how was someone called for selective service during the vietnam war

Until 1967, students who were in graduate school were deferred as well, although one of the purposes of the 1967 Act was to reduce dramatically the number of graduate programs eligible for student deferments.Ĭonsequently, males who entered college after 1967 knew that once they had finished college-unless they enrolled in Divinity School–they would have to deal with the prospect of mandatory military service. As long as an eligible male was enrolled in an undergraduate college, his eligibility for the draft was deferred until his studies were complete or else he had left college. One of the central features of the Cold War draft was the student deferment. The discussion below is part personal memoir and part research project.

This surveys the operation of the draft from the time of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967-which significantly revamped involuntary military service in the United States-until the termination of the draft in 1972.

military draft operated in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, and how it affected the lives of those planning to attend college or graduate school. The following is a summary of the way in which the U.S.

(Does anyone ever watch the 1969 Arthur Penn film Alice’s Restaurant, which revolves around a satirical treatment of what the draft did to the lives of young American males in the Age of Aquarius?) The German military draft began in 1956 (when Cold War concerns led to its re-establishment in West Germany) and lasted for 51 years.įor American males who turned 18 between 19 (several of whom currently serve on the Marquette law faculty) the German action is a reminder of the powerful role that the “peace-time” military draft once played in the United States.īecause it has now been almost 40 years since the American military draft was terminated, many of the details of the draft have passed out of the American consciousness and are only hazily remembered even by those who lived through the period of the draft.

On July 1, 2011, without much fanfare in the rest of the world, Germany ended its military draft.

How was someone called for selective service during the vietnam war