While searching old threads I came across this one dealing with minors enlisting. In post number 7 YPOD mentioned that his mother’s friend signed her son up for the military without his consent circa 1974 (after the draft was abolished) :dubious: . I know 17 year olds need parental consent to enlist, but did parents ever have the legal right to sign their children up against their will?
Sounds urban legend-esque to me. A minor who wishes to enlist must have the parent’s permission. Nobody can be signed up against their will. There’s that whole constitution thing interfering with that.
Minors can be sent to military schools against their will, and perhaps that’s the source of the misconception. Troublesome boys are often sent to, and more often threatened with, military schools. It was one of my dad’s scariest threats, right up there with sending me to “the insane doctor” (I always pictured Vincent Price.)
I enlisted at age 17, but I wanted to go. It required my mother’s consent, which was less than enthusiastic. She signed after some argument and I was outta’ there!
The closest thing to forcing someone to enlist that I’m aware of is this: I had two friends that were given the option to: “Join the Army or go to jail” by a juvenile court judge. They both joined up, although one chose the Navy, which seemed to satisfy the judge.
I’m curious, when was this?
One of my cohorts in Air Force basic training said he was given the choice of joining up or going to jail. This was in 1979. If I remember correctly, he was from Kentucky.
Then your cohort was full of bluster.
UK
I once sold a car to a very well adjusted guy, he wanted it for his daughter.
We went for a beer to seal the deal and he told me how a magistrate gave him a choice of jail or the army - that must have been in the 1950s which is odd as conscription ended in 1963 - possibly he was below 18
Anyway, he was very grateful to the magistrate - things worked out well.
Can you say there is no chance of a judge using his power to bully a shiftless youngster into the military as an alternative to jail? Rural judges, especially, tend to exercise their powers to create unorthodox solutions to cases before them. While we might doubt the veracity of such a story, I would not discount it entirely; certainly one cannot say with certainty that it is incorrect. 
Something like this happened in my family. When my uncle was 17, he dropped out of high school and my grandmother “took him down to the Army recruiter and signed him up.” At least, this is how the story is always repeated.
Now, I don’t think Grandma could have actually made Teddy go, if he hadn’t wanted to. Even being underage Teddy had to sign too and if he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have taken him. He could have walked right out of the office and that would have been it. However, he couldn’t have gone back home with my grandmother. She was actually giving him a choice – join the Army, or go back to high school, or move out on your own. Teddy chose option number one – the draft was still on and he knew he’d likely be drafted anyway, once he turned 18. So he joined up (and ended up staying in the Army for 20 years; 4 combat tours in Vietnam; 2 Silver Stars and a Bronze Star).
Knowing my grandmother, she probably did this all with High Drama – “I’m here to sign this boy up for the Army!” And that was certainly how she always characterized the situation, as did Teddy, and as does my mom and her survivng brother (Ted died at 38, shortly after he retired). I imagine similar situations have led to the popularity of the misconception that it is actually possible for a parent to force a kid into the service.
In the original film (not the recent remake) Flight of the Phoenix one of the characters was in the British Army. HJe explains that he had gone in as a “boy soldier”, and been in ever since. The implication given was that either his parents had signed him up, or else he had agreed to go without knowing what he was getting into. I assume the film (and book it was based on) were accurate in this (although they really screwed up the description of Henson and Stringfellow’s 19th century model airplane work, so maybe I shouldn’t trust them on this).
Monty, for what it is worth, I had a Chief when I was in the Navy that was given the choice between Jail or Enlistment. I would hazard a guess he joined somewhere between 1968 and 1972.
To the best of my knowledge, he was by far not the only one.
Jim
Bill Janklow was something of an outlaw biker in his youth, until given a choice between jail or the Marine Corps. Janklow did 5 years in the Marines, went to college and law school, and eventually wound up governor of South Dakota.
Florida, 1959.
High-school dropouts facing legal difficulties don’t usually stand up to a judge and scream “I know my constitutional rights!”
I was in the Air Force from 1959 through 1963 and met several more boys who were given the " military service or jail" option.
I worked in a residential home for teenage males in 1984 - the manager said when he’d started in the 70’s the “jail or enlist” choice was routine, but by my time it was impossible. This may be one reason there was such a big difference between the army that left Vietnam and the one that liberated Kuwait, but it left a lot of teenage heads full of shit that, in an earlier era, had the armed forced as a means of knocking it out of for them.
The OP: here’s one proof that there never was a legal way for parents to sign their teenage sons away to the army: there wouldn’t have been any need for recruiters, just designated drop-off zones with fenced enclosures.
Also something of an outlaw driver in his old age: Bill Janklow - Wikipedia
True dat! Although I did not personally face the “jail or service” ultimatum it was probably on the near horizon when I enlisted shortly after my 17th birthday.
Four years later I had a GED and then went on to earn a college degree. I spent my working career in a field related to my college education, which was nice.
Don’t think things would have turned out so well for me if I hadn’t had the opportunity to grow up during those four years of military service.
Brilliant!
If the constitution doesn’t prohibit the state from signing someone up against their will why would it prohibit the state from allowing parents from signing their offspring up against their will? :dubious: The fact that a minor is involved is irrelevant since minors can also be drafted.
I don’t think so. I have a Lieutenant who works for me, who says the best day of his life was when the judge told him he could go to jail or go in the military. This was in 1985 in Texas. He subsequently finished his initial enlisted tour, went to college and came back in the Navy as an Officer. I have no reason whatsoever to doubt his accounting of this.
My situation was pretty much the opposite. I got into some trouble when I was 15-16. I ended up on “probation” al though I do not recall any court proceedings. Two of my buddies joined the Navy reserve and I convinced my Dad to let me join also. I soon found out that I could request active duty w/o any further permission from my parents, so I applied and was accepted. My Dad, who wanted me to get back into H.S. accepted it. My probation officer was pretty angry, he said I couldn’t do it w/o his permission. I sweated it out for a few weeks, but apparently the PO didn’t do anything and I left for boot camp.
This was in 1956. Judges giving guys the military/jail choice was fairly common back then. I can even imaging a father marching a kid down to the recruiting office and telling them his son was there to join up, it’s likely they would have complied if the kid was otherwise eligible, although I never actually heard of that happening. In those days most guys didn’t talk back to their fathers and most people accepted that as the norm.