13. The Selective Service categories evolved during World War One
Selective Service means just that; though all within the age limits must register for the draft, not all will be selected to serve. The draft boards and medical advisory committees determined into which one of five categories a registrant was entered. The act introduced the concept of hardship exemptions, dependent on the registrant’s family situation; exempted those enrolled in divinity schools or practicing ministers and priests, and somewhat strangely also exempted commissioned officers of the United States Army, Navy, and Marines. But an unmarried registrant with no dependent children who did not meet any of the exemption requirements could count on receiving a taxpayer funded trip to France.
Although aviation was in its infancy – even commercial aviation – all licensed pilots who were employed as such were exempt from the draft. Many served in the capacity of volunteers, and others served as civilian instructors for Army pilots during the war, training the young pilots who went to France, though many of the earliest American pilots received their training from the combat experienced British and French. The Selective Service Act of 1917 included all races, though the army and navy remained segregated. Over a half-million immigrants were drafted, many of them functionally illiterate in the language of the army in which they served, and the army responded with ethnically devolved units to counter the problem of the language barrier.