somewhere that isn't a warzone. That, or you force them through conscription.
For most of history, soldiers were drawn primarily from the farmers (99% of people). They were employed for fixed time periods; if they didn't go to war then they would be subject to corvee and be put to work on national infrastructure. Military service was involuntary, but also closely tied to status. Additionally, enslaving defeated combatants was lucrative for winning armies. Belief in the campaign was rarely an important factor.
> Recognise that young men have nothing worth fighting for now.
There's a lot worth fighting for, it's just not the particular people we've been fighting.
[flagged]
None of the wars the US has started or gotten involved in since WW2 involved defense of "their families, their people, their nation". The 'War on Terror' was advertised as that, except oops, actually it wasn't and nothing was gained from it! Of course young men don't want to sign up.
The more history I learn, the more I see how big of a role mercenaries played in wars of the past.
[dead]
Because that isn't how a conservative free market works.
Joining the military is not just a job. The baggage is considerably different than every other job.
The obvious difference is that you cannot quit.
What you wrote has nothing to do with the article.
The draft is for
(a) massively unpopular wars that the public won't consent to (b) existential wars that require huge manpower.
It's for cannon fodder; not at all for "smart", "qualified" people.
1 point by ehasbrouck 1 minute ago | root | parent | next | edit | delete [–]
The Selective service System is required by law to maintain readiness to activate either of two types of draft: a "cannon fodder" draft of males 18-25, or a "Health Care Personnel Delivery System" for men and women up to age 45 in 57 occupations: https://medicaldraft.info
Congress could decide to expand the latter to other non-medical occupations as a broader "special skills" draft.
Not to mention, in the event of required increase in personnel, why "pay to entice" when you can "legally compel" without needing to pay more to the plebs?
No one gets rich by giving more money to soldiers.
> I still don’t understand why, if they are having trouble with recruitment, they simply won’t raise the pay to entice more recruits?
Because the proles don't deserve it, that might give them ideas and they'll force you to fight before they give you a fair deal
In fact, one of the things we should have is a military union that fights for the pay of enlisted men (officers are management and therefore Pinkertons) instead of the controlled opposition we have now. Imagine if we could just strike for higher pay on the eve of Normandy. How effective that would be for labor rights!
And then we could follow the predominant feminist opinion and make the draft illegal entirely and disband the military except in times of extreme need. Our people need universal healthcare not air to ground missiles.
The military budget would be better served by being entirely redirected to those who have been disabled in our military through our foolish actions.
Maybe if we made a true overture of peace, others would love us instead of always arriving with missiles. With some neurodivergent people at the top, we could handle this well.
- The US has had record breaking recruitment in the last 1.5 years. - This policy is a readiness, not an activation. It's not related to current recruitment.
Traditionally the US believes arming the people (2nd Amendment) means we're a stronger nation. Having bases globally makes us a stronger nation. Having everybody registered to the draft makes us a stronger nation.
The big problem is that having a demented and kompromised "president" whose handlers launch ill-advised unwinnable wars that give away needless victories to our adversaries makes us a weaker nation.
Conscription is slavery.
> But former President Jimmy Carter in 1980 reinstated the Selective Service in the event of a “national emergency,” where the registry could be used to “provide personnel to the Department of War and alternative service for conscientious objectors, if authorized by the President and Congress.”
Department of Defense*
I found that strange as well. Who were they quoting, given that the Department of War hasn’t existed since 1947 and as far as I know Jimmy Carter didn’t pretend that it still did.
Is it just me or did the US get into a lot more foreign conflicts after they swapped "War" for "Defense" in the name?
I think perhaps this is overly associated with violence. Have we just consider calling it something neutral like Department of Loss Management? This is another crucial thing an armed forces union that actually cared about human rights and the need for more underrepresented people in the armed forces could do. We need more neurodivergent and disabled people in the Department of Loss Management.
It was historically called "Department of War" then renamed to "Department of Defense" and of course, recently reverted to the original name.
It did not. The Trumpist "Department of War" is stupid branding. No law passed to change the name.
Renaming a department requires Congress's approval. If you give the department an alias that points to the original name like a pointer, and thereafter everything references it only through that pointer, then there's no problem. Isn't that interesting? The White House hasn't officially seen the term "Department of Defense" in a long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Wa...
Pick up any non fiction book about US foreign policy written before 1947 and you'll commonly see "War Department" or even "War Office".
The comment you're replying to wasn't about the original name, it was about the current name.
Quit being obnoxious and have something of substance to say. It’s disrespectful to the author, senior defense reporter Ellen Mitchell, who is simply pulling from Selective Service’s materials.
It has not been the department of war since 1947, it is more disrespectful to me, the reader.
Sorry, don’t you mean senior war reporter Ellen Mitchell?
And it comes around again. Constant war is great (yea, nah) when you're winning.
https://youtu.be/WOo13RnfaMc?si=zq58NDqm-9rdXHlL&t=17
Automatic registration means young adults will not have the consciously confront the possibility. This will certainly decrease the number of people establishing the paper trail that they are contentious objectors.
* conscientious, not contentious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector
Conscientious objectors represent an exceptionally small proportion of the population as it is.
I'm for this, but what happened to equal rights? What about women?
The way to make women ad men equal with respect to the draft is to repeal the Military Selective Service Act, as supported by many feminists:
https://hasbrouck.org/draft/repeal.html
More on what femninists say about the dratt and draft registration: https://hasbrouck.org/draft/women/feminism.html
That's one possible approach, sure. If you're willing to blindly trust the unknown future to be fundamentally kind and uncontended.
It was always about all of men's privileges (on top of their own), and none of men's accountability.
There was a lawsuit about the constitutionality of only requiring men to register back during the first Trump administration that won at the District Court level but lost on appeal in the Fifth Circuit. SCOTUS declined to take the case at the time because Congress was considering changing the Selective Service System. Then Congress ultimately did nothing, and the same people are now suing the government again in a different circuit.
This article takes for granted the success of this attempt to "automagically" identify and locate all potential draftees, and doesn't mention the practical difficulties, the opposition, or the legislative alternatives.
Here's why this won't work and is such a bad idea, and why dozens of organizations have already issued a joint call to "repeal* the Military Selective Service Act instead of trying to step up preparations for a draft:
https://hasbrouck.org/draft/automatic/
and