Second Draft: Not-Very-Selective Service

Second Draft

On my eighteenth birthday, through no fault (or desire) of my own, I registered for the United States’ “Selective Service.” This was not so much out of any sense of patriotism so much as I happened to be at a US Post Office on my eighteenth birthday.

For those of you who don’t know (ie: females and the occasional random foreign reader of my work, or ex-pat,) this process entails reading a four-page document which concisely explains that, while you are required to sign up for the draft, there has not been a draft of the US Military for decades.

Then you register for the draft!

I dutifully filled out my paperwork and dutifully mailed it off to “The Other” Washington.

Then I patiently waited. I knew that somewhere on the East Coast, a team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats was hard at work, inputting the names, dates of birth, addresses and Social Security Numbers of thousands of reticent and unsuspecting 18-year-old boys, all of whom had read—OK, some probably skimmed— the four-page “Don’t Worry, We Haven’t Had A Draft in Decades” Brochure, and then registered for the draft.

My waiting ended some weeks later when I received a letter confirming that I had been warmly welcomed to the happy regiments of draftable lads who needn’t worry, because we haven’t had a draft in decades.

The letter in question was sent to satisfy the Federal Government’s need to be absolutely certain that indeed I knew my name, social security number, address and date of birth. It contained the instructions: “Please check to confirm this information is correct.”

I scanned the document and made a startling discovery!

According to my team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats, I had actually been born two years earlier than my parents (and birth certificate) said I was! Suddenly, a second P.J. Creelman, a twenty-year-old P.J. Creelman was born.

My “don’t worry, kid, you’ll never get drafted” number reflected a Date-Of-Birth two years earlier.

Suddenly, the follow-up instructions became very important. According to them, I needed to “circle any mistakes, correct them and return documentation for processing.”

I did as instructed, dashing off a quick note, the message of which was, “NO, I am not twenty years old,” and mailed it back to “The Other Washington.”

Now, I cannot rule out that a District-of-Columbia team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats was merely the victim of my bad handwriting. Nor can I rule out that the team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats was merely the product (read: victim) of a low-quality public education.

What I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I was either the victim of my bad handwriting, or the lackluster education of my team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats.

About two weeks later, I receive a quickly dashed-off retaliatory note, the effect of which was “Yeah? Prove it!”

By this point, I was getting fed up with the whole process. (One could argue that this had been going on for two years now!)

I rationalized that I had done my bit, first by registering for the “We’re-not-going-to-have-a” Draft to begin with! I had read the patriotic four-page brochure assuring me there hadn’t been a draft for decades. I registered. I scanned the letter of confirmation, as determined by my team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats. I sent the letter of correction, confirming that, in accordance with federal law, I had registered on my eighteenth and not twentieth birthday!

I had done my part for God and Country! I did what any red-blooded teenaged American boy would do in this situation.

In other words: I ignored it.

I also ignored the follow-up letter, which said “Since you haven’t ‘proven it’ yet, your file has been pulled from the system and flagged. We await your response.”

I don’t understand why this team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats, who couldn’t discern between a handwritten “9” and a “7” couldn’t assume that it wasn’t lost in the Highly-Trained Postal System.

I ignored four more “prove-it” letters. Each one reminded me that “While there hasn’t been a draft in decades, you subversive punk, you are still required by law to register for it!”

What troubled me the most was that they weren’t satisfied by my word on the issue. Nor were they able enough to “think outside the check-a-box” that it might seem odd that an eighteen- (or twenty-) year old man knew what his fricking birthdate was!

Furthermore, it was apparent that this subversive punk, in addition to not knowing what year he was born in, decided to commit a federal crime by waiting TWO YEARS to register for the non-existent draft! They seemed to think that I thought it would be fun to celebrate the second anniversary of my non-registration crime to finally register!

One would like to think that somewhere over in “The Other Washington,”, there would be some sort of all-encompassing database (like perhaps in the Social Security Administration, or the Passport Offices) that would contain data including my date of birth. (According to my Christian Youth Camps, there was a super-powerful computer nicknamed “The Beast,” that contained all these data, and eventually would implant a microchip in your forehead or wrist to prevent these sorts of technical hiccups.

It would seem that one of the members of my team of Highly-Trained Bureaucrats could open a screen… (OK, this was the 1980s…)  … open a file folder and get this information without sending mildly threatening letters 3000 miles across the country. One would think that there might be a team of even More-Highly-Trained Bureaucrats watch-dogging my information and advising the Standard-Highly-Trained (but publicly-educated) Bureaucrats.

But… NO! Instead, I had to dig out my birth certificate and mail it to them to prove that I knew how freaking old I was!

All of this was to satisfactorily convince a Highly-Trained (publicly-educated) Bureaucrat who had little better to do. (Keep in mind, this was 1987. This was before people could play “Solitaire” on their computers, and “Tetris” was still a closely-guarded Soviet/Communist Secret.)

Without even trying to, the Highly-Trained Bureaucracy gave birth to a smarmy 18- (or 20-) year-old war protestor. And the worst part was, because there hadn’t been a draft in decades, there was no war to protest! Despite my frustration with the Department of Highly-Trained Selective Service Bureaucrats, I had no outlet for my discontent!

(You can’t burn your draft card if they don’t freaking send it to you!)

…Not that I would actually burn the thing, (that’d be a crime,) but I might have burned a photocopy of it!

And so, my waiting game continued. I went about my life, accumulating a sizeable stack of mildly threatening letters. These letters were so threatening that they even threatened the sender with a “$300 penalty for Other-Than-Official use!”

The Highly-Trained Bureaucrats, (or their Highly-Trained Bureaucratic Computers) continued to send letters reminding me that I had nothing to fear from signing up for the draft. After all, I was registering for something that didn’t exist for decades!

Then, more than three months after this whole debacle started, the Highly-Trained (but grievously-undereducated) Bureaucrats began to whistle a new tune.

Because my file had been pulled, I was no longer in their system. They sent me a letter explaining that I had not fulfilled my obligation to register for the non-existent draft. Ostensibly, when they’d pulled my file, >>poooof!<< there was no more P.J. Creelman in the computer that couldn’t do a quick cross-reference with Social Security or the Passport Office.

(Hey, if the State Department, the Department of Defense and Social Security Administration couldn’t communicate among themselves, why on earth would I have expected The Department of Defense to be able to communicate with… The Department of Defense?!?)

This letter said, “Prove it… OR ELSE!!!”

So, I proved it. I grabbed a large envelope and mailed them every scrap of paper that I had received from them to-date. I also included the original copy of my birth certificate. I included photocopies of: my driver’s license, my passport, and my Social Security Card, my birth announcement in the Seattle Times, my Third Grade (Straight-A) report card. In included a newspaper clipping of the previous Tuesday’s “Garfield” comic strip, a two-for-one coupon from Arby’s and even my lucky “Raisin Bran Decoder Ring.” My team of Highly-Trained (but tragically-undereducated) Bureaucrats was getting everything I could throw at them. That poorly-educated, Highly-Trained, Solitaire-deprived Bureaucrat who was probably sitting in a smoke-filled cubicle was going to find out that I was exactly as young and immature as I said I was!

A few weeks later, I received my Birth Certificate back in the mail along with a note that said “Your information is being processed and updated. Thank you for the “Garfield” strip, it really hit me where I live.” (For the record, both my parents absolutely blew a gasket when they found out I’d mailed my original birth certificate to a Solitaire-deprived, Highly-Trained, Disturbingly-Undereducated Bureaucrat.)

I waited.

Finally, a few weeks later, I received a letter stating that they had corrected my date of birth to my actual birth date. (This was a considerable relief to my father, who would have gladly claimed a son for two additional years on his taxes.)

My draft number now reflected the birth date of an eighteen year old, albeit a smarmy, self-obsessed and cocky eighteen year old.

I was relieved. My parents were relieved. Somewhere in “The Other Washington,” a team of Highly-Trained, Solitaire-(And Tetris-)Deprived, Woefully-Undereducated, Handwriting-Victim Bureaucrats was now available to make a living Hell for another hapless 18-(Or 20-) year-old.

About two weeks later, I received another letter from the Department of Defense. I opened it, expecting a letter of apology, or a notice of surrender, or even my Decoder Ring.

What I didn’t expect was to find out that my previously-pulled file had apparently been reinserted into “the system.” The result was a reconfirmation of the 20-year-old P.J.’s birthdate.

So far as I could tell, I was not registered twice for a draft that had not happened for decades!

If I understood correctly, this meant that I could (and given my luck, likely would) be able to simultaneously be an honorably discharged veteran and a draft-evader.

The Bureaucrats had won. I figured that at this point, my best defense was to wait until the two-years-older version of me was too old to be drafted, and then announce that the two-years-younger version of me had died.

Now that I’m rapidly approaching old age, the issues is not as critical.

Needless to say, I finally understand what someone says “I’m beside myself” when they are faced with a perplexing issue.

(Author's Note: I have the utmost respect for the men and women who voluntarily sign up to serve this nation. It's the bureaucrats that get my goat.)

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