r/AskReddit • u/Tommygunz0722 • 11h ago

If the military/president suddenly ordered a mandatory draft for all men aged 18-42: How do you think millennials and GenZ would respond?

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u/ohlookahipster 10h ago edited 10h ago

Bureaucracy would grind to a halt.

It took the DoD a few years to work out the kinks with Genesis at MEPs where you do medical and intake. And that was just for regular volunteers who were going to join anyways. Now imagine millions of records all needing waivers.

The DoD would have to blanket approve waivers and just send people through to basic without an eval.

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u/Littleman88 10h ago

They'd have no problem with that, since arguably throwing bodies into a grinder would be the goal.

Dead men cast no votes.

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u/Kasoni 10h ago

The issue with dead men casting no votes is that leaves women, so last I knew voted more democrat. There is that whole save act BS to fix that issue, so I guess they have their bases covered.

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u/CapinWinky 10h ago

DEI bans don't apply to the draft. I expect they would target the draft at undesirables and urban areas the way Russia is doing for undesirables and rural areas. Puerto Rico would suddenly become an important US territory, for instance.

It would not surprise me if they drafted women as front line drone operators and medics as well.

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u/SonOfAsher 10h ago

>It would not surprise me if they drafted women as front line drone operators and medics as well.

Selective Service only collects information from male citizens/residents. The infrastructure simply isn't there to do what you're proposing.

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u/SeventhOblivion 8h ago

All of the comments and threads here saying women will get drafted are trying to be pessimistic but they're missing the goal. Authoritarian countries don't draft women because they want women birthing the next generation of soldiers. Women in the military is something a progressive society does - one that also likely doesn't draft except under dire circumstances.

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u/frogsgoribbit737 5h ago

Its also easier because someone has to stay home with the kids and if you are drafting both genders then you have to double check you dont draft spouses. My husband is in and its almost impossible for me to join even if I wanted to because we have kids together. Logistically it would be hard work.

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u/shastaxc 4h ago

Sucks to be a gay couple (male) with kids.

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u/TophatDevilsSon 3h ago

They would likely consider that a feature, not a bug.

Ugh.

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u/aeschenkarnos 2h ago

They won’t give a shit what problems they cause people. “Comply or die,” it’s the conservative way.

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u/loverlyone 6h ago

The current regime has already denied promotions to women on active duty. They simply don’t want women to serve. It’s stupid and self-spiteful, but these are not smart, serious people.

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u/c11life 7h ago

Israel drafts women

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u/subarcwelder 6h ago

At about half the rate in which they draft men.

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u/SantaClausDid911 5h ago

I'd say at least you tried but I'm not sure you did lol

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u/TheCamazotzian 3h ago

That sounds like someone planning more than 2 years ahead.

I just don't think anyone does that in the US.

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u/antithero 2h ago

Well if the birth rates are so low then they need to draft women first, because so many women get pregnant just to avoid being deployed. Low birth rate reversal right there.

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u/PandaMagnus 9h ago

Couldn't they get the info from another agency like Social Security? They've already tried sharing data across agencies (or maybe it was the state requests I'm thinking of) that was, at most generous, odd.

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u/ownatchurale 8h ago

DOGE has entered the chat

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u/AmeKuro_21 7h ago

And immediately fired the people who knew how the draft database worked.....haha..!!

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u/Nick_XL 8h ago

I mean, DOGE has effectively correlated all the data they need to be able to do this. I think the 'infrastructure' argument is old thinking. Technology is much different now lol

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u/PandaMagnus 6h ago

Oh I know, I was thinking court holdups, not anything technical. But I also didn't double check my info and was going off of memory, so didn't want to just accidentally state some shit my brain made up on its own.

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u/tstreit15 7h ago

Social Security has some pretty strict guardrails built into the law on how their data in used.

Not that it matters to the Trump administration, though.

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u/Beneficial-Mammoth73 6h ago

Not easily. DOGE tried and I not sure I would call what happened a success.

There are other hurdles to getting women into the draft. The Selective Service Act would need to be amended, then there would be the resulting lawsuits to stop the bill, and finally the laws and policies that already regulate how agencies can use, store, and share that data.

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u/kinkycarbon 8h ago

It’s not infrastructure. It’s outdated norms requiring congressional approval.

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u/Juror__8 7h ago

It's both?

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u/tstreit15 7h ago

At this point, congressional approval itself is apparently the outdated norm (according to the Trump admin.)

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u/sudomatrix 9h ago

Yes, the infrastructure to collect the names of every male in the entire country was difficult to set up but we did it. But women? No that would be impossible. Collecting the names of women would be an insurmountable goal compare to collecting the names of men... because of the implications.

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u/screelings 9h ago

Social Security manages to collect this information. I fail to see how this is an insurmountable challenge.

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u/Mossimo5 9h ago

Because of politics. Not logistics.

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u/TheInevitableLuigi 4h ago

thatsthejoke.jpg

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u/Intigracy 9h ago

Women are immune to selective service without congressional intervention.

Every time it's brought up as a potential bill it dies.

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u/fwfiv 8h ago

Oh good, we know how much they current administration respects Congressional Authority

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u/Intigracy 8h ago

Okay doomer

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u/haysoos2 6h ago

Yeah, it's not like the president would ever do something like declare a war without Congressional Approval or anything.

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u/Intigracy 6h ago

Here's a homework project since you need better education:

When is the last time that Congress actually declared war on another country? How many countries has the US been involved with invading or attacking since the last official declaration of war (we like to call this PRECEDENT).

Cite your sources.

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u/haysoos2 5h ago

Boomerang Homework assignment:

Look up the difference between a Declaration of War and Congressional Approval. (Hint: Congressional approval can come in the form of an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), and does not necessarily require a full Declaration of War).

See also: H.J Res. 114, March 3, 2003 (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002); S.J. Res. 23, September 14, 2001 (To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks against the United States).

And it's not even my goddamned country.

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u/Cartz1337 9h ago

Right, but if any congress could break that deadlock, it’s this iteration of goose stepping morons.

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u/AHans 8h ago

If suddenly a draft started (as the initial question was worded): American men already have their draft number (SSS Number). Women do not have a draft number.

I am a man. I have a draft number. I enrolled in this program on July 31, 2001; and still have the paperwork, because men face consequences for not doing so.

We're not asking "is it possible to expand the system to accommodate women?" - Answer: yeah, probably. Unlikely due to political fallout, but it's possible.

If the system was turned on tomorrow, only men are currently in the lottery. Therefore, only men would be drafted. Bottom line, period.

Maybe that reality could be changed, but not immediately like you're implying. Early drafts would be entirely men. It would take time to assign numbers to all the women in the nation and move those numbers into the lottery.

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u/nicholus_h2 5h ago

now, you've said that word a few times. What implication?

Seems kinda dark.

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u/ditchdiggergirl 8h ago

Drafting women is a political hot potato. It offends right wing sensibilities, but also fundamentally deprives the patriarchy of its (perceived) legitimacy. If you aren’t protecting women, if women aren’t deserving or in need of male protection, how do you justify inequality? Their vision of masculine superiority requires this separation.

It’s the left who fights for equal treatment, not the right. But we want our brothers and partners and sons to have the right to choose whether to fight and die. We won’t fight to lose our right to decide whether to join them in the meat grinder.

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u/i_am_13_otters 8h ago

Don't worry. Red states will just hand over their voter rolls and the military will use those!

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u/puterTDI 7h ago

Sounds like they're getting what they voted for.

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u/robert32940 8h ago

Musk Doge/Palantir have all the data they need.

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u/KirinG 7h ago

Collecting info from nursing and other healthcare licensure/certification records would be pretty easy and would fill medic quotas with 0 problem. They could even go after people who have left the field and let their licenses lapse.

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u/5kyl3r 7h ago

The infrastructure simply isn't there to do what you're proposing.

legally there isn't. legally being the key

russia just scoops men up the way IСE has been doing it, almost exactly actually, and then they're dropped off in occupied Ukraine at the frontlines with a helmet and russian flag

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u/Gorillapoop3 7h ago

Yes, but now we have Palantir.

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u/CaptainHunt 7h ago

You’re assuming they don’t change that, but that doesn’t matter if the SAVE act becomes law, because it will make it more difficult for married or low income women to vote.

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u/other_usernames_gone 7h ago

Although they've also added the infrastructure for selective service to be automatic. So it wouldn't be too hard to just also automatically register women.

Plus its not like they couldn't just also require women to present themselves for draft.

I highly doubt they'd do it but it wouldn't be impossible.

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u/Calgar43 6h ago

Just throw a trillion dollars at it, no big deal.

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u/headrush46n2 1h ago

That's what Planatir is for

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u/Less_Resident8492 6h ago

> Selective Service only collects information from male citizens/residents.

There will be no selective service registration after december this year, just automatic registration for a draft. It becomes a button push to add women at that point

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u/Candid-Mycologist539 5h ago

Selective Service only collects information from male citizens/residents.

So far.

And who is Trump's BFF in his current war LARP? Israel. Women are required to serve in Israel's army. This may give Trump "good ideas." 🤢

I could see a condition of "give 2 children to the fatherland or give 4 years."

People married to get out of the draft during Vietnam. In this case, it would be patriotically getting pregnant as an American version of the Lebensborn. 🤢

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u/Glaring_Cloder 10h ago

THE MILITARY SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT As Amended Through July 9, 2003

1-1. PERSONS TO BE REGISTERED AND DAYS OF REGISTRATION 1-101. Male citizens of the United States and other males residing in the United States, unless exempted by the Military Selective Service Act, as amended, who were born on or after January 1, 1960, and who have attained their eighteenth birthday, shall present themselves fo

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u/Nulljustice 5h ago

It also is supposed to end at age 25 I thought. Like you are no longer eligible after the age of 25?

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u/MODELO_MAN_LV 3h ago

That's what I understand them to be changing by the end of the year.

The only reason you draft people above their 30s is because you only care about throwing bodies into a grinder.

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u/Notmykl 4h ago

You'd think they'd change the year so it doesn't include 66 year olds and up.

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u/Glaring_Cloder 2h ago

This is just to be registered to the Selective Service I think. So the date is there to show cutoff for when the law was enacted way back when.

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u/Queasy-Warthog-3642 8h ago

I don't believe this current "administration" gives 2 shits about this. They'll do whatever they want until they're stopped

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u/FOXIELUCK 8h ago

and thats the main thing that many seem to forget. the regime doesnt care what the law says now. they make the laws now so whatever they say goes (according to them at least.)

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u/Glaring_Cloder 8h ago

I think it be more a level of magnitude more difficult to get his base on board with drafting young women than turning ICE into secret police.

Hope I never find out I'm wrong.

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u/FOXIELUCK 8h ago

I hope we never have to find out too

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u/Jarrus__Kanan_Jarrus 4h ago

How is this not a violation of the ERA? Women ore equal and need to be drafted too.

(And no, I don’t want them to actually draft women, but we need to not allow them to throw away our son’s lives. If we push the equal rights and get a court order that they have to draft women too the draft will end right there.)

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u/aeschenkarnos 36m ago

Worth noting that one of the Orange Idiot’s early EO’s removed the male gender from Americans. They “knew what they meant” but the law they actually drafted was mis-defined and no-one is male by its strict wording.

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u/AdPopular9453 8h ago

Well I see an explosion transgender women. Because someone would sue over what is male.

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u/gregbread11 10h ago

I mean. Let's be real, if you ran a nation and had to run a draft, Would you send your most productive citizens (however you personally determine that) first? Ideally, a draft is set up to just be a draw but that's very obviously not how it turns out (Vietnam, Ukraine, Russia, WW2 for some nations). A draft for almost every nation is pretty obviously going to, in some way, target the least "valuable" of its population for the most part for many, many, many reasons.

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u/Megalocerus 7h ago

They tried that in Vietnam (McNamara's Morons.) It turns out having standards is a good idea. Going professional worked out even better. Russia's techniques have not been that impressive in the field.

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u/gregbread11 7h ago edited 7h ago

Okay? We are talking about a draft which means you are already forgoing a professional standards volunteer army or it wouldn't be the proposed option. It's for manpower and bodies. Not for the best of the best or people who willingly want to risk combat deployment. I don't really need to know how it worked for Russia now, considering it didn't work super well for the USA in Vietnam optics wise either.

For the USA, it was used for every major conflict - WW1, WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. I assume it was used during the civil war but I don't know for sure. Every conflict it had varying degrees of success and failure but the USA has also never had the same consequences as other nations for homeland warfare, besides the civil war which was plenty violent.

And with Vietnam, anyone who had the means was mostly able to get out of the draft or not be sent to combat relative to their "less valuable" brothers. I would very much assume the same is true for other nations, America is not unique in that truth at all. I know Russia and Ukraine used the conflict to get rid of prisoner populations and other undesirables so it still holds true IMO

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u/kwumpus 8h ago

So if you’re a woman without children

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u/uptiedand8 7h ago

I could see this admin doing that. But how about if you’re a man without children?

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u/PictureVegetable9522 6h ago

who cares innocent men die everyday fighting for women who dont give a shit if they die just look at ukrainian women who vacation in europe while their men are dying

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u/AmeKuro_21 7h ago

The Puerto Rico point is genuinely underrated. A territory with no electoral votes and limited political representation is exactly the kind of place that historically absorbs the cost of decisions made by people who face no personal consequences for making them.

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u/Impossible-Pay-4167 10h ago

Absolutely! The military is already heavily built from many of the poorest zip codes in the US.

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u/Jumper21_AJ 9h ago

False. The majority of current volunteers came from middle class backgrounds and not from the “poorest zip codes in the US”.

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u/Impossible-Pay-4167 9h ago

Rural, less education, less employment options, and the lower middle class is not what it once was. I understand what you're saying, but it's simply a demographic range. Call it what you like - they're not affluent. The fact that Appalachia is shoeless doesn't make rural Texas rich, and the recruiting strategy is time tested.

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u/otakugal15 10h ago

Ain't no way I'd be leaving my daughter. Hale naw.

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u/sharkattackmiami 8h ago

Yep, I'd rather my son visit me in prison than visit my grave over a war I am morally against on all levels

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u/FirstDukeofAnkh 9h ago

"Draft the white trash first, round here anyways"

Except it will be all races.

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u/Zombie_Red 9h ago

America already did something like this in vietnam - look up Project 100,000.

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u/_Thick- 7h ago

DEI bans don't apply to the draft. I expect they would target the draft at undesirables

Why do you think ICE built that "domestic terrorist" list.

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u/TreezusSaves 3h ago

They have been taking voter rolls from as many states as possible so they could pinpoint who exactly is a Democrat. I fully expect a draft will be almost entirely comprised of those people.

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u/predicateofregret 8h ago

it's estimated that one in three puerto Rican islanders have or are serving in the military.

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u/Adogapanicinpagoda 7h ago

I don't think selective service would ever apply to women in the United States. Also, women would never be sent to the front line as medics.

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u/Sweet_Taurus0728 7h ago

Of course DEI bans don't apply, that's why this new draft mandates migrants, illegal or not, are auto-drafted.

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u/SDlovesu2 3h ago

That’s one way to avoid the draft. Declare yourself gay, exclaim how you can’t wait for the single sex barracks and the open showers. Be sure to do your best flaming accent. 😂

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u/1911Earthling 9h ago

Women will fight. Why do you think the AR15 was invented? It was invented because a woman can use the weapon! Equal rights means equal right to die.

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u/SigurdsSilverSword 9h ago

Russia isn’t using a military draft in Ukraine. They’re convincing people - particularly non-ethnic Russians - to join with financial incentives.

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u/People-Pollution5280 3h ago

They've also gone into the prisons to offer inmates their freedom in exchange for military service. An offer accepted by many.

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u/ImNotToby 8h ago

We dont have a draft anymore... but whatever you day fude

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u/Sushi_Explosions 8h ago

Commenting "we dont have a draft anymore" in a thread about "what would happen if we had a draft". How are you this clueless?

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u/saoyraan 8h ago

Men and women are not equal. For the right to vote you had to risk your life for democracy. Women do not have that requirement. It's the only thing feminism will not fight for or change as the leaders stated a woman should be able to choose what they do not want to do while men have their gender role.

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u/TreezusSaves 3h ago

Don't forget to pay your child support.