This Wouldn’t be My Grandmother’s Military Draft

On June 14, 2016, Flag Day in the United States of America, the US Senate approved a military policy bill which includes a requirement that all women, at age 18, need to notify their government on how to reach them if they are needed to fight to defend it. If this bill becomes law, women would need to register for “the draft” just like men.

What would my great grandmother, Elianor Tidswell Roberts Shaw would think of that?

I was a baby when grandma Nellie died, but family stories and her journal entries live on. I have a glass paperweight that preserves a oval shaped photograph of the woman, next to a photograph of a plain wooden building. Under these somebody provided the title “Friends Church. Elianor T. Roberts, Pastor.” Before she was the leader of the members of this Religious Society of Friends Church, (more commonly known as “Quakers”), she had enlisted, at the age of 18 in the Salvation Army. In short order, she rose to the rank of lieutenant. These weren’t Quakers, but they were devoutly Christian. They were men and women marching “onward as to war,” to preach their beliefs by serving the economically disadvantaged. They are today popularly known by their donated used goods thrift stores and by red kettles that appear on the streets of America at Christmas time, soliciting donations from passes by. Proceeds from these enterprises support a broad spectrum of charitable works.

Nellie’s work was to go into smoke filled bar rooms, announce that many of the men there were neglecting basic needs of their wives and children compelled by their need to spend limited salaries on alcoholic beverages. Nellie let it be known that it was her belief that if they came to believe in Jesus Christ, they would be better able to but down their glasses and get their asses back home. These were not easy rooms to preach in, in the 1890’s, in the low rent districts of Cincinnati, Ohio.  While her rank became lieutenant, her job title remained “slum worker.” She opened a day care center where mothers could leave their children to be supervised for ten cents a day, so they could do other people’s laundry, to compensate for the part of the family budget devoted to booze.

Nellie left the Salvation Army, quite honorably, to become a Quaker pastor. The Quakers have a long tradition believing in pacifism, that is a disbelief in the value of any war. This tradition is so long and strong, that it has been recognized in the United States that members of this church can qualify as Conscientious Objectors to military service if conscripted. That is, they are allowed to enter military service in non-combatant roles or do “alternate service” by working at qualified government human service agencies.

Nellie raised three sons. Two of them were excused from World War II, one volunteered to fight. He started to fight on December 7, 1941 as he was stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and kept at it until Japan surrendered. Nellie loved and supported him, as much as she did the other two, by all accounts I ever heard or read about.

Nellie’s three daughters weren’t subject to the draft. I bet she was amazed that they had earned the right to vote in her lifetime.

I bet Nellie would be amazed that women in the US today are allowed to engage in military combat positions. I think she would think that to be fair treatment under the law. I imagine she would have high praise for the distinguished service record of women in combat positions.

I imagine that Nellie would want traditional female skills sets to have a greater and greater influence on the historically male dominated culture of military service. This might include expansion on qualifications for Conscientious Objector status in times when military volunteers don’t meet the demand for combat ready men and women.

My grandmother might even call for mandatory government service for all citizens at the age of 18, if not enrolled in education or training programs. There is certainly plenty of work in need of doing to defend the well being of all United States citizens, (which includes the well being of those in the Country who are not citizens), when the military has enough man and woman power to meet that need. The US still has way too many slums.

I think Ms. Tidswell Roberts Shaw would have been encouraged by a growing wave of awareness in the USA of the horror of being raped. I think that she would be pissed that more wasn’t being done to prevent the sexual assault of women and men in the military, since this awareness has grown. I think she would have expected that freedom from sexual assault would, by now, be more of a priority in terms of Home Land Security.

I think she would believe that if ever there was something worth the risk of being killed over and killing for globally, it would be freedom from rape. As terribly sad as that may be.

I am the son of Nellie’s son who went to war. I didn’t get to enact the Conscientious Objector status that I qualified for, as the draft needed to fight that war in Vietnam, ended before my College exemption from the draft did. My father was very accepting of me. I was very proud of his military service record.

The views expressed in this article are Grandma Shaw’s, channeled through her admiring grandson.

In summation, I am one of those who think their should be mandatory service required of all US Citizens, with freedom to serve as military combatants or otherwise. I believe that both women and men should be able to engage in service to their Nation, without the fear of being sexually assaulted.

I believe that reserving the term feminist to describe opinions from those who identify as female, is best. Pro feminist, is a term which is best reserved for those who identify as male, who support both the movement for female equality and supporting an increased influencing of human culture by traditionally female culture.

Feminist thought is diverse with much healthy disagreement. Pro feminist thought is still but a whisper. Pro feminist men should not try to get away with an “I agree with what whatever she said,” political stance.

I am with those who believe that once women get entry into a boys club house, boys and girls, women and men, should work together to transform the club rules. Such transformation leads to the desiring of traditions, male, female or hybrid, as any given situation requires.

Requiring women to register for “the draft” in the USA, could be a milestone on the road to “Liberty and Justice for All.”

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Photo credit: Getty Images