Do 18 yr. olds HAVE to register themselves legally?

[mopaul]

i'm a dimwit on this matter, even though i raised two sons to adulthood. am i wrong assuming that it is a required thing for 18 yr. olds to sign up for possible military duty should an emergency arise? i know the recruitment guys call here A LOT. my baby boy is 20, and they've been calling for 3 years basically, now more than ever.

and what would happen if they didn't sign up? are they criminals somehow? somebody set me straight.

[MadinMD]

1. I believe so

I think they have to register for the SS to recieve college loans and all sorts of governmental perks. I'm unsure about the criminality of such actions though.

[noonwitch]

12. I'm pretty sure it's a federal crime not to register

I don't know what the punishment is beyond the denial of government benefits like financial aid.
It always gets me that women don't have to register. I would have thought that would have changed over the years.

[RichV]

2. Selective service?

They should have done that at the post office or something once they turned 18.

Don't sweat the recruitment guys. They used to call me a lot too, even though I had never expressed any interest in serving in the military (although my dad is a lifer). They target people with potential and you have to tell them no a number of times before they quit calling. It's an inconvenience, but I understand why they do it.

And yes, I do think it is illegal to shirk selective service registration, although I don't think any jack-booted thugs are going to come drag them from their beds or anything.

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken re: any of this, please.

[MuseRider]

3. I need to know this

too. My youngest turned 18 in December and has not signed his card yet. We get so many calls from all the service branches. They leave upbeat messages on the answering machine and sometimes we will get two or three calls a day.

[Loonman]

Yes. You must register with selective service

You could get up to 5 years in a Fed pen and huge fines.


I know it sucks, but there it is.

[Christ was Socialist]

4. Usually

Its done when you register at the dmv

[truthspeaker]

5. yes it's legally required

I don't know if they still do this, but on my 18th birthday (in 1988) I got a birthday card from Selective Service with instructions for registering inside. If you don't register, you get letters every couple months or so that become more and more threatening as time goes on. I finally registered after 6 months so I don't know what happens after that.

Legal penalties:

Fine (don't remember how much, but I think it's six figures)

Jail time

Very few men have been prosecuted though.

Additional penalties:

Ineligible for federal financial aid for college

Inelegible to work for the federal government

[Tippy]

17. Yes they still do this...

" don't know if they still do this, but on my 18th birthday (in 1988) I got a birthday card from Selective Service with instructions for registering inside. "

[BiggJawn]

6. Yes, perhaps, and go to this link.

"Almost all male U.S. citizens, and male aliens living in the U.S., who are 18 through 25, are required to register with Selective Service. It's important to know that even though he is registered, a man will not automatically be inducted into the military. In a crisis requiring a draft, men would be called in sequence determined by random lottery number and year of birth. Then, they would be examined for mental, physical and moral fitness by the military before being deferred or exempted from military service or inducted into the Armed Forces."

go here:
http://www.sss.gov/

"Moral fitness"???
As in "Shrink, I wanna KILL! I wanna see blood and gore and VEINS IN MY TEETH! Shrink, I WANNA EAT DEAD, BURNT BODIES!!!!"

[reformed_military]

8. "Moral fitness"???

As in not a Conscientious Objector. Meaning do you have a moral issue with serving.

[BiggJawn]

10. I didn't interpret it as that.

MY interpretation is more along the lines of how Arlo interpretted it:

""Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and
said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints
off to Washington."

THATS how I interpretted it. they don't give a didly-damn if you're a CO when you turn 18, they'll wait untill you're at AFEES before they deal with that.

[reformed_military]

15. Look at the time line.

"In a crisis requiring a draft, men would be called in sequence determined by random lottery number and year of birth. Then, they would be examined for mental, physical and moral fitness"

Lets say you are just turning 18. You are right that they don't care at this point if you are a CO.

They get your name on a list, other names are added and subtracted as people enter and leave the age bracket.

If (big if) there is a draft, then you show up with your documentation (if you have any) and claim CO status. At that point they DO care.

If they sign off on it, you go home.

If you are a Quaker, you are not inducted into the military because of your moral fitness, meaning you have a moral (religious) issue that will stop you from being effective in the military.

[BiggJawn]

16. Libertad is closer to the mark.

But I still think it is ironic that they want to ensure that they sign up only MORAL people to go places, meet exotic people, and kill them...

C'mon, get with me on this, I know what you mean about being morally OPPOSED to the military. I just don;'t think that's what they're talking about here.

Unless you were "Recruiting Command" before you got reformed.

[libertad]

13. I think moral fitness = "not gay" to the military.

[Guaranteed]

7. You need to get them registered as soon as possible.

Their high school should have had someone talking to them about this when they were seniors.

The law is that ALL males HAVE to register with the selective service within 30 days after their 18th birthday.

[truthspeaker]

14. let's not go overboard

The OP wanted clarification on the law. Whether his son chooses to comply with that law is a decision for that young man, not his parents and certainly not us.

[Atman]

9. Yes, it's the law

I'm right there with you. I have a 19yo, and a 16 yo. Obviously, I am hellbent on making sure Chimpy doesn't get reselected and take them away from me to fix his monster fuck up. We get calls all the time. The recruiters, I beleive, are exempt from the no-call list. They call us at least three times a week. Last time, a very sexy-sounding female called, and asked for a "date" with my son in almost conversational terms before she indentified herself as a recruiter. "I'd just like to go out and maybe have a cup of coffee with, get to know you...and explain the great benefits and career training I've received since joining the Army!" The Marines call frequently, too, but they sound like Marines...."Son, call me back. I need to talk to you."

Scary shit. They have at least one of my boys targeted already.

[Guaranteed]

11. You know what? I think I remember that happening

to me too...

Some guy leaving a message on my answering machine, sounding just like that...extremely authoritarian, basically trying to intimidate me.

[electricmonk]

18. I didn't register for more than 3 years

And only did it then so I could get a student loan. I never heard anything from them but then this was 20+ years ago so I'm sure they are much more efficient now-a-days. I believe you are also supposed to update your address with them everytime you move up until a certain age but I moved a month or so after registering and moved a bunch of other times over the years and never did that.