Just how selective was Selective Service, anyway?
September 24, 2013 3:28 PM   Subscribe

Question for gay men who are about my age (40 years, give or take). Were you still required to sign up for Selective Service when you were in high school? They've always made a big deal about how you (meaning college age males) have to be signed up to get student loans and such. But of course, up until "Don't ask, don't tell" got the ball slowly rolling for gays to openly serve, you'd have been required to sign up to be potentially drafted into an army you couldn't serve in, right?
posted by themanwho to Law & Government (14 answers total)
 
Here's the official "Who Must Register" page. Given that "Men with disabilities that would disqualify them from military service still must register with Selective Service" and that the actual process of being "examined for mental, physical and moral fitness by the military before being deferred or exempted from military service" happens after registration suggests that there's no reason that being gay would exempt you from registering whether or not it would exclude you for serving.

tl;dr: not very.
posted by restless_nomad at 3:34 PM on September 24, 2013 [3 favorites]


There was never a gay exemption. All males had to register.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 3:35 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'm straight, but about your age. The first Iraq War was going on at the time I was required to sign up. I refused to sign up for a good year after I was required to, until they threatened me with jail time via letter. I don't imagine being gay has anything to do with being required to sign up. I absolutely was required to do it.
posted by cnc at 3:35 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


We haven't had an actual draft in my lifetime, nor in yours unless you're definitively "giving" on that 40-years-old thing. No variant of "but I can't possibly serve" has worked to exempt anyone from the requirement, at least since 1980 when they made it (almost) a blanket thing. The easiest way to get out of the registration requirement since then has been to go to jail for the entirety of eight specific years in your life.
posted by SMPA at 3:42 PM on September 24, 2013


Best answer: I'm 44. I'm gay. I signed up with Selective Service on my 18th birthday. I enlisted in the Navy when I was 26 - after DADT went into affect.

They didn't ask. I didn't tell.

I'm still in the Navy.
posted by matty at 3:55 PM on September 24, 2013 [11 favorites]


Best answer: I turned 18 in 1994, and there was no concept of "couldn't serve." I knew damn well that if I was called up for service, I'd just have to suck it up and go. Even then I felt that DADT was a joke that had no bearing on the reality of being called up for service.
posted by mykescipark at 3:56 PM on September 24, 2013


Best answer: Signed up in 1982 when they reinstated this - I was 18. I was a virgin. I knew I was gay, I still signed up because I feared the consequences of not doing so. I was never conscripted so no idea how that would have played out.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 3:59 PM on September 24, 2013


Yeah, registration is simply putting your name on the list. Any waivers or other reasons not to serve would be handled way farther down the line: after a draft was reinstated, after the lottery was held and after your number was picked. THEN you'd have to report to the draft board for waivers, disqualifications and whatnot.

Not signing up for selective service would be a huge mistake. It obligates you to nothing.
posted by gjc at 4:08 PM on September 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


Everyone had to sign-up. The weeding-out comes when/if called-up.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:29 PM on September 24, 2013 [2 favorites]


From Vietnam on up to today, all males are required to sign up for Selective Service once they turn 18 years old --- there is not now nor ever was an exemption for who had to *sign up*.

Even if you were 100% positive you would be rejected (say for instance if you were a 3ft-3inch tall one-legged blind guy with a bad knee and no hearing in one ear), you were and are STILL required to sign up. Exemptions/deferrments for physical, mental or 'moral' flaws were granted only after being examined by the draft board.
posted by easily confused at 5:01 PM on September 24, 2013


easily confused: "From Vietnam on up to today, all males are required to sign up for Selective Service once they turn 18 years old --- there is not now nor ever was an exemption for who had to *sign up*.

Even if you were 100% positive you would be rejected (say for instance if you were a 3ft-3inch tall one-legged blind guy with a bad knee and no hearing in one ear), you were and are STILL required to sign up. Exemptions/deferrments for physical, mental or 'moral' flaws were granted only after being examined by the draft board.
"

Gotta agree with all of this, except I'm pretty sure selective service registration was suspended after the Vietnam War. It was only re-instated after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The USA was paranoid that the Soviets would make a run for the Persian Gulf oil, IIRC. Can't say for sure went it was cancelled after the Vietnam War, but I'd guess around 1975 when that war ended with a North Vietnamese victory.

Anyway, point being: You're male in the USA turning 18 years? You gotta sign up or risk facing the consequences.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 8:41 PM on September 24, 2013


Yes, there was a gap in the draft registration requirement, between March 1975 and July 1980. "[M]en born between March 29, 1957, and December 31, 1959, were completely exempt from Selective Service registration."

per Wikipedia.

Why the requirement still exists is a mystery.
posted by Jasper Fnorde at 8:46 PM on September 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


No mystery. It gives the Federal government a way to determine the needed manpower if needed.
posted by yclipse at 3:03 AM on September 25, 2013


Transgender men are also exempt from signing up.
posted by jaksemas at 4:35 AM on September 25, 2013


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