Exercise 4 by Amanda: The Military Draft

The military draft is a concept that began in the 1940s.  Congress passed an act, more specifically called the Selective Training and Service Act, which led to the creation of the draft.  The correct name of the draft is called The Selective Service Draft.  Men were drafted if the needs of the armed forces were not met by volunteers.  In the 1969 draft, approximately 850,000 men were affected by this process.  Around two thirds of the armed forces were volunteers.  The actual process of determining which age group of men were drafted is somewhat confusing, but if a date was randomly selected and your birthday was close to this date, you were summoned to serve.  All names of men of eligible age were collected by the Selective Service.  If you were a male and your name was chosen, you would have to report to your local draft board and this board would evaluate you.  Most of the deciding factors were determined by this board. Being selected in this draft had some influence from your political and social class.  Actual statistics show that 25% of men were poor, 55% of men were working class, 20% came from middle class and very minimal men came from upper class.  As some people know, some men did not want to serve for our country during this war, similar to a main character in the novel, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.  Many obvious reasons for these men not wanting to serve is simply the fact that they could could get seriously injured or even killed.  As a result of men being sent away to war against their will, anti- war protests arose.  These men and their families did not want this process to continue.  In correspondence with these protests, men would burn their draft notices or flee the country to avoid serving at war.  It was finally conveyed by the President that this draft was flawed and the draft was abolished in 1973.  However, the men who are eligible by age to be drafted are still required to register in present day, if the conflict of low amount of troops are available to serve.

American citizens protesting against the draft

http://www.vietnamwardraftlottery.com/phpnuke/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2

http://thevietnamwar.info/vietnam-war-draft/