Does Uncle Sam want her? Veterans and politicians weigh idea of women in the draft

John Ford spends his days at the Veterans of Foreign Wars location in Hillyard. There, he connects with fellow military service members and their families. The site serves as a home – a community for a population that Ford thinks lives in the shadows of the U.S. government.

As a U.S. Air Force veteran, he spent 21 years bouncing around the world and landing in a variety of roles – from aircraft loadmaster to Saudi Arabian advisor to recruiter – between 1964 and 1985. But why did the teenager opt to join the armed forces?

He, like some 60% of other eligible men, feared active conscription.

“To be honest, I was dodging the draft,” the 79-year-old said.

From 1940 to 1973, the U.S. relied on the military draft, a lottery system that would select registered American men to serve the country. This process continued during war and peacetime until the Vietnam War ended. The military then switched to all-volunteer, but men were still required to register for the Selective Service System.

Earlier this year, a Senate committee approved a version of a Pentagon policy that would also include women in the registration. But even apart from the question of whether women should be forced to register, Americans aren’t in agreement on the system.

A Spokesman-Review social media poll with 237 responses found 67% believe the system is unnecessary.

Melissa Julianne Pringle responded to the poll and shared the majority’s perspective.

“Neither men nor women should sell their bodies to the government, and the idea of a modern day draft is absurd,” she said in an Instagram message. “I will never die for rich men too cowardly to fight their own wars. I will never sell my body to a government that doesn’t even … take care of its own.”

Ford agrees with Pringle and the pollsters.

“The need for a military draft here in 2024 is, I think, totally unwarranted,” he said. “The need is not there, even though the military services – all branches – are having difficulty meeting their recruiting quotas.”

What’s behind the proposal?

In 2022, NBC News reported “only 9% of those young Americans eligible to serve in the military had any inclination to do so,” a low since 2007.

Those low recruitment numbers are the concern of veteran Ann Marie Toph. She spent more than a dozen years in the military on the USS Peleliu, USS Bonhomme Richard, had a tenure with Beachmaster Unit 1 and then was deployed to Afghanistan with Tasker Trident.

“I know the Navy specifically missed their recruiting goal last year by thousands of bodies,” Toph said. “I just went through the process of enlisting my two kids, and we most definitely do not have enough people volunteering.”

Toph also mentioned she wishes the Selective Service System wasn’t necessary.

“I’d rather have somebody having (my children’s) back that fully wholeheartedly wanted to join the military,” she said.

Male citizens and immigrants between the ages of 18 and 25 must be registered to be called up for military service. If they evade registration, men could face prison and/or a fine of as much as $250,000, according to the Selective Service System website.

To combat the low volunteer numbers, Ford thinks the military needs to readdress advertisements and its treatment of service members.

“Give the military members a little bit of a pay raise; spend more money on advertising all the branches,” he said. “If we can convince people to buy electric cars, surely we can convince an 18- or 19-year-old about a job. I would love to look back at history to the 1960s and ’70s and see what we were doing (to recruit) at that time.”

The debate has gone both ways.

In 2019, the National Coalition for Men sued the selective service, arguing that the system is a “discrimination against men.” Their argument was that if women were allowed in combat, they should share the same responsibilities as men.

“With equal rights comes equal responsibilities,” the coalition’s vice president, Marc Angelucci, said in an interview with NPR.

Should women be required to register for the Selective Service System?

The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman granting women the ability to serve as full members of all military branches. In reality, the act limited their service, restricting women from opportunities to rise through the ranks.

Their work was often discredited solely based on their gender, but that didn’t stop them from serving. After decades of these restrictions, women were finally able to serve in direct ground combat roles in 2013. This raised the question about women registering in the selective service system.

Because of the many congressional attempts to pass the proposal, it has been popularly named the “Draft Our Daughters Act.”

“I’ve always believed that everyone should go into the military voluntarily,” said Terri Fowler, secretary of the Veteran’s Community Response in Spokane. “I also believe that the military is not right for everyone.”

Fowler served as a logistician for 40 years.

She believes women should serve in the military but should not be included in the selective service system.

U.S Senator Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, said on Fox News, “Leave our daughters alone. They shouldn’t be forced to serve if they don’t want to.”

“(You) want to draft my daughter and just ‘trust you’ not to put them into combat? All of D.C. – all of it – can go straight to hell,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said in a Twitter thread.

Rep. Mike Davis, R-Utah, stood with him.

“We will not draft women. This will happen over my dead body,” he said.

Republican Senate candidate of Nevada Sam Brown said in a social media video, “Forcing America’s daughters to register for the draft is unacceptable.”

Concerned Women for America, a legislative action committee, released a response to the recent proposal in a fact sheet entitled, “Don’t Draft Our Daughters,” criticizing its content.

“The Selective Service System is not a social experiment. American women do not need to be conscripted to fight on the frontline of war to prove their worth. Enduring differences between the sexes have everything to do with military readiness and national security in wartime.”

Advancing American Freedom sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, that condemned the idea of women being required: “the notion of the United States requiring women to register to fight our wars is simply untenable and must be opposed at all costs.”

On the contrary, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed her support of the inclusion of women in the draft in 2019 when she went live on Instagram.

“So long as we have a draft, I support people of all genders being drafted – equality,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

A Spokesman-Review poll on Instagram asking whether women should be included in the selective service shows that of the 250 who responded, 30% of people think they should and 70% think they shouldn’t.

While there are many who are against this proposal, there are proponents.

In response to the Instagram poll, Ayden Franklin wrote, “I do believe that women should be required since they are just as capable as a man.

“I understand the need for it, so I guess I support it for men and women alike.”

When asked if women should be required, Toph also said yes.

Today, more than 250,000 women serve on active duty in the military. The question whether or not women will be required to register for the selective service system is still up in the air.

A map provided by the Selective Service System’s website depicts which states will have the choice to opt in or out of the most common form of registration, which is with a driver’s license.

The state of Washington stands at an opt-in position, meaning women in Washington would not be automatically registered compared to the 28 states who would.