Who Am I Anyway?

[Tim May]

On Thursday, December 13, 2001, at 06:38 PM, Duncan Frissell wrote:

> At 05:10 PM 12/13/01 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>> Which is beside your point. Your statement was that the government 
>> didn't
>> do ANY identification for ANY of the soldiers in WWII. Patently wrong.
>> Quit trying to change the rules in the middle of the game.
>
>
>
>> AFTER the war started, not before. When the initial draft was executed 
>> it
>> was for 21-25 year old males only. They were required to register so 
>> that
>> the government knew who was getting drafted. That qualifies as
>> 'identification' and is proof contrary to your assertion.
>
> There's a difference between registering for the Draft or signing 
> enlistment papers and proving your identity.  I contend that proof of 
> identity was not required for US military service in WWII.  I'll 
> investigate further and see what I can come up with about the 
> enlistment process.
>

Seems to me there are more interesting things to spend time on than 
refuting Choate.

Item: There are huge numbers of reported cases (no, I don't have URLs, 
but I have heard testimonials directly, for example) of guys who lied 
about their ages to enlist. (Some later rose high in the ranks...). This 
is hard to do if a birth certificate is "required." I take this as 
strong evidence that birth certificates were not universally required, 
probably not even _usually_ required.

Item: Many hobos, drifters, and the like enlisted. Not a lot of them 
were in contact with their birth towns, or even knew where there birth 
towns were. I doubt many of them ever managed to get a copy of their 
birth certificates.

Item: Assumed names were, and still are to some extent, common in 
America. I doubt many able-bodied men were turned down for military 
service just because they'd changed their name one or more times.

Of course, in Choate Prime, the reality sometimes parallel to our own, 
but usually not, men routinely avoided the draft by the simple stratagem 
of not remembering where their mothers said they were born, thus making 
getting a birth certificate impossible. "Sorry, I have no idea where I 
was born. Momma says we moved around a lot. So I can't get a birth 
certificate. Be seein' ya!"

--Tim May
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any 
member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to 
others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient 
warrant." --John Stuart Mill