politicartoons | (no subject)

You could argue that, yeah. It's hard for me to imagine anyone so subservient that they would oppose the war and still allow themselves to be drafted. If they reinstated the draft today, I suspect (or at least hope) that people would burn a lot more than their draft cards. I certainly would.

I registered for the Selective Service when I turned 18, after several letters threatening me with imprisonment:

Penalties for Failure to Register for the Draft

Men who do not register could be prosecuted and, if convicted, fined up to $250,000 and/or serve up to five years in prison. In addition, men who fail to register with Selective Service before turning age 26, even if not prosecuted, will become ineligible for:

Student Financial Aid - including Pell Grants, College Work Study, Guaranteed Student/Plus Loans, and National Direct Student Loans.

U.S. Citizenship - if the man first arrived in the U.S. before his 26th birthday.

Federal Job Training - The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) offers programs that can train young men for jobs in auto mechanics and other skills. This program is only open to those men who register with Selective Service.

Federal Jobs - men born after December 31, 1959 must be registered to be eligible for jobs in the Executive Branch of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service.

And in California: Requires Selective Service registration as a precondition for state student financial aid. Signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1997.

So you have to register for the draft before you can become a citizen???

I wonder how this would go with Australians, as joining a foreign military is a crime here.

Edited 2014-06-07 11:12 (UTC)

Yes.

The United States have a long history of immigrants being sent off to the meat grinder to avoid deportation for themselves in their family. We even did this in our last war. We courted immigrants to fight the Mexicans in the Mexican American war. It backfired once:

I wonder how this would go with Australians, as joining a foreign military is a crime here.

I don't think registering to be chosen is considered joining?

Yeah, that would make sense, but we're locking people up before they leave for Syria...

More recently:

"During the peak of the war, more than 30,000 non-citizens were serving in the U.S. military, accounting for close to 2% of the total 1.4 million active duty service members.

By the end of the Iraq war, the government had given more than 120 immigrant military members posthumous citizenship after they lost their lives during combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. "

http://immigration.about.com/od/usimmigrationhistory/a/Immigrant-Soldiers-Gave-Much-To-U-S-In-Iraq.htm