- Mission [1]
- The foremost statutory mission of SSS is to be prepared to provide trained and untrained personnel to the DoD in the event
of a national emergency. This includes being prepared to classify registrants during mobilization, and to administer an Alternative
Service Program (ASP) for those who seek and are granted conscientious objector status.Although only one part of our mission
is publicly visible in peacetime (registration), our peacetime preparedness to perform many aspects of our mission greatly
increases timeliness, fairness, and equity in the event of an actual mobilization, if so ordered by the President and Congress.
This entails maintaining a classification structure capable of immediate operation in the event of a national emergency, including
personnel adequate to re-institute the full operation of the System. As the Agency remains prepared to perform its traditional
missions, it recognizes that it may be called upon to perform additional duties. Thus our systems are designed to flexibly
accommodate potential future preparedness requirements. The Agency also possesses several unique capabilities, which have
been refined over the years. For example, it possesses a registrant database of America’s young men ages 18 through 25; it
manages civilian volunteers (board members); it has developed programs of alternative community-based service (for men classified
as conscientious objectors); and has experience in conducting a fair and equitable classification procedure to determine who
should serve when not all can serve. If called upon by the President and Congress, these capabilities can be put to wider
use. Using the SSS as a time-proven and reliable asset for marshaling human resources, the Nation would not have to “reinvent
the wheel.”
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