15. The first peacetime draft in American history preceded World War II
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Army and Navy, in a rare event of inter-service cooperation during those years, created the Joint Army-Navy Selective Service Committee. Designed to address the issues of manpower requirements for both of the services then extant (the Marine Corps being part of the Navy) the committee completed its work, but Congress refused to fund nor authorize a peacetime draft, out of fear of the isolationists and the America First movements. In 1940, with the Germans sweeping across France and Britain about to face them alone, Congress relented to public opinion polls which indicated that more than 70% of Americans favored compulsory military training for young men.
The Selective Service Act of 1940 was the first peacetime draft, and it ensured that the United States would have at least a trained core for a wartime army. Men between the ages of 21 and 35 were required to register and the draft itself was decided by a national lottery annually. Service for those drafted was to be for one year. The number of men in training was limited to 900,000. In August 1941 the term of service was extended to two and a half years, and the cap on men in training was raised, though many of the army troops being trained lacked basic equipment such as rifles. In December 1941, all men between the ages of 18 and 64 were required to register with the Selective Service System.