http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States
"The Draft" redirects here. For other uses, see Draft (disambiguation).
Conscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War. The United States discontinued the draft in 1973, moving to an all-volunteer military force, thus there is no mandatory conscription.
However, the Selective Service System remains in place as a contingency plan; men between the ages of 18 and 25 are required to register so that a draft can be readily resumed if needed. In current conditions conscription is considered unlikely by most political and military experts.