The Wake

Everybody watched it.

Their moods may have differed depending on what their numbers were, but everybody watched it, Sandi Welday said.

Families gathered around television sets in living rooms across America to hear the military draft on the nightly news, to hear whether somebody they knew was going to Vietnam.

Welday remembers watching the draft as a teenager in the 1960s.

“You’d know the numbers of those who were close to you,” she said. A man’s draft number was the same as his birthday. “You’d watch and know if they’d have to go.”

Newscasts reminiscent of those from 35 years ago could resurface as early as 2005.

Pending legislation in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate ask to bring back a military draft, similar to what was seen during the Vietnam War, but different because it would include college students and women.

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) introduced the bill, named the Universal National Service Act of 2003, to the U.S. House on Jan. 7, 2003, asking to reinstate the draft.

The bill is “to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.”

U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) introduced a twin bill to the Senate at the same time.

“There’s no significant support for it,” said U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo (D-Minn.). “To have a broad-scale draft, [the government] would have to spend millions of dollars.”

Sabo represents the congressional district containing the University of Minnesota.

“If [the military] needs to increase their numbers, they need to do it through the voluntary process,” he said.

Neither bill has been acted on since introduced a year ago and they are now sitting in the Committee on Armed Services. The amount of time the bill has sat without being acted on may be an indication of where it’s going.

“When a bill sits in committee for so long, it generally means it is dead,” said Marc Doepner-Hove, a teacher of social studies and U.S. government.

“The only question is Iraq,” he continued. “The longer it takes for us to get out while our troops are stretched to their limits, you could see that bill suddenly become law.”

A critic of the bill, Adam Stutz of Project Censored, a media research group, fears the bill has not been acted on yet because Congress is waiting to pass it after the 2004 presidential election, when it could dodge voter backlash.

Passing this bill would affect all Americans between ages 18 and 26.

As opposed to the draft during the Vietnam War, college students can now be drafted if it were reinstated.

“Under current draft law, a college student can have [their] induction postponed only until the end of the current semester,” according to the Selective Service System (SSS), the federal agency which coordinates military drafts. Seniors in college can only be postponed until the end of the academic year.

How men and women are selected would also be different in today’s version of the draft. During the Vietnam War, all men 18 and a half through 25 were considered potential draftees, with the oldest being called first. This created uncertainty because men coming closer to their 26th birthday were more likely to be drafted. Today’s draft, however, would have an opposite effect. Men and women would be put on a first-priority list to be called up on the calendar year of their 20th birthday. Each successive year afterward would put them in a lower priority group.

Co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), ardently opposes the war in Iraq. Since supporting the draft and opposing the war seems contradictory, he explained his reasoning for supporting the bill in a speech to the Speaker of the House days after it was introduced.

“Reinstituting the draft may seem unnecessary to some,” he said, “[But] without a universal draft, this burden [of war] weighs disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor, the disadvantaged and minority populations.”

Rep. Sabo agreed that if a draft were reinstated, college students should be included.

“We can’t have all the exemptions we had when the draft previously existed,” he said.

Critics of the Bush Administration say exemptions are why President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were able to avoid the Vietnam War.

For those who oppose fighting in combat zones because of moral or religious principles, one section of the bill allows draftees to apply for conscientious objection.

Conscientious objectors may apply to serve in a non-combatant capacity with the Armed Forces. Positions that could be filled in this category include conservation, caring for the very young or very old, education and health care.

But in the current upheaval in Iraq and several other countries, combat zones are no longer easily defined. This proved true when four American civilians were killed in Falluja, Iraq on March 31. These civilians from North Carolina were dragged through the streets and suspended on a bridge over the Euphrates River.

With incidents like this, a draft could cause a political crisis in the United States.

When the draft was last in effect, intense hatred of it caused widespread political disruption. Counter-draft groups such as Beaver 55 raided SSS offices and destroyed local draft board files. Their largest strike against the SSS occurred in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, halting possible draft inductions for nearly a year.

Although the possibility of a full-scale draft may not have much support, the government has at the very least begun planning for a “special-skills draft,” as reported by the Duluth News Tribune on March 15.

The government is preparing to draft Americans who have special skills in computers and foreign languages. It is unclear whether it will happen or not.

In the mean time, talk of a draft awakens bad memories of the last one. Still remembering the draft more than 30 years later, Welday continued describing what she watched on television.

The newscasts were difficult to watch, she said.

“The news would show draft numbers being called out, then cut to scenes of body bags being pulled off a plane from Vietnam.”