Don had no higher education, and as far as we know didn’t work in any critical defense industry. He seemed to be healthy, and was able to enlist for Korea a few years later.
It would have been an uncommon situation for an otherwise physically able 18 year old man to avoid military service in the United States in mid-1944, barring a deferment or medical condition that prevented limited or any military service. The Mad Men wiki states that Don Draper claims a birth date of 1 June 1926 due to assuming the identity of Dick Whitman during the Korean War, although his actual birth date is 1 December 1925
Joshua Angrist and Alan B. Krueger’s 1994 article Why Do World War II Veterans Earn More Than Nonveterans in the Journal of Labor Economics, while primarily an economics-focused analysis, also provides valuable information about rates of military participation among the men studied.
Angrist and Krueger included men born in 1928 and 1929. The U.S. government did not terminate hostilities (Proclamation 2714) with the Axis until 31 December 1946, and if military members were in service before 31 December 1946, continuous service up to before 24 July 1947 is considered World War II service for benefits purposes.
It can be seen that the proportion of men in each quarter year who served in World War II begins to decline in mid-1926.
Military Service and Quarter of Birth Among 335,979 Men
| Year of birth | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1922 | 77.9% | 78.2% | 78.2% | 77.6% |
| 1923 | 76.0% | 76.9% | 76.9% | 76.7% |
| 1924 | 75.9% | 75.7% | 76.0% | 75.8% |
| 1925 | 74.4% | 74.5% | 76.1% | 74.9% |
| 1926 | 74.9% | 74.5% | 73.2% | 73.0% |
| 1927 | 71.4% | 69.5% | 63.3% | 58.1% |
| 1928 | 44.5% | 30.6% | 25.4% | 22.3% |
| 1929 | 17.0% | 12.6% | 10.9% | 8.5% |
On 5 December 1942, the possibility of voluntary enlistment into the U.S. military was terminated for men aged 18 to 37 to ensure a more orderly flow of manpower from civilian life into the military with president Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9279. Men aged 17 could voluntarily enlist as they were not subject to Selective Service procedures. Simultaneous with the signing of the order, the military ruled that men over the age of 38 were more useful in civilian life, and refused their acceptance, preventing their induction.
Men aged 18 to 37 could now only wait to receive a notice to report for induction, or choose to “voluntarily induct” themselves, which would place them at the top of their Selective Service local board’s list the next time they were ordered to furnish a group of men to forward to the military to initiate induction procedures. I have written extensively about the mechanical aspects of the WWII draft in many of my previous posts, which can be seen on my profile here. Men who turned 18 on or after 1 January 1943 were required to register with their assigned Selective Service local board on their birthday, provided that it was not on a Sunday or legal holiday; if their birthday fell on a Sunday or legal holiday, they were required to register as soon as possible afterwards on a day that was not a Sunday or legal holiday. During WWII, Draper would have used his December birthday, so I’ll outline the process that Selective Service local boards used to fill calls from mid-1943 to the beginning of 1945;
The Sequence During the Period July 31, 1943, to December 10, 1943
During the period July 31, 1943, to December 10, 1943, in order to fill the remainder of the call, the local board from the groups listed below, and insofar as possible in the order in which the groups are listed, was to select and order to report for induction specified men finally classified in Class I-A and Class I-A-O who were available for induction:
1.) Men with no dependents...
2.) Men with collateral dependents...
3.) Men who had wives with whom they maintained a bona fide family relationship in their homes...
4.) Men who had children with whom they maintained a bona fide family relationship in their homes...
The Change Following Passage of Public Law 197
During the period from December 10, 1943, to January 10, 1944, the local board, in order to fill the balance of the call from the groups listed below, and insofar as possible in the order in which the groups were listed, was to select and order to report for induction specified men finally classified in Class I-A and Class I-A-O who were available for induction: Nonfathers, Fathers.
The Sequence for Calls From July 1, 1944, to January 5, 1945
The separate induction calls for the Army and Navy were discontinued as of July 1, 1944. After that date the regulations of the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy were combined by the Director of Selective Service into combined calls for men for the armed forces. The regulation in effect during this time was as follows:
632.4 Manner of selecting registrants to fill an induction call.--In filling an induction call, the local board shall select specified men to whom the local board has mailed a Certificate of Fitness (D. S. S. Form 218) at least 21 days before the date fixed for induction who are available for induction and have been found to be acceptable to the armed forces and who are not deferred, exempted, or relieved from liability or postponed for induction under the selective service law: Provided, That so far as it is practicable to do so..., the local board shall select volunteers first, then nonfathers, and finally fathers, and within each group shall select men in the sequence of their order numbers.
Men could usually expect a wait averaging a month or two before they were mailed an order to report for induction or an order to report for preinduction physical examination, but Selective Service statistics show that the need for manpower, especially among the youngest age groups where the highest-quality men could be found, was so great in 1944 that some men were called to be examined almost immediately after registering and having their cards and preliminary classifications "hit the system."
Army Inductions by Year of Birth, January-March 1944
| Year of birth (approximate age) | January 1944 | February 1944 | March 1944 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1905 (39+) | 27 | 7 | 3 |
| 1905 (38-39) | 53 | 47 | 2 |
| 1906 (37-38) | 3,261 | 1,824 | 2,954 |
| 1907 (36-37) | 4,623 | 2,627 | 4,933 |
| 1908 (35-36) | 4,565 | 2,801 | 5,213 |
| 1909 (34-35) | 4,770 | 2,962 | 5,370 |
| 1910 (33-34) | 5,302 | 3,245 | 5,778 |
| 1911 (32-33) | 5,227 | 3,225 | 5,919 |
| 1912 (31-32) | 5,569 | 3,502 | 6,292 |
| 1913 (30-31) | 5,756 | 3,474 | 6,129 |
| 1914 (29-30) | 5,891 | 3,698 | 6,211 |
| 1915 (28-29) | 5,616 | 3,514 | 6,076 |
| 1916 (27-28) | 5,370 | 3,376 | 5,922 |
| 1917 (26-27) | 5,174 | 3,630 | 4,892 |
| 1918 (25-26) | 5,076 | 3,646 | 4,177 |
| 1919 (24-25) | 4,307 | 3,261 | 4,892 |
| 1920 (23-24) | 3,743 | 2,911 | 4,177 |
| 1921 (22-23) | 3,341 | 2,650 | 3,446 |
| 1922 (21-22) | 3,304 | 2,659 | 3,571 |
| 1923 (20-21) | 3,847 | 3,181 | 3,756 |
| 1924 (19-20) | 4,993 | 3,884 | 4,201 |
| 1925 (18-19) | 23,010 | 17,449 | 18,558 |
| 1926 (18) | 151 | 1,402 | 5,919 |
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