CPP students don’t need to learn to tie their army boots
By Christopher Pimentel, May 5, 2026
A PBS News TikTok gained millions of views after announcing all men ages 18-25 will automatically be registered for the draft starting December 2026.
This implies most male students enrolled at Cal Poly Pomona would be automatically logged into the Selective Services System, which, according to its website, uses federal data sources to register all eligible males for a possible military draft if manpower is needed for national security in the event of a national emergency.
While President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law December 18, 2025, mandating automatic Selective Service registration, the short video sparked fear among viewers and left many wondering if this was passed due to the ongoing war with Iran and if a draft is upcoming.
“A couple of days ago, I got a call from my girlfriend worried about me and telling me not to get drafted,” said engineering student Jose Montana. “At first, I was confused and didn’t understand, and then she showed me a TikTok about the automatic draft registration, and I started to get concerned. The next couple of days I was talking to my guy friends about it and all of us were concerned and didn’t want to get drafted. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing to say, but I don’t want to risk my life yet. I have so much more to live for.”
However, the short form video designed for engagement left out many key details and can often mislead people into thinking that a draft was imminent, according to comments left on the video. A recent report conducted by Pew Research Center reported U.S. adults ages 18-29 gain almost 50% of all their political news from social media, and among the U.S. adults who listed social media as their primary source for news, 57% of them had low political knowledge.
The interpretation of the video and seeing the words ‘registration for draft’ lead people in the comments to believe the draft was being activated given the current war with Iran. This misinterpretation was reinforced and spread by many TikToks that joked about the user’s not wanting to get drafted and complaining about not wanting to sacrifice their lives, such as @peetyupnext’s TikTok that gained over 600,000 views. Thus, leaving thousands of people, including male students at CPP, frightened at the thought of the draft being activated soon.
“The U.S. has not used the draft since the Vietnam War, not even during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the 9/11 attacks,” said political science professor Marc Scarcelli. “I understand that the timing of this change can be alarming for some, especially given the current war against Iran, but it does not in and of itself represent an increased likelihood of the draft being activated.”The U.S. military is currently an all-volunteer force in terms of sending troops to war if needed, according to Veterans Resource Center Director Elke Azpeitia.
That means, only in the case of a national emergency approved by both Congress and the president when the all-volunteer force is in dire need of help will a draft occur, according to the SSS website.If a draft was needed, there would be a draft lottery. The first adults to receive induction orders are those whose 20th birthday falls under the year of the lottery. Then, every other age in the range gets put into a lottery if necessary, according to the SSS website.
According to the SSS website the men selected would be sent to a Military Entrance Processing Station for induction, which is defined by the U.S. Army website as a way to evaluate a person’s eligibility to join as an enlisted soldier through a series of tests to determine if a person meets the physical, mental and moral standards.
Registering for the draft was something every male already had to do once they turn 18. This new system just does it automatically for men, Scarcelli said.
“The rate of compliance with that requirement to register, however, has been dropping in recent years, so this is intended to remedy that with automatic registration,” Scarcelli said. Scarcelli also mentioned the automatic registration is more of an administrative shift than a shift in the country’s military readiness since the Trump administration is pushing a pattern of limited war, even with the pattern of military strikes across the globe.
According to Scarcelli, the potential for a much larger scale war is not reflective of military conflict between the Middle East or Latin America, but rather the threats of major power threats like Russia and China due to the U.S.’s weakening commitment to the NATO military alliance under the Trump.
Scarcelli said: “For those with such concerns, and for everyone else for that matter, this should be all the more reason to contribute to political pressure for the U.S. to recommit to that alliance. That commitment used to be very bipartisan.”
Any student who has orders for military deployment are protected by the California Education Code, a set of state laws that mandate how CPP must handle student leaves of absences and tuition refunds. The California Military and Veterans Code, specifically the Financial Relief Act allows a person to legally defer payments on several types of debt, so no one will go into default, any person who would fail to repay a loan or meet the legal terms of a debt agreement, while on duty.
“The first step is for (a student) to contact the Veterans Resource Center and what will happen is we will troubleshoot the situation with the student,” Azpeitia said. “Each student is different case by case, and there are different policies in place at the institution to support our military affiliated students due to service duty obligations.”
According to Azpeitia there is a short term policy for students on leave under 30 days and a long term policy for students on leave over 30 days that the CSU system has in place for all of its school’s along with CPP’s own policy, Policy 1454, set in place for the short term leave. Azpeitia also mentions that the VRC works with the student to determine which policy applies, then advocating with the student between the options of accommodating classes or withdrawing from them.
Azpeitia emphasized that although it is different case-by-case and the most important thing a student can do if they get orders is to communicate with the VRC and let them help. The sooner a student can work with the VRC and give the proper information, the better the school can help with accommodations, take the courses online while deployed, or whether to withdraw, dropping classes, is the necessary step.
For any further questions, students can reach out to the VRC by visiting its office on the west side of the Student Services Building on the first floor or via email at vetquestions@cpp.edu.
Feature graphic courtesy of Christopher Pimentel