Another point is the influx of military aged men from Mexico. They may get offered citizenship for service, skipping the citizenship test for honorable service.

Secondary MOS
 

If secondary MOS are/is "still a thing" in the modern US Army some of those with combat arms as a secondary MOS could be used to fill gaps. Bandsmen for instance were notorious for having mortuary affairs/tagging and collecting deceased remains as their secondary MOS.

A co-worker who was a combat engineer was told by their officers that they were (his words) "grunts with shovels and heavy equipment" and perfect for acting as a fire brigade in the event of a breakthrough.

Plugging the line with transportation, specialists like water purification or public affairs is great in an extreme emergency-then you have to train those specialists and get them in the AIT pipeline to replace those KIA/WIA. Tough balance.

That’s very likely.

The legal framework for naturalization through service in the US armed forces has been established under 8 USC 1439 and through previous special acts such as Lodge-Philbin. Service in a period of hostilities allowed for shortening of some of the time requirements established under the 1991 revision (“six and six”). It wasn’t uncommon to see soldiers enlisted under this incentive in formations during the 90s (I variously served with soldiers from Poland, Colombia, Dominican Republic, and South Africa).

During T2K the time period would be shortened, and the benefits of service advertised heavily.

That is an excellent historical analogy for use in T2K, I think. About every T2K timeline would have to deal with "less peace dividend" (if any) during the 1990s and thus more pressure on Western economies and job markets. Already in the early 1990s a sellout on German heavy industries had begun, the Chinese bought whole running steel plants. And of course, during the 1980s Japan, Taiwan and South Korea had begun pressuring Western markets with their consumer electronics and other tech products.

If the West has less money during the Clinton era ("it's the economy, stupid!"), jobs will be much scarcer. In Germany, we had large problems with unemployment during the 1998-2005 period of chancelor Schröder (who later turned cloaks and is now a Gazprom board member). If that period starts earlier and similar developments occur in other Western countries, including the US, the European Community as well as the former WP members (depending on the timeline/edition) would be much less stable and look a lot more like the 1930s. That might include nationalist, populist and irredentist movements, similar to to what former Yugoslavia and Albania experienced during the period.

If Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and perhaps even Czechia and Slovakia experience similar - yet weaker - periods of instability, big armies wouldn't look out of place at all. That of course sucks even more money out of the coffers.

Any takes on the conditions and time of service? Something like "5 years" with a subclause in fine print that says "if war is declared, this period is extended until Congress declares that the war is over"?

Current and past laws:

https://www.uscis.gov/military/natur...litary-service

1 year of honorable military service + 5 years lawful residency

or

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?...edition=prelim

serving until the end of hostilities during a war

I completely agree with y'all that in the T2kU legal resident aliens (and probably some foreigners holding particular types of visas) would be enticed to enlist in the US military with the promise of fast-tracked citizenship.

However, I wonder if the government would be forced to reverse this policy once Mexico invades the US, due to public outcry from certain demographics.

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lolz, there will be more than a few people 'promised' US citizenship via military service who will have enlisted just before the MILGOV/CIVGOV split, only to realize that DOD isn't the agency with the statutory authority to grant US citizenship.

I wonder how interested CIVGOV DOJ INS will be in granting citizenship to people serving in MILGOV post split...

(rhetorical question - hence no question mark)

Immigrant non-citizens with residency are still obligated to register for the Selective Service even today.

Where it would get interesting is non-resident aliens, ala a Foreign Legion component.

Imagine being a Mexican national crossing over from Juarez in 1996 to sign up with the US army at Fort Blitz to get US citizenship, getting sent off to fight with the 3rd ACR in Europe (or the 5th ID), working your way back via Going Home to Red Star/Lone Star to find yourself in Mexico after the border moved north a few hundred miles.

Thanks for the links, will look them up.

I could see the second happening or at least be discussed publicly with some people perhaps even refusing to cooperate or follow orders by soldiers "with that look". For dramatic purposes, this could also be something that comes up once CivGov and MilGov split and seek political allies as well as followership within the wider populace: Hardliners taking over CivGov and pragmaticists steering MilGov.

Also, I could envision a second package of laws legalizing not recent, legal immigrants, but also illegals under a certain age. This would work similar to the various iterations of the (failed) DREAM Act: Persons of militarily relevant ages, e. g. 17-31 could benefit from legalization and full citizenship, if they meet conditions as described by @castlebravo92 or past laws, i. e. until the cessation of hostilities.

Not relevant to the US obviously, but my Australian citizenship was granted astonishingly quickly after I applied to enlist in the Army Reserve.

In my Texas Almanac, I'm breaking the draft into two/three periods:

Pre Thanksgiving Day Massacre: draft runs something like the Vietnam draft (lottery numbers, draft boards), but with fewer deferments. Women still exempt.

Post Thanksgiving Day Massacre: draft runs something like the Russian draft, only worse. MP companies swoop into areas and collect every able bodied person they can (male or female). Congrats, you are in the army now. "Legalized" by FEP-D executive order, it basically makes the entire population of the United States subject to draft on the basis of exigent need, subject to the appropriate authority. This "organized" draft into military units more or less ceases after the training divisions are mobilized and the training commands shut down around August 1998. After that central control in the United States basically collapses.

After THAT, there people are still "drafted", but it's more warlord style and more akin to slavery/death camp slavery than "welcome to the Army, here's a gun." Here and beyond, military units will either spot recruit to fill gaps, or absorb militias/police once they have settled into cantonments for the long haul.

Do you foresee both MilGov and CivGov adopting this practice? It seems that press-ganging by one or the other of the factions could drive targeted individuals into the arms of the rival (unless, of course, they're both doing it).

That seems very dangerous to the drafting entity. Giving a slave a weapon also gives them the means to violently resist their enslavement. Slave-soldiers haven't really been a thing since the Ottoman empire's 19th century Janissaries- and they were customarily raised from early childhood to become soldiers. Contrary to enduring myth, during the American Civil War, even when the Confederacy was running desperately short of military manpower, slaves were not employed as armed soldiers (although many served in labor units).

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Per the timeline, all of the training divisions were activated on 20 July 1998 and CivGov re-constituted on 19 Apr 1999.

I posit that:
1) The well-organized draft infrastructure disappeared on Nov 27, 1997.
2) The Federal Government limped along for another 8 months until Presidential succession collapsed (in any event, the government was largely running on autopilot based on post-attack FED-P plans and responding to crisis to crisis). This is where press-ganging of the population appears: the service sector largely disappears in the US, most people are unemployed, the credit economy disappears, the cash economy is crippled, the government steps in to mobilize civilian work brigades to put out fires, clear rubble, and of course, replace combat losses for military units. There is still a pretend national government at this point, although a lot of areas are functionally left to "self-survive"
3) The Mexican invasion in the American Southwest, the Soviet invasion of the PNW via Alaska and Canada, and the deteriorating domestic situation resulted in all of the training divisions being mobilized as independent units and sent to various theaters. This essentially marks the end of any "national" organized recruitment.
4) Very much around the same time, the fall 1998 harvest essentially fails, the transportation network fails, the lights go out (again), and the exodus of the starving masses from urban centers begins in earnest. Thus ends any pretense of a functioning national government, and the military cantonment system pops up to defend areas with critical infrastructure or more or less self-sufficient in terms of food production. At this point the rule of law is absolutely dead beyond a local level. Many military units are basically just well organized gangs with more and bigger guns (see the history of the 43rd Military Police Brigade in The Last Submarine), taking what they need to survive and employing slaves that they intentionally work to death so they don't have to feed them through the winter.
5) When CivGov forms in April of 1999, the collapse has already happened. CivGov is at least, nominally, Constitutionally based, whereas MilGov is basically a Stalinist military junta running a full blown tyranny. I see CivGov operating more on consent, but they are a lot less powerful and organized as well, and in many cases, the distinction is moot (as in, who is worse, the UBF who massacred everyone on Cape Cod and is CivGov aligned, or the 43rd MP Brigade who go around terrorizing everyone and seizing everything that they can that is useful and probably killed just as many civilians if not more?)


While I largely agree, I'll counterpoint: African child armies, where warlords have gone into areas, massacred all the adults, and then recruited the boys into their army, who then go on to be quite bloodthirsty. Slaves in fact (in most cases, it's join or die, murder or die) but these warlord gangs have tended to be resilient and fairly loyal in places like Liberia. The gangs / militias / units that are able to replenish losses have to have some sort of mechanism to ensure loyalty (maybe you have to be part of a cannon fodder unit first and acquire a good weapon from the battlefield before you find your way to a "real" unit in some of the groups).

Can't believe I forgot about child soldiers in 20th century Africa. :o

Do you foresee that sort of thing becoming a fairly common practice in the USA after 1998?

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Yes, unfortunately. I mean, it's already kind of a thing the US (and has been since the 70s) in gangs, where the adult gang members often have gang members who are minors execute a lot of the felony offenses where possible. There's a lot of Machiavellian reasons. Kids are more malleable, less likely to be self-sufficient, and once decamped from their neighborhood or town, less likely to make a run for it. There's probably also quite a few orphans who would make ready recruits even before having to strong arm towns / massacre the adult population to press gang the kids.