{"id":23741,"date":"2016-02-18T00:01:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T08:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=23741"},"modified":"2016-02-18T00:01:06","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T08:01:06","slug":"revisiting-my-first-blog-post-ever-how-the-selective-service-made-a-man-of-my-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/revisiting-my-first-blog-post-ever-how-the-selective-service-made-a-man-of-my-son\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting My First Blog Post Ever — How the Selective Service Made a Man of My Son"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cover<\/a>
The Selective Service notice — I left it at the post office.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Note to readers. Seven years ago\u00a0this month, in\u00a02009, I posted my first blog post, and localhost\/baarbaar\/ was born. I hope you have enjoyed visiting this website as much as I have enjoyed sharing my adventures and posting my photos.\u00a0<\/em>Here’s that first post:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A\u00a0colorful pamphlet, was standing\u00a0at crisp attention in its rack in the post office lobby. \u201cMEN 18-25 YEARS,\u201d it read. \u201cYou can handle this. REGISTER. It\u2019s quick. It\u2019s easy. It\u2019s the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was busy. Christmas was a week away and our annual holiday letter needed mailing. But the block-lettered words, \u201cMEN 18-25 YEARS,\u201d stopped me in my tracks. In two weeks my son Peter would be eighteen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Teenaged<\/a>
Ready for the prom. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I took the insistent little pamphlet from its rack and opened it. All male U.S. citizens must register for Selective Service <\/a>\u2013 aka the draft <\/a>\u2013 within thirty days of their eighteenth birthday, it said. \u201cYoung men convicted of failure to register may be fined up to $250,000, imprisoned for up to five years, or both.\u201d A registration form was attached.<\/p>\n

Six weeks. Peter had six weeks to fill out this form and get it into the mail. \u201cNot registering is a felony,\u201d the form said. \u201cFailure to register may cause you to permanently forfeit eligibility for certain benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was a good mother. I\u2019d made sure my son had had his polio and tetanus shots right on schedule. He\u2019d been signed up for soccer in the fall and Little League in the spring. And just a few months earlier, I\u2019d bought Peter not one, but three, college guides and taken him on a week-long tour of college campuses. Back home as he completed the applications, I\u2019d proofread them, written the checks, dug the stamps out of my wallet and licked the envelopes.<\/p>\n

And now, as his parent and the person Peter had been able to rely on to sign him up punctually for everything from nursery school to orthodontia, as that responsible adult, I ought to have stuffed this brochure into my purse, taken it home and stood over Peter while he filled it out and signed it. I should have licked the envelope.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t. It\u2019s not that I was pacifist. I wasn\u2019t and I\u2019m not \u2013 quite. The trouble was, I was Peter\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

The values and scruples I\u2019d held dear over the years \u2013 loyalty to my home country, my sense of duty, my sense of fair play \u2013 were nothing compared to the dearness to me of my son. This was 1998, and there seemed to be little chance that Peter or any other young American would be drafted any time soon.<\/p>\n

Still, the brochure felt like a death warrant in my hands. It was about war. It was about Peter<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Peter behind the wheel for his first solo drive in the family car. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

going to war. And if anyone was going\u00a0to send Peter off to war and into harm\u2019s way, it sure as heck wasn\u2019t going to be me.<\/p>\n

At age seventeen, Peter and his friends were still boys. Their beards were soft, their fast-growing arms and legs more bone than muscle, their voices scratchy and tentative. They were boys, which meant that they could be both flattered by the Selective Service System\u2019s carefully chosen \u201cMen 18-25\u201d and intimidated by its \u201cRegister . . . It\u2019s the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The powers that be at the Selective Service System must have spent a fortune getting the wording just right for this brochure. Lead with flattery, close with a threat. They were good at what they did, and they were after my son.<\/p>\n

They would get him in the end. Peter was, as the pamphlet announced, a man. Or close to it. He could handle this. He could sign himself up. But\u00a0he wouldn\u2019t be doing it\u00a0with my help.<\/p>\n

I put the pamphlet back in the rack and stepped out of the line of command.<\/p>\n

My son Peter is thirty-five now, and he manages his own life just fine.\u00a0 Read about Peter as a little guy at \u201cWhen Your 6-Year-Old Wants to Talk Money<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0And an adult at\u00a0“I’m Thankful for a Clean Oven, Fresh Ice Cubes and a Daughter-in-Law-to-Be.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The powers that be at the Selective Service System were after my son. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1621,77,34,1526,54,1622,82,1152,56,57,1623,60],"class_list":["post-23741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","tag-adult-children","tag-civic-duty","tag-dont-miss","tag-empty-nest","tag-grown-up-kids","tag-motherhood","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-parenting","tag-peter","tag-selective-service","tag-sons","tag-the-draft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}