Removal from the Draft in the U.S.

Today I sent a letter to the Selective Service System. The SSS registers people for possible drafting into the military. In my letter I declare my removal from registration with the organization.The letter is copied and printed in its entirety here:

[address]

[phone]
[email]
October 5, 2017

To Whom It May Concern in the Selective Service System,

My name is Theodore Emmanuel Kirkley. I was born on July the 22nd in 1985 in a hospital in Queens, New York. When I was in my late teens, I remember registering with the Selective Service at the Post Office in Bridgeport, Connecticut in order to get Federal Student Aid.

I take full responsibility for the decision that I made to register with the Selective Service System.

However, my feelings and attitudes have changed in recent years. I cannot, in good conscience, remain registered with the Selective Service knowing that at some point I may be called to military service.

In the current times, military service in the United States implies being prepared to be trained in the art of combat which could and often does include the possibility of killing and taking the life of a person.

Let me be very clear: my strong moral belief is that it is wrong in every way and in any event to take the life of someone else. It is totally against God’s plan for his children.

I will now and in the future refuse any attempt to coerce myself into taking someone’s life, maiming them, or being trained in how to do so.

The only thing I am willing to do is everything possible to prevent an angry or misguided person from hurting another. That is, if there is an instance in which an individual is promising to inflict harm against one person or group, I may choose to restrain or restrict a person to the extent that I am able, and within reason, short of killing or maiming them.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Defense Department and U.S. Military is not geared towards prevention, restriction, or restraint. This country’s war machine is, by all evidence in recent years, geared chiefly towards the aim of inflicting violence in the interest to threaten, coerce, and dominate other countries and their peoples.

I cannot abide this attitude and will not offer my encouragement towards it by remaining a part of the Secret Service System.

With all the power that I have as a son of God and as a citizen in this country, I hereby remove myself as a registered person in the Selective Service System. This letter is legally binding by my signature and will act in all respects and events as evidence of my voluntary removal from the Selective Service System.

Signed,
[Theo Kirkley]