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Weighing the Military Draft, Again

Jeffrey Cohen
4 min readJan 13, 2020

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Credit: CC0 Public Domain

When I was 10 years ago, the United States stopped conscripting citizens into the military. Richard Nixon campaigned in 1968 on ending the draft, but it only became a reality as the Vietnam War wound down in 1973.

For me, the phase-down of Selective Service registered as barely a blip. I was more concerned about comic book prices rising from 20 cents to 25 cents – a whopping entire nickel. But my family’s babysitter– our neighbor’s college-bound son — dodged a bullet, literally and figuratively. Draft numbers were assigned for children born through the year 1956. He was born in 1957. Another few months of delay by Nixon would have changed his entire life.

However as the Iranian conflict turned into a hostage situation in 1979, the world became a more dangerous place. And when Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, Selective Service turning into a revived draft process looked imminent. “Make no mistake: The continuation of peacetime registration does not foreshadow a return to the draft,” Reagan said in a 1982 statement. Only in the case of a national emergency would it occur.

And then Grenada happened. A small colony of Caribbean nations mostly known for its “medical school,” the government was overthrown and the U.S. invaded to restore elections and democracy. Clint Eastwood felt so patriotic about the events that he…

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Jeffrey Cohen
Jeffrey Cohen

Written by Jeffrey Cohen

Longtime writer and crank. Articles come from more than 30 years in journalism and corporate communications. Follow my podcast at MrJeff2000.podbean.com.

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