Draftees:

The United States imposed its first peacetime draft in October 1940 per the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. The men were to be inducted for a period of one year of service. In August 1941, President Roosevelt extended the term of service for the draftees indefinitely beyond one year. Many men threatened to go "over the hill in October," deserting once their original 12 month term was up. To accomplish the goals of the Act, over 6,000 local draft boards were created across the United States under the authority of the Selective Service, an independent government agency. Each draft board assigned all of the eligible registrants in its district (all men aged 21-38) a number, printed on a card along with other personal information. Due to the way the system worked, it was possible for many thousands of men across the United States to have the same number. An excellent article from America in WWII magazine chronicles the spectacle:

In Washington, papers with the numbers 1 through 7,836 printed on them were put into capsules, one number to a capsule. The capsules were dumped into a giant fishbowl that had been used for the same purpose in the WWI draft. The capsules were then stirred with a wooden spoon fashioned from part of a beam from Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. Finally the capsules were drawn from the bowl one by one to establish the draft order. In a predictable photo opportunity staged on lottery day, October 29, 1940, a blindfolded Secretary of War Henry Stimson reached into the bowl and pulled out the first capsule. From a nearby podium, President Franklin Roosevelt announced the number drawn: 158. Across the country, 6,175 young men held that number [on their draft registration card]

The same process was used for other draft calls throughout the war.

After having his number "come up," a man then received a letter from his local draft board that had the branch of service selected by the government for him (not much choice here) and where to report for medical examination and induction (or rejection) We'll use the Army as an example. In order to not be rejected in the initial draft call in October 1940, and most of the other draft calls throughout WWII, a man needed to:

• Be between five, and six and one-half feet tall

• Weigh at least 105 pounds

• Not have flat feet or venereal (sexually transmitted) diseases

• Be functionally literate

• Have at least twelve of his natural teeth

• Have vision correctable with eyeglasses

Fully half of the men inducted in the October 1940 draft call were rejected for one reason or another; 20 percent of the rejections were due to illiteracy, possibly because of the hard times of the Great Depression.

Towards the end of the war the Army got desperate. The draft exemption for fathers was removed in late 1943. Men who suffered from venereal disease were treated with the new miracle drug penicillin after induction. Draftees could be utterly toothless, be missing one or both external ears, or three fingers (including a trigger finger) or a thumb on one hand only.

Volunteers:

Before the signing of Executive Order 9279 by President Roosevelt on December 5, 1942, men aged 17 to 45 who were not selected in one of the draft calls were free to sign up for the military as they pleased; many did, especially as the war heated up in 1941 and after Pearl Harbor.

Executive Order 9279 did several things, including:

• Adjusted the draft age from 21-36 to 18-37

• Eliminated most voluntary enlistments; generally all men would now be taken via draft. Men who were aged 17, and those who were aged 38 to 45 could still enlist voluntarily, provided that they met the qualifications for service

• Reclassified the Selective Service from being its own agency, to an agency under the War Manpower Commission

When a man got to the recruiting office (again, we will use the United States Army as an example) he was medically examined and then filled out an eight-page questionnaire. The questionnaire also required the man to place information about his job in civilian life, if he had one. This question had some general bearing about what Military Occupational Specialty he would be assigned. Combat jobs such as a rifleman or a tanker did not really have a civilian equivalent.

The Secretary of the Army also developed a formula in order to assign some draftees (and the few volunteers) their jobs when manpower became a serious issue in 1944. The formula contrasted the current total of men in the Army with the authorized number per the many Tables of Organization and Equipment. Per 1,000 men, an iteration of the formula might say that 65 men were to be cooks, 135 were to be riflemen, and 220 were to be truck drivers.

After some time, the man then received a letter noting his induction or rejection, and if applicable where he needed to report for training. In many cases, this was the first time a man had been on a train, or even outside of his county.

Training:

If a soldier was selected to be, say, a mortarman, machine gunner, or infantryman in and was assigned to an infantry division, he would follow the training schedule that was in effect at the time for his assigned division; it could vary. Training for infantry divisions was reduced from 44 to 38 weeks beginning in November 1942. Keep in mind that upwards of a dozen divisions could be in training at one time or another across the United States.

For example, the 65th Infantry Division:

Date	Event
May 31 - July 2, 1943	Basic and officer training for officers of various branches (infantry, artillery, etc.)
July 3, 1943	Division commander, general staff, and chauffeurs arrive
July 8, 1943	Guard and service personnel and some enlisted men for high-level headquarters and other units arrive
July 10, 1943	More officers arrive
July 13, 1943	Ordnance Light Maintenance and Quartermaster Companies arrive; more enlisted men arrive
July 15, 1943	Equipment used for training arrives
July 24 - 27, 1943	Remainder of officers arrive
August 16, 1943	Division activated
August 16 - 26, 1943	Remainder of enlisted men arrive
August 31, 1943	Training year of 38 weeks commences; 14 weeks of basic and individual training for enlisted men, 12 weeks of small unit training, and 12 weeks of combined arms training
September 20, 1943	Officer overstrength arrives
December 31, 1944	Movement to Camp Shanks, NY for staging
January 10, 1945	Boarded troop transports
January 21, 1945	Arrived at Le Havre, France
March 9, 1945	Entered combat

Pages 445 to 448 of The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops gives a good general overview of what usually occurred during a division's training.

The men, depending upon their specialty, would often travel to different bases to train. Throughout the war, the number of training locations expanded at a dizzying rate, and as the war went on, training schedules were modified to suit the needs of the Army especially as the manpower issue reared its head in 1944. The division would then reunite for large-scale maneuvers before movement to a staging area for deployment overseas.

During the middle and towards the end of the war, many of the divisions still in training in the United States (which by then were mostly Army of the United States divisions) were "stripped" of enlisted men to be sent overseas as replacements for casualties. Four armored divisions, an airborne division, and seventeen infantry divisions experienced stripping of men. Fourteen infantry divisions were stripped twice, and this delayed training; the 69th Infantry Division lost a cumulative total of 1,336 officers and 22,235 enlisted men! A US infantry division with no attachments had about 14,200 officers and men. Many men, especially later in the war, were never even assigned to divisions or any other unit in the first place. They were trained explicitly as replacements, and were sent unassigned overseas to be distributed at replacement depots.

Training for armored, cavalry, and tank destroyer units each had different schedules, locations, and processes. The Tank Destroyer Tactical and Firing Center at Camp Hood, Texas comprised over 200,000 acres and could train up to 100,000 men at one time.