Selective Service System Has Draft Boards Ready

CHICAGO (STNG) -- Jack McInerney Jr. is trained once a year to make life-and-death decisions.

He is a member of a local draft board. It is a sleepy corner of the federal government that will spring to life to decide who gets sent to fight if the draft is reinstituted.

If a draft is called again -- the debate is getting hotter the longer the Iraqi conflict drags on -- the Homewood man and four fellow south suburbanites would make up one of 41 boards in Cook and Will counties. Their wartime charge: ruling on local requests for deferments and exemptions.

"Are you going to send to war a 19-year-old who is financially supporting his 13- and 14-year-old siblings?" McInerney said. "I think I'm ready to make those decisions."

The boards, drawn from a collection of folks from all walks of life, represent every town. They take their jobs extremely seriously, even if they largely are invisible. They are ready to serve if the country once again conscripts its young into battle.

"All they are trying to do is keep us ready," said Steven Zurawski, a member of a board covering Burbank, Evergreen Park and Oak Lawn. "If there is a draft, we go into action. It's a necessary evil."

The idea of mandatory military service in the United States can be traced back as far the Revolutionary War, but the concept of panels of community members to help with the process did not appear until World War I.

That's when the term "selective service" was born.

Draft boards were assembled to rule on which draftees deserved the right to stay at home because their departures might represent a hardship to their communities.

The boards continued through World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War and the Vietnam War before the draft ended in 1973. President Jimmy Carter, responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, resurrected the Selective Service System and local boards in 1980.

McInerney -- whose board would weigh draftee cases from Tinley Park, Matteson, Richton Park, Flossmoor and Homewood -- speculated that without that infrastructure in place, it would take a minimum of six weeks to organize a draft.

"Do you want to give your enemy a month and a half to attack your nation?" he said. "I don't think so."

The country today maintains a draft pool of 15 million men younger than 26 years old, according to Selective Service System statistics. Men are required to register when they turn 18. In Illinois, most unwittingly do so when they fill out the paperwork to obtain a driver's license.

Women are exempt from registering.

The five members on a board, much like a jury, choose which draftees can opt out of a draft if they make a convincing argument. Religious and family reasons are the biggest ones cited for exemptions and deferments. Conscientious objectors also can file.

The student deferments that were so popular during the Vietnam War are gone. Draftees now are permitted to finish only their current semesters. Seniors can stay for the entire year before reporting.

Zurawski, an Oak Lawn retiree who served during the last days of the Korean War, can sympathize with those who want to stay home.

"When a guy says he doesn't want to go to war because he doesn't want to fight, I can understand that," Zurawski said. "I didn't want to go either when I was a young fella."

In the Chicago area, members are recruited from everywhere and anywhere, from job fairs to civic organizations such as Rotary groups and Lions Clubs.

Bolingbrook's Thomas Matheson, a scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, signed up for duty after spotting a pamphlet at work. The 53-year-old Bolingbrook resident serves an area covering Frankfort, New Lenox, Mokena, Homer Glen and Lockport.

"I thought it was a good, civic job to do," Matheson said. "This is my way to do something for my country."

Mary Neely, the Selective Service System's manager for the region that includes Illinois, said members must agree to attend four hours of training a year. The training mostly involves making judgments on hypothetical cases.

"We try to make it as realistic as possible," she said. "We do not tell them what a correct ruling would be."

To eliminate any appearances of a conflict of interest, law enforcement personnel and those drawing military salaries are prohibited from serving.

Board members receive no compensation for their efforts. Their terms last 20 years.

A variety of ages and ethnic backgrounds is encouraged.

"You want people who represent their communities," Neely said. "There are a lot of service-minded people out there, thank God."

They also are told to check their biases at the door.

"What is a popular war and what is an unpopular war does not matter," Matheson said. "You do not let your personal opinion go into the decision-making process."

Will their training ever be put into practice?

McInerney, a project manager for the Illinois Finance Authority, is not sure.

The idea of a country prepared to go to war might be comforting.

What it will take to go from imaginary to reality is the unsettling part.

"The political backlash of a draft would kill any party supporting it," McInerney said. "I don't think you will see it happen unless America is attacked with more force than on 9-11. But I also think that could happen tomorrow."

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