This article is crap. It's simplistic and shows a lack of work on the part of the reporter. The man who says at age 38 cannot get student aid because he didn't register for the draft may have a legitimate issue. If we need to work on that fine. But here we go.
America may never have a draft again. But we’re still punishing low-income men for not registering
OK, only low income men? Granted, Joe Biden's son, the cocaine user didn't need student loans to get through college, but many middle and upper middle income students do. So if they fail to register, they can be denied benefits.
More than 40 years since America's last draft, failing to register for selective service can mean missing out on crucial benefits.
By Tina Griego October 16 Follow @tinagriego
The last time Danieldevel Davis got out of prison it was 2012 and he was 38.
“I ain’t going back into no man’s prison again,” he vowed.
He’d been locked up for six years, which was the longest he’d ever lived in one place. Davis grew up in foster homes, dropped out of school in the 11th grade and then hit the revolving door: streets, juvenile detention, streets, prison. He’s never possessed a driver’s license. He’s never had a bill in his name.
“I’ve never had anything in my name,” he says.
So, this is what happened when Davis went to fill out his financial aid paperwork at a Virginia Beach technical college.
“Have you registered for the Selective Service?” the financial aid officer asked.
“What do you mean?” Davis said.
“Did you register to be drafted?”
“Huh?”
This may be a nation with an all-volunteer military, one that ended conscription more than 40 years ago, but federal law still requires men ages 18 to 25 to register for a draft that does not exist. There are few exemptions and no second chances.
Davis never registered with the Selective Service System and so learned that he was looking at potentially lifelong consequences. No access to federal student loans or grants. No federal job training money or certain government jobs. And, in Virginia, no driver’s license.
“I didn’t know I had to register and now I can’t get anything,” Davis says. “I can’t do nothing.”
Got it, assuming this is true and he couldn't get a pass based on his history and desire to turn his life around, we may have an issue. But Ms Griego, where did you link up with Mr Davis? Did he come to you asking for help in getting his story told? Just curious.
The odds of this country returning to a draft are almost zero, but the price for failure to register is high and is largely born by the men who can ill afford to pay it: high school dropouts, disconnected inner city residents, ex-offenders and immigrants — legal and unauthorized — who do not know that failure to register can jeopardize citizenship. In other words, those precisely in need of the type of job training, education and citizenship opportunities that could help move them from the margins to the mainstream.
In California, the Selective Service System estimates, men who failed to register were denied access to more than $99 million in federal and state financial aid and job training benefits between 2007 and April of this year. Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts saw $35 million in combined lost benefits between 2011 and spring 2014.
“Why are we setting up these barriers?” says Regina Tyler, director of Virginia State University’s Upward Bound program and the Education Opportunity Center, which helps adults return to school. “Why are we attaching them to financial aid? We don’t have a draft, so what is the point?”
The point, supporters of registration long have argued, is that almost-zero odds of conscription are not zero odds.
“You can never say never,” says Lawrence G. Romo, director of the Selective Service System. “We are a deterrent. We want to make sure our adversaries understand that if we had an extreme national emergency, we would have the draft.”
A fair and equitable draft, which would include alternatives to military service, requires 100 percent compliance, he argues. “We need to have some type of penalty in order to help us get that compliance.”...
Legitimate question and one thing I will say is a modern success is the volunteer military. I'm a 23 year veteran of the Army and I would rather have five people there willingly then ten draftees. Now most of the article is stats on compliance, etc, read it if you will, but this brought my blood up.
...Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, who earlier this year introduced two bills related to the draft. The first would require women to register with the Selective Service. The second calls for all citizens and residents between 18 and 25 to perform two years of military or community service and would reinstate the draft only when a clear threat to the nation is present and Congress formally has declared war or the president proclaims a national emergency.
Community service? I think this is what we called in years past indentured servitude. From this country's founding there was no question young men could be called on to defend this nation, either by volunteering or a draft, when needed. But this is something new. For some reason Charlie and his ilk want young men and women to "serve in the community" as a condition of being a citizen? Strange, I'll bet he won't require a similar pound of flesh from Dreamers, aka illegal aliens. But anyone knowing Charlie knows what this is, a way of using federal resources for Democrats. Those kids would go "into the community" showing them how to register, how to vote, and whom to vote for. Oh, get this.
Rangel has long argued that the burden of fighting war has fallen unfairly on the shoulders of a few, and that a more-inclusive draft “would compel everyone in the nation to stop and think about who we sent to wars, how we fight – and why we fight them at all.”
But, Rangel says, until the day comes that the United States is engaged in a declared war and the nation’s security is violated — or Congress passes his National Service Act — there is no reason for the Selective Service System. “Having people penalized for not registering is a fraud,” he said.
Rangel emphasized that registration is current law and should be followed, but said he now intends to introduce a draft-related bill — one abolishing the service.
A little shoe leather work would have put Charlie in context. In 2005, Charlie introduced a bill to reinstate the draft and he made many of the same comments then as he does now. Well, in a rare show of guts the Republicans in the House called his bluff, by passed the committee and sent it straight to the floor for a vote. What happened? It was voted down by all members, with even Charlie voting against his own bill. I know in Charlie's case it was a procedural dodge, he had to vote against his bill so he could reintroduce it at a later date. But more to the point he didn't want the bill passed. He wanted to be on TV during committee hearings calling our all volunteer military a disgrace and racists. What a racist disgrace he is.
Legitimatley is there a debate to be had on the draft, yes. Personally I would keep registration and allow correction for a man in his 30s who never filled out his form due to ignorance as opposed to deliberate evasion. But please, don't use Charlie Rangel as a authentic source of input.
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