When did these policies begin? Are they still in place? How do they handle soldiers, who over a long career, may end up with four (or more) children while serving?
Hello there! The answer to your question is actually fairly simple. Though, since this is the AskHistorians subreddit, I will provide some links to the original texts describing these changes below as well.
To specifically answer your question: From March 14, 1963 to April 23, 1970, the United States Selective Service was directed by Executive Order 11098 to not draft any man with a child, legitimate or illegitimate. This Executive Order, signed by President Kennedy, reinstated the paternity deferment policy which had been in effect from 1948 to 1953. It would be ended by President Nixon, roughly a year and half before the formal draft itself concluded in 1971. Since the US participated in active ground combat in Vietnam from 1965 through the early 1970s, it's very likely that your Father was deferred for this reason during the war.
Interestingly, the US government very, very broadly defined a child in the following way:
The term "child" as used in... this section shall include a legitimate or an illegitimate child from the date of its conception, a child legally adopted, a stepchild, a foster child, and a person who is supported in good faith by the registrant in a relationship similar to that of parent and child but shall not include any person 18 years of age or over unless he is physically or mentally handicapped.
These rules did not apply to soldiers once drafted; but rather to incoming draftees who would be classified according to a broad array of categories. Please let me know if I can clarify anything here, or if you'd like more information about the US Draft (Selective Service) or would like more detail on these Executive Orders.
Contextual Previous History: Executive Order 9988: Establishing Paternity Deferment from the Draft - 1948
Contextual Previous History: Executive Order 10469: Ending Paternity Deferment from the Draft - 1953
Executive Order 11098: Re-Establishment of Paternity Deferment from the Draft - 1963
Executive Order 11527: Ending Paternity Deferment from the Draft - 1970
The following comes from a web site I created as part of a college class project covering the legislation and mechanics of the Selective Service System from 1948 until the mid-1970s, focusing on the switch between administrative selection by local boards and the lottery in 1969. It includes an extensive bibliography at the end.
Your father was most likely denied accession into the Army for reason of having dependents, or for reason of having dependents to whom it was deemed his induction would cause undue hardship, based upon the exact time period during the era.
World War II, and the resulting manpower issues surrounding the induction of fathers, contributed significantly to decisions made in the Selective Service Act of 1948 as passed. They were was almost a reverse of those that took place during that conflict; the standards were initially very liberal regarding dependency (i.e., no restrictions on the induction of men with dependents unless it would cause legitimate hardship), but were then tightened significantly. World War II manpower issues, while somewhat outside of the scope of this question, fall directly in my area of expertise, and if you have any questions about how the U.S. Army handled dependency during this period, please do not hesitate to ask additional question(s).
The induction sequence at the end of the second comment remained the same until the institution of the random lottery in November 1969 based upon birth date and permutation order of the letters in the first, last, and middle names, to determine the induction sequence in the calendar year 1970 for men born between 1 January 1944 and 31 December 1950 (i.e., those between the ages of eighteen to twenty-six).
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President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order No. 9988 of August 20, 1948 and Executive Order No. 10001 of September 17, 1948 prescribed portions of the Selective Service regulations. After men had registered with their local draft board as soon as possible after attaining the age of eighteen years, their local draft board was to mail those men who had attained the age of nineteen years an SSS Form 100, or Classification Questionnaire, except in cases where men could be classified properly without this form. Men could substantiate their status as a conscientious objector by filling out an SSS Form 150. If a man classified as available for military service believed himself to actually suffer from a condition that disqualified him, he could request a medical interview.
Periodically, state Directors of Selective Service would order their local draft boards to supply numbers of registrants found qualified for military service to specific locations to be given Armed Forces Physical Examinations. If a man passed the examination, he would be given an NME Form 62, or Certificate of Acceptability. After a requisition was submitted by the Department of Defense to the national Director of Selective Service, he would issue to each state Director an SSS Form 200 (Notice of Call on State). The state Director would then issue to each of his local draft boards an SSS Form 201 (Notice of Call on Local Board). After receiving the form, each local draft board would select available men to be mailed an Order to Report for Induction (SSS Form 252). The men selected were to be those that the board had mailed a Certificate of Acceptability not less than twenty-one days prior to the date on which they were to be inducted. The date of induction was to be no less than ten days after the Order to Report for Induction was mailed.
Executive Order No. 10001 amended the Selective Service regulations to provide for the selection of eligible registrants by their dates of birth, with the oldest being selected first. Men who had
A wife, child or children, and/or
A person dependent upon them for support (to include a wife, child, or children) that an induction would cause hardship to
were entitled to be deferred in Class III-A. Paragraph (b) of section 622.15 defined a "child" as a legitimate or illegitimate biological child from the date of its conception, a stepchild, a legally adopted child, a foster child, or any person in the relationship of child to the registrant, provided that they were under the age of 18 unless they were physically or mentally handicapped. Paragraph (c) of the section defined a dependent as a wife, divorced wife, child, parent, grandparent, brother, or sister. Also defined as a "dependent" was a person of any age who was physically or mentally handicapped and was supported in good faith by the registrant.
Executive Order No. 10001 defined a "delinquent" as a man who failed to comply with some portion of the Selective Service Act, the most prominent being failing to register and failing to furnish or furnishing false information. As a form of punishment, delinquents were selected and ordered to report for induction before any other registrants.
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The Selective Service Act of 1948 was amended on 19 June 1951, and renamed the Universal Military Training and Service Act (UMTSA)
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On September 25, 1951, Executive Order No. 10292 eliminated having a wife as a sole reason to be placed in Class III-A unless the man's induction would cause hardship. On July 15, 1953, Executive Order No. 10469 eliminated children in this regard as well. Some men whose induction would not cause hardship to their children were still entitled to be placed in Class III-A if they could fulfill certain conditions
Claim paternity before August 25, 1953 by visiting their physician and obtaining a certificate which is filed with the local draft board and
Their local draft board had not mailed them an order to report for induction on a date after which the proof of paternity certificate they obtained from their physician was placed on file with said board.
A man could thus claim paternity when his wife was still pregnant. It was further provided that those men who could claim paternity before August 25, 1953 would be selected after all other registrants.
Public Law 84-118 of June 30, 1955 amended the Universal Military Training and Service Act to extend the liability of registrants who were members of the reserve components of the armed forces until the age of twenty-eight. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Executive Order No. 10659 of February 15, 1956 amended the Selective Service regulations to incorporate these provisions, as well as a provision that single men and married men without children would, in selecting and ordering them to report for induction, be considered a single group.
It also prescribed a new order of selection, which would be used until March 1963. It corrected a major deficiency in the order used before February 15, 1956. Before this date, the order had only prescribed, barring the specific changes mentioned above, that men be selected based upon their dates of birth with the oldest being selected first. As a result of the elimination of wives, and later children, as grounds for a Class III-A deferment, the sequence had resulted in draftees from the entire pool of eligibles, from the ages of eighteen years and six months to thirty-five, many of whom had wives and children. The new sequence predominantly provided the armed forces with younger draftees free of dependency concerns;
(1) Delinquents who have attained the age of nineteen years in the order of their dates of birth with the oldest being selected first.
(2) Volunteers who have not attained the age of twenty-six years in the sequence in which they have volunteered for induction.
(3) Nonvolunteers who have attained the age of nineteen years and have not attained the age of twenty-six years and who do not have a child or children with whom they maintain a bona fide family relationship in their homes, in the order of their dates of birth with the oldest being selected first.
(4) Nonvolunteers who have attained the age of nineteen years and have not attained the age of twenty-six years and who have a child or children with whom they maintain a bona fide family relationship in their homes, in the order of their dates of birth with the oldest being selected first.
(5) Nonvolunteers who have attained the age of twenty-six years in the order of their dates of birth with the youngest being selected first.
(6) Nonvolunteers who have attained the age of eighteen years and six months and who have not attained the age of nineteen years in the order of their dates of birth with the oldest being selected first.