2-B or not 2-B, the Selective Service Notice of Classification

It's late 1940; Harold Peay is 31 years old with a wife and three young boys.  Eight tenuous years of FDR and the New Deal trying to pull the economy out the Great Depression has resulted in massive government debt.  The United States enacts conscription in September of 1940.  The Federal Government is requiring that every male between the ages of 21 and 36 serve in the armed forces for at least 12 months.

Think about that; every male ― 21 to 36 ― required to join the military for at least 12 months.

An exception to the conscription requirement is essential services. If you work in a reserved occupation, you are not only exempt from being drafted into the military; you are, in fact forbidden from military service.  Reserved occupations are considered jobs vital to the country and the war effort which could not be abandoned or performed by others.  Jobs such as steel workers; many of Harold’s friends and family are working at Geneva Steel, even he had worked as a fireman there.  So what about the family dairy? Every bit of non-perishable food is being sent to Europe in support of our allies’ fight against the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.  On December 7, 1941, a Japanese attack on the U.S naval base on the island territory of Hawai'i known as Pearl Harbor. the United States is drawn into World War II.   Conscription now requires military service "for the duration", meaning until the war ends.  By 1945, the Federal Government is requiring that every male between the ages of 18 and 45 serve in the armed forces for at least 18 months.

So who would work the dairy that supplies fresh food to the steel workers?  Wives and daughters are working in factories and farms.  Food is being rationed; a pound of butter and a quart of milk are coveted commodities.  And Harold is exempt; in a way that is a good thing... and a bad thing.  He knows he is safe at home and he doesn't have to leave is young family alone.  But Harold has also learned that his dad has been paying some of the dairy workers much more than him; he wants out of the family farm.  Other family members are exempt from military service, but they are also being paid fair wages at the steel mill.  Besides he wants to serve his county... do his part. Sure, he donates blood as often as possible.  They keep sticking the needle in that same spot, hopefully the lump on his right arm will eventually go away.  The war will be coming to an end and soon, and hundreds of trained, able bodied men will be returning to look for jobs.  If he could just quit the dairy and maybe move to Salt Lake...

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The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, also known as the Burke-Wadsworth Act, was passed by the 76th United States Congress of the United States on September 14 1940, becoming the first peacetime conscription in United States history when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law two days later on September 16, 1940.  The draft was ended in 1946 and the original Act was allowed to expire in 1947. Grandpa Peay was classified by the Selective Service System Local Board as a 2-B; registrant deferred because of occupation in a war industry; defense contractor or reserved occupation.  For the duration of the Burke-Wadsworth act, he was expected to remain in his occupation.  He was also required to keep with him at all times, proof of his SSS classification.  There were most certainly earlier versions, but from its issuance on May 17, 1945 until November 16, 1946, Grandpa carried this Notice of Classification.

Grandpa told me several times about how he donated blood for the war effort; how he wondered if the "fatty" lump on his right forearm that eventually engulfed is arm and resulted in its amputation, was caused by the repeated needle insertions.  He often talked of working as a fireman at Geneva, throwing sand on the fires that would start when molten steel splashed from the blast furnaces onto the surrounding wood structure.  He also talked about how his brothers went on to the steel mill to work and he stayed at home to help out on the farm.  I remember Dad (Morris) telling how he and Clark would take Keith in a wagon and wait in front of the local store to be first in line to buy butter; they had plenty of ration stamps, the store would just run out.

Whenever I see this card I think about July of 1980 when President Carter retroactively re-establishing the Selective Service registration requirement for all 18-26 year old male citizens and how I had to register with the Selective Service.  I think about how lucky and blessed I was to live at a time when the only requirement that my country demanded of me in defense of liberty was that I give them my name and address, "just in case".  I think about the brave men who have fought for the preservation of the freedoms we, I, hold dear.  The freedoms that the founding fathers declared and the founding brothers defended. I think of the difficulties and sacrifices every US citizen made in the name of freedom and liberty.  When men― real men― like Clark, Keith, Dad, and Danny, during the Korean conflict; and Calvin and Jay during Vietnam, left their families to serve a cause greater than themselves.

Now we complain if our latte' is cold or if our fries are cooked in the wrong grease. 

We really need to get over ourselves...