Closed Hatch

While Congress' new draft law awaited the President's signature, thousands of young men had stormed the nation's armories. To them, a three-year hitch in the National Guard or Organized Reserves (with regular drill periods near home) looked much better than a 21-month hitch as a draftee. By the time the President signed the law, the reserves were chockablock with new recruits, and the Guard was almost over its national goal of 341,000 enlistments for 1948-49.

Then the escape hatch closed. In a droning Pentagon press conference last week, Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall announced that registration for the draft would begin the third week of August, the first inductions probably in October. By November the induction rate will be stepped up to 30,000 a month, will pull in an estimated 250,000 draftees before next July. Including 18-year-old volunteers and regular enlistments, the Army hopes to be up to 790,000 men by then, the bulk of them organized into a striking force of twelve Regular Army divisions and six National Guard divisions, backed up by combat and service troops from the regulars and the reserves.

With some minor changes, the 1948-49 draftees could look forward to just about what their older brothers faced in 1940. Most of them would go into the Army, while the Navy and Air Force would rely mainly on volunteers. Basic training would last eight weeks at the start, be increased to 12 to 13 weeks as soon as emergency manpower shortages were filled. All draftees would be eligible for promotion. The biggest difference between 1940 and 1948 would be in the method of selection. Instead of the goldfish bowl lottery, draftees would be picked by age groups, would be inducted in the order of their birthdays.

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