Selective+Service+and+the+GI-1

Name: Alfred Stockley Age: 21 Birthday: May 10, 1897 Ethnicity: White High School: Hobdy High Hometown: Hobdy, Alabama Relationships: married with 3 kids

It was a few days after my birthday eighteenth birthday and I had just received notice that there was a draft in America. Anyone between the ages of 18 and 25 //had// to sign up! I didn’t mind though, because I knew not many people would be chosen out of the 24 million men who had registered by 1918. I was really surprised when I found out that I had been drafted! I was one of the youngest and yet one of the 3 million chosen (Danzer 382)! I just got in a serious relationship with my girlfriend, Kathy, (who is now my wife) and was really disappointed to leave her. She tried to register but wasn’t allowed because the law was already passed and in order for women to enroll, Congress would have to amend the law. Women would have been able to be allowed to register and be drafted if the Selective Service System was given additional funding (“WOMEN” 1). Even though females weren’t allowed to join the army, they were still allowed to join the Army Corps of Nurses; however, they received no pay or benefits. All terms considered, there were still 13,000 women to join; Kathy was one of them, this way I would still be able to see her (Danzer 382).

Before actually being sent to war, I had to go through an eight month training period. Seventeen hours a day I was required to take target practice, work kitchen duty, clean up around the place, and take bayonet drills. There weren’t many weapons available so I was given a stick and told to “pretend it was a gun”. It was hard but I managed (Danzer 382)!

As I said before, I was one of the three million people to be drafted and, knowing my luck, I was one of the two million of the three million to actually go to Europe. Luckily, I was one of the three-fourths that didn’t actually see combat (Danzer 382).

In 1944, Congress passed the GI Bill (Danzer 592). This bill was passed as “an education assistance program enacted by Congress to benefit the high-quality men and women enrolled in the Selected Reserve of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, and the Army and Air National Guard” (“Active” 1). I was allowed to go to school for thirty-six months, FREE! I could go for college/business; technical or vocational courses; correspondence courses; apprenticeship/job training; or flight training. I would also get a degree from a college or university (“Active” 1). I was one of the 7.8 veterans that attended college due to the GI Bill, and I didn’t have to pay a cent of it because the Federal Government paid for it all! Also, I was guaranteed a federal loan so I could go back to Alabama and buy a farm that I and my wife could settle on (Danzer 592). For the veterans who intended on getting a job, they were guaranteed a year’s worth of unemployment benefits until they got a job (Danzer 635).

http://www.english.ucla.edu/ucla1960s/6061/schroeder3.htm

Works Cited “Active Duty for Active Support.” GiBill.com. 2007. 23 October 2007 <[|http://www.gibill.com/gibill-active.cfm>.] Danzer, Gerald A., et al. The Americans. Evanston, Illinois: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. “WOMEN AND THE DRAFT.” Fast Facts. 2002. 23 October 2007 <[|http://www.sss.gov/FSwomen.htm>.]