In 1940, President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. This established the country's first peacetime draft and established the Selective Service System at the federal level. Men had been drafted from 1948 to 1973 in both peacetime and during conflict in order to fill positions that could not be filled with volunteers. The last time a military draft was active in the U.S. the Vietnam War was in full swing. A “lottery draft”, the first since 1942, took place on December 1, 1969 and determined the order in which men would be drafted in the 1970 calendar year. Lottery drafts, a method of selecting 18 – 26 year old men by birth date, were also conducted in 1970, 1971 and 1972 for the years following.

These drafts caused outrage amongst the general populace and for good measure. According to the Selective Service over 10 million men were drafted during World War II, 1.5 million were drafted during the Korean War, and 1.8 million were drafted during the Vietnam War. These numbers add up to roughly 2/3 of all service members during World War II and Korea and 1/5 during Vietnam. Those are staggering numbers to anyone.

Many intense protests and riots took place during the Vietnam era and the draft was the central controversy surrounding these. In 1973, President Nixon wisely ended the draft due to public outrage. According to the influential John Locke a person has the natural right to life, liberty, and property. These rights are not given by any government; they are inherent and as natural as your right to breathe. Any way one may attempt to construe this, a draft is a direct violation of all the above. Forced service strips one of his life, if even for a short period. It is a violation of his liberties as he is not able to choose for himself what he will do, and it is a violation of his property as one's body is the ultimate form of private property. No property or possession is more important than that. Any draft is an egregious act against a person's natural rights and liberty and should only be viewed as that.

In a time of conflict a citizenry will naturally gravitate toward military service, so long as the people feel that it is in line with their values and that their service is justified. As such, it is a general indication of the level of support of the country. If enlistment levels drop during this time it should be viewed as a lack of support and belief regarding said conflict. Support amongst the people is always the telling tale of military intervention. Currently less than 3 million or fewer than 1% of Americans are serving in the military (active duty and reserves). If those numbers were to drop steadily over the course of a few years we could conclude that on average Americans do not support the cause, hence they do not join and serve. You can easily see why the draft has been a hotly debated topic throughout the past several decades, servitude has never been popular.

We've been fortunate to have avoided a draft in the U.S. since the early 70's (if you consider not having forced servitude fortunate). The federal government and white house take great pride in the fact that today we have an all-volunteer military. Well….sort of. All members of the Armed Forces upon enlistment join for a period of 8 years. The amount of time served in active duty or the reserves is subtracted from that time and, unless that individual reenlists, the remainder of those eight years is served in the Individual Ready Reserve, otherwise known as the IRR. The standard length of a military contract is four years, so someone who serves four years is still in the “IRR pool” for four more years. According to the U.S. Army Human Resources Command website; “Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) Soldiers are a group of trained, experienced military professionals who stand ready to individually augment Army units. IRR Soldiers live, work and study in the civilian community, but they are military members with an existing service obligation. The Army accesses the forces and capabilities of the IRR as necessary to fight and win our nation's wars.”

What that basically means is that for the remainder of 8 years these individuals can be recalled and forced to serve again for a period of up to 24 months. This is covered under U.S. Code 12302.

As of March, 2009 orders had been issued to 26,954 members of the IRR since September, 2001. These numbers only reflect that of the Army, not the other services. Only 48% of those recalled have actually reported for duty.

The rest face punitive measures ranging from downgrading of discharge status to imprisonment. Technically, since we are in a time of “national emergency” they are considered deserters and are also subject to the death penalty. This is important to note because all of these individuals are veterans, many of whom have served overseas and in combat. This is not a group of naiive college kids protesting the war, these are our young men and women who have served and who now refuse to take part in our military interventionism. This should lend even greater clarity to the idea that America does not support this war. When our own veterans are against military intervention, maybe we should consider that.

The fallacy that we maintain an all-volunteer service should be blown apart. Recalling veterans is a “backdoor draft”, a hushed way of coercing more people into service without publicly declaring a draft. Yes, all service members sign a contract upon enlistment and this provision is included. How many 18 year olds would decide not to serve due to this clause though? If you expect a kid to understand the implications of their actions, especially when joining the military, you are sorely mistaken. Had this been a civilian contract you can bet that it wouldn't stand, people would simply sue for entrapment and they would win. Fat chance of a soldier being able to sue the government though. The honest truth is that most soldiers don't even know what the IRR is and how it may affect them. If you were to ask a soldier a few years ago or even today about the IRR you would probably get one of two replies: “What's the IRR?” or “My recruiter told me I would only be recalled if World War III happened.” The latter is a pretty common answer. Thank God World War III hasn't happened!

How do I now all of this you might ask? Because I am one of those recalled soldiers. I served on active duty for five years and was honorably discharged in June, 2007. Less than a year later I received orders recalling me to service with one month's notice and I am currently deployed in the Middle East. I was definitely not alone, serving with me are more than 70 others who were recalled. All had been honorably discharged and most had been out of service for two to four years. All of us were hesitant to come back and only did so through fear of imprisonment, loss of civilian jobs, or simply guilt. I can speak with authority when I say this IS a draft. A very convenient one in which veterans who no longer wish to serve can be discredited and their lives turned upside down if they fail to comply with “federal wisdom”. This is how we treat our vets? Maybe we should consider the level of support for this intervention before coercing veterans, of all people, to serve again.

For anyone that may declare; “You knew what you were signing up for”, the point is missed. For those who feel that mandatory service is a great thing, the notions of personal liberty and property are lost. For those who would say; “Better you than me”, ignorance is their only haven. Let's recognize this for what it is and start holding our government accountable. Call it a backdoor draft, call it entrapment, call it obligation, but don't call it an all-volunteer military.