Jimmy Carter’s Other Legacy: Registering for the Draft
For many of us, the death and funeral of Jimmy Carter unleashed a flood of memories, from the time he quoted Bob Dylan during his first presidential run to his post-presidency work with Habitat for Humanity. Me, I was hurtled back to a more jarring recollection of his time in office: that day when Carter decreed that I, and many of my friends, suddenly had to sign up for the military draft, becoming the first group of scared-crapless guys to have to do so after Vietnam.
Anyone born since the Sixties tends to associate the draft with that war and that decade, but it’s easy to forget that it was reinstated in the Eighties, by Carter, and that a mandatory sign-up remains in effect: If you’re over 18 and a man, you’re probably on file whether you know it or not.
A system for enlisting civilians into military duty dates back to the Civil War, but it wasn’t until World War I when the Selective Service System was set up and millions of men were called up to serve then and, later, during World War II and Vietnam. The draft was never less popular than it was during Vietnam, thanks to a sketchy conflict and call-ups that reached 382,000 men a year at its peak year, 1966. Several hundred thousand evaded it altogether, and draft card burnings occurred nationwide. The system was finally abolished in 1973, with registration ending in 1975.
But a mere four years later, it was back, when a measure to revive it gained traction with the House Military Personnel Subcommittee. That same year, 1979, the Soviet Union pushed into next-door Afghanistan to reinforce that country’s faltering communist government. Soon after, Carter, still dealing with all those Americans held hostage in Iran, declared that the sign-up procedure, if not actual conscription, had to be “revitalized.” And without much warning or preparation, many of us were told we had to march down to our local post offices, fill out a form and, possibly, be sent off to war.
I had just started college, which meant I was technically exempt from being forced into a branch of the military until I was no longer in school. I was safe for a while, but the idea that my friends and I had to pass along our names and addresses to the government for a possible future sign-up was, to say the least, unnerving. By then, footage of American troops in Vietnam, slogging through rice paddies and often under fire, had been seared into our brains. Fictional footage too: Apocalypse Now had been released the year before. With the draft renewal news, the thought that my friends and I could be next in line, albeit in a different country, jolted me in ways I had never been shaken before. The thought of protecting the country where I lived was one thing. But someone was about to hand me a gun? For a war that didn’t exist, at least not yet? And with the Soviet Union? None of it seemed to make any sense, especially to an immature brain.
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I lost sleep. I talked with my friends, who were equally baffled and confused: Didn’t this requirement, this fear and dread, end with Vietnam? I debated whether to sign up or not. I met with two employees of my college’s student activities center, who listened patiently and told me they couldn’t tell me not to register but to consider my options, which included declaring myself a conscientious objector and volunteering to work at a religious organization to prove it. (An older cousin had done just that, so that prospect wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.) They also suggested I stop by a draft resistance meeting at a Methodist church in downtown New York, and one evening I sat and listened as speaker after speaker passionately decried war and advocated peace. I took home a few pamphlets, but I still didn’t know what to do next. The hallowed romanticism of “the Sixties” vanished immediately. I realized how cushy my middle-class life was and how it could be upended just like that, just like it had been for so many before me, including my dad.
Matters weren’t any less stressful at home. When I expressed anger at the thought of registering, my dad, who had served in World War II and was generally not a confrontational guy, stormed out the house, saying he was going out for a drive to a store for something or other. When he returned, he scolded me for talking back to him as my mom watched silently, her head bowed. The tension blew over pretty quickly, but it was the first and perhaps only time I can recall that my dad raising his voice like that. Later, my mother tried to console me by saying that, given my speedy typing skills, perhaps I could be an office clerk if I were shipped overseas.
In the family Pontiac, my father drove me to fulfill my legal sign-up obligation, and I still remember the day I walked into a quiet post office in New Jersey, asked for the draft registration card, scribbled down my personal contact information and birth date, signed it, and huffily handed it over to a clerk. (These were the early days of computers, but I didn’t own one yet.) The task was both benign and utterly terrifying. Afterward, I wrote a letter to the Selective Service telling them I was registering under protest, whatever that was worth. A few months later, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, and given his anti-Soviet hard line, the idea that we could go to war against that country edged a little closer to reality. Although he’d pledged not to revive the draft during his campaign, Reagan signaled he actually was in favor of it once he was in office.
Although I reluctantly filled out my paperwork, many didn’t; by 1982, just over half a million men had failed to register. To make an example of some of them, the Selective Service singled out a slew of them, and at least one draft resister was taken to court. The prosecutor for that case argued for jail time, but in the end, the presiding judge opted for probation and community service. (The prosecutor, by the way: Robert Mueller.)
Of course, none of this ordeal compares to that of those who actually were called up and had to do their time, and I’m thankful I never experienced what those 2 million men drafted during Vietnam had to endure (and I’m grateful to them and all other enlisted personnel for their service). Meanwhile, Proclamation 4771, the law Carter signed back in 1980, remains in effect. Most men between 18 and 25 still have to register (starting a month after turning 18), and those who don’t can technically be punished with up to five years in jail, a fine of up to $250,000, and possible felony charges. Past exemptions are gone: You can no longer get a pass if you’re married or are in college (although, in the latter case, you’re at least allowed to finish your semester). Women are still excluded, for reasons that are unclear and still debated, but trans people — those “born male and have changed their gender to female,” in the words of the Selective Service — are required to sign up.
Even if you think you never registered, think again: If you filled out any driver’s registration paperwork, you were likely automatically registered for service. This past summer, the House passed a bill making sign-up automatic (it’s awaiting debate in the Senate).
So far, no one has been called up: The draft never returned after the Afghanistan invasion, and the Selective Service insists there are no plans to resume it. For it to be resurrected — for those under consideration to be called to report for physicals and possibly active duty — Congress would have to pass a law reinstating the draft, and whomever is president would then have to sign it.
Last year, inaccurate info on TikTok, prompted by that House bill, freaked out an entirely new generation of young men who thought they were about to be drafted in light of the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. In December, the Selective Service System announced it had fired an employee who reposted a post on X reading, “For all you stupid fucks out there that still believe military service will be voluntary. Remember Germany 1936.” (MAGA nation went ballistic, claiming it was further proof of a deep state plot against Donald Trump.)
Even with all that draft misinformation in the ether, I sympathized with those fears and paranoia and didn’t begrudge them anyone the type of dread they’d never faced before. I mourn for Carter, a good man who put country first, but not for the moment when he made many of us grow up a lot faster than we imagined.