105th Anniversary of the Selective Service

On May 18th, 2022, the Selective Service Acting Director Craig Brown laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the 105th anniversary of the Selective Service System and honor the life of General Lewis Blaine Hershey.

The Selective Service has advanced considerably from its original conception, and the ongoing achievements could not have been sustained and developed without the accomplishments General Hershey sought during his dedicated tenure with the Selective Service. His vision to provide our nation with the most prompt, efficient, and equitable draft still serves as our mission today and continues to be a key component of our nation’s national security strategy.

As the third tier of National defense for our all-volunteer military force, the Selective Service continues to register men in a fair and equitable manner, while modernizing our systems and implementing new innovative processes through existing procedures. Innovation remains a key element of success for the Agency, and while we are over a century old, we continue to refine and advance our vision and mission. This past year, we implemented an enterprise content management system providing technology enhancements for productivity and customer service – this increased the efficiency and precision of an estimated one million registration transactions. Our Agency also engaged with a greater number and more diverse set of stakeholders by leveraging remote meeting platforms and other modalities as a means of effective communication resulting in over 105 stakeholder meetings in 2021, more than any previous year.

Currently, registration with the Selective Service is the most publicly visible program during peacetime that ensures operational readiness in a fair and equitable manner. If authorized by the President and Congress, our Agency would rapidly provide personnel to the Department of Defense while at the same time providing an Alternative Service Program for conscientious objectors.

The Selective Service enables our nation to respond to its manpower needs, should it be called upon to do so. We are a small agency with a huge mission, and while young men have not been called for service or draft in nearly fifty years, our Agency helps to prepare and fulfill the promise made by generations of Americans that came before us; to protect our freedom as a constitutional republic.

Watch Acting Director Craig Brown lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the 105th anniversary of the Selective Service and  honor General Lewis Blaine Hershey below.