Selective Service System Quotes

Resistance to conscription [in WWI] was quite strong. By the end of the war, the ranks of noncooperators were stunningly large. Roughly 3 million eligible men never registered, in violation of the law — compared with the 24 million who did. And some 338,000 who did register either failed to obey an induction notice or deserted after they joined the ranks .... Altogether, a higher percentage of American men successfully resisted conscription during World War I than during the Vietnam War half a century later.

Majored in staying out of Vietnam.

When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.

You dare not—at least I hope you dare not—attempt a conscription to fill the ranks of your regular army.

That makes no sense for someone to say if they were drafted by their country, that they'd say no.

If there is anyone who knows what a rigged system looks like, it's Donald Trump, who was able to evade the draft during the height of the Vietnam War when the U.S. was losing on average 1,000 troops every month. That system was clearly rigged in favor of young men from politically influential families, but Donald Trump never complained about that.

I took an interest in the Civil Rights Movement. I listened to Martin Luther King. The Vietnam War was raging. When I was 18, I was eligible for the draft, but when I went to be tested, I didn't qualify.

New Yorkers should know that no one in the Administration, at the Department of Defense, or at the Selective Service System is advocating the reinstatement of the mandatory draft in any form.

I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

I don't judge anybody who chose not to serve during Vietnam, at all. It's a different time, and I don't judge anybody for the decision they made.

I was terrified of the Vietnam War when I was 13. I thought I was going. The draft was such an ominous thing, I felt as if it was going to trickle down to me.

The Vietnam War was causing people to get drafted; I had received a deferment to finish my undergraduate education, and in order to continue to get a deferment, you had to go to graduate school.

One of the things I am most proud of is refusing to serve in the military when drafted during the Vietnam War.

Evading military service has a long history in American life.

What do you do when you get a draft notice and you think a war is wrong? And I struggled with that for months prior to my being inducted into the army, and I'm still struggling with it, 40 years later.

I remember the day I found out my draft status. I was really floored and kind of staggered around in a daze. It just hadn't occurred to me that I could end up in Vietnam.

I had a very strong feeling about the Vietnam War, and I had a strong feeling about participating in it. The military draft was in place, I was summoned for a physical exam, and I was either going to be classified as fit for military service or make my objection to it. So I made my objection to it.

Which I would've done 'cause I volunteered for the draft which meant that I only had to do two years. But when the Cubans had missiles in the Canal and Kennedy made the extension, I was one of the ones who had enough time to be extended.

I was part of the draft resistance movement in LA where we did demonstrations at the draft centre and burned our cards and made a lot of trouble on campus.

What is astonishing about the social history of the Vietnam war is not how many people avoided it, but how many could not and did not.

George W. had a plan. He arranged to join the Air National Guard in Texas, which meant he would not be sent to Vietnam.