Head of draft aims to get more Texans to register

With compliance rates as low as they have, the Selective Slavery System could never run a “democratic” draft.  Here’s to Texas!  Keep that compliance rate droppin’ and that resistance rate rising!!--Editor

12:00 AM CDT on Monday, October 22, 2007
By PAUL MEYER / The Dallas Morning News

The head of the U.S. agency responsible for organizing any future military draft came to the Fort Worth Alliance Air Show over the weekend trying to improve Texas registration rates while saying he can’t foresee a return to mandatory military service.
William Chatfield, director the Selective Service System, said there remains a need for awareness among young men about their obligation to register for a potential draft, now 34 years after the last one.
“We find a great percentage of people are not aware [of the need to register],” Mr. Chatfield said of air show attendees.
Registration with Selective Service is mandatory for nearly all men ages 18 to 25 who are U.S. citizens and resident aliens, including illegal immigrants.
In Texas, about 86 percent of 19-year-olds were in compliance in 2006, below the national average and down from 95 percent the year before, according to agency statistics. Mr. Chatfield said the war in Iraq has not had a marked impact on registration across the country. More than 16 million young men are registered with Selective Service, manpower that could be made available to the military if an emergency forced a draft.
The last draft ended in 1973, and the requirement to register was suspended in 1975. It resumed in 1980.
The government, however, hasn’t prosecuted anybody for nonregistration in nearly two decades, Mr. Chatfield said, and Congress has overwhelmingly rejected calls to reinstate mandatory service.
But failure to register can cause ineligibility for federal and state student loan programs, citizenship, federal job training and public sector employment.
“It’s a very low-cost insurance policy,” said Mr. Chatfield, noting that the potential 16 million-member force can be a deterrent to aggressive foreign leaders.
On Saturday, about half a dozen people registered under a small tent at the air show, surrounded by the relics of war. Maj. Linda H. Norwood, helping staff the event, said some who stopped by were in support of a draft while others expressed surprise that the need to register still existed.
Mr. Chatfield, meanwhile, said the push for full compliance assures that any future draft would be democratic.
“It would have to be fair and equitable, and it was not in my generation,” he said.