{"id":203757,"date":"2026-03-11T18:10:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T18:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/is-the-draft-coming-back-for-the-iran-war-what-to-know-daytona-beach-news-journal\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T18:10:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T18:10:35","slug":"is-the-draft-coming-back-for-the-iran-war-what-to-know-daytona-beach-news-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/is-the-draft-coming-back-for-the-iran-war-what-to-know-daytona-beach-news-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the draft coming back for the Iran war? What to know – Daytona Beach News-Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the U.S. and Israel launched a deadly strike on Iran<\/a> on Saturday, Feb. 28 and followed it up with more bombings<\/a> amid Iran’s retaliatory strikes, many Americans have been concerned about getting drafted<\/a> into combat.
Those concerns were not soothed by White House Press Secretary\u00a0Karoline Leavitt<\/a>‘s public comments in a press conference and an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures<\/a>” with Maria Bartiromo on March 8, when Bartiromo said mothers were worried about seeing sons and daughters called up.
Leavitt didn’t rule anything out, saying that “(President\u00a0Donald Trump) wisely does not remove options off of the table.” She added there were no immediate plans for troops on the ground, but Trump “wants to continue to assess the success of this military operation.”
Trump, speaking to the press on\u00a0Air Force One on March 7<\/a>, dismissed the idea, saying it was possible but only for “a very good reason.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told CBS News<\/a> that \u201cwe\u2019re\u00a0willing to go as far as we need to\u00a0in order to\u00a0be successful.\u201d
The conflict has so far killed\u00a0seven Americans<\/a>, at least 1,230 people in Iran, nearly 400 in Lebanon and at least 11 in Israel.
Here’s what to know.
Not easily, under the current law. Congress would have to amend the Military Selective Service Act<\/a>.
Under the\u00a0War Powers Act<\/a>\u00a0of 1973, the president can authorize military actions, but may not deploy troops for more than 90 days unless Congress formally declares war. While Trump has frequently referred to the U.S.-Israel-Iran battle as a war, the current military operations in\u00a0Iran have not been approved by Congress<\/a>\u00a0as an act of war.
The last draft call happened in 1972. The current U.S. military is an all-volunteer force.
However, in 2024,\u00a0The Washington Post reported<\/a>\u00a0that “a cluster of influential former administration officials and GOP lawmakers … have mused aloud about a national service mandate and other measures to remedy what they see as a ‘crisis’ facing the all-volunteer military.”
Since 1980, nearly all adult men in the United States, both resident and immigrant, have been legally required to sign up for selective service in case another draft becomes necessary in times of national emergency. This is based on the sex assigned at birth, regardless of later gender identities or gender reassignment.
The Selective Service System<\/a> is an independent agency that maintains a database of registered adult men in the U.S. who are potentially available for military conscription, also called the draft.
Virtually all male U.S. citizens and immigrants living in the country, documented or undocumented, who are between the ages of 18 and 25, are required to sign up for selective service within 30 days of their 18th birthday.
Failure to register<\/a> is a felony punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and\/or 5 years imprisonment. It also may leave the person ineligible for state-funded student financial aid, employment in many states, most federal employment, job training under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and, for immigrant men, U.S. citizenship.
This will change on Dec. 18, 2026, when eligible men will be registered automatically using data from other government databases, thanks to the National Defense Authorization Act<\/a> passed in December 2025.
Florida already automatically registers eligible men<\/a> between 18 and 26 when they use any online driver’s license service. Selective Service registration is required in Florida<\/a> to receive a driver’s license, a learner\u2019s driver’s license, a commercial driver’s license, an identification card, or any renewals.
Women are not required by law to register for selective service, but may if they wish.
There aren’t a lot of exceptions. They include:
That’s it. You must still register if you are clergy, the sole surviving son of the family line, disabled, the sole source of support for someone else, a refugee or asylum seeker, or religiously or morally opposed to war, although you can apply for deferment or noncombatant assignment if you are drafted.
By lottery. According to the Selective Service System, numbers would be drawn in a nationally televised and livestreamed lottery<\/a>. The numbers, 1 to 366, would correspond to a day of the year, including leap years. The number one would mean January 1, 70 would be March 10, and so on.
If the number drawn corresponds to your birthday, you’re drafted.
In previous drafts, officials established cutoff numbers each year based on military needs, so if they drew that many and stopped, and your number wasn’t called, you didn’t have to go. Men at the time called it having a “lucky number.”
Men who were 20 years old would be the first to be drafted, the SSS said, with eligible men dropping into lower priority categories each time they aged a year. If a draft-eligible man reaches his 26th birthday without being called, he would no longer be eligible for the draft. The last to be called would be men who were 19 and finally 18\u00bd.
Once you are drafted, you may apply for an exemption, a deferment, or a postponement from military service.
The most common deferments available are for high school and college students, certain civilian occupations, medical specialists needed in the community, ministerial students, family hardship, and U.S. officials.
Ministers are exempt from military service. You may also be excluded for medical reasons, if you have already completed military service, or if you possess foreign or dual citizenship.
Yes. You must still register for selective service if you are a conscientious objector<\/a>.
Once you were called up, you could file a claim and, if approved, serve your time in a noncombatant role. You may also file a claim saying you were opposed to both combatant and noncombatant training and service.
You would be required to appear before your local draft board to explain your beliefs, and may be asked to plead your case with written documentation or personal witness testimony to prove you held those beliefs before the draft.
C. A. Bridges is a journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida’s service journalism Connect team. You can get all of Florida\u2019s best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Since the U.S. and Israel launched a deadly strike on Iran on Saturday, Feb. 28 and followed it up with more bombings amid Iran’s retaliatory strikes, many Americans have been concerned about getting drafted into combat.Those concerns were not soothed by White House Press Secretary\u00a0Karoline Leavitt‘s public comments in a press conference and an appearance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-203757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}