US enlistment - lying about age?

[GKS]

Hello! I know that some lied about their age to fight early and have read that the minimum age till August 1918 (if I remember correctly) was 21 for the United States. Is that true? They didn't lower it so younger men could fight (without lying) till that point? Even if you volunteered, they wouldn't let you?

[Allan1892]

This may assist:

'The Selective Service Act of 1917 or Selective Draft Act (Pub. L. 65–12, 40 Stat. 76, enacted May 18, 1917) authorized the United States federal government to raise a national army for service in World War I through conscription. It was envisioned in December 1916 and brought to President Woodrow Wilson's attention shortly after the break in relations with Germany in February 1917. The Act itself was drafted by then-Captain (later Brigadier General) Hugh S. Johnson after the United States entered World War I by declaring war on Germany. The Act was cancelled with the end of the war on November 11, 1918. The Act was upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in 1918.'

'By the guidelines set down by the Selective Service Act, all males aged 21 to 30 were required to register to potentially be selected for military service. At the request of the War Department, Congress amended the law in August 1918 to expand the age range to include all men 18 to 45, and to bar further volunteering. By the end of World War I, some two million men volunteered for various branches of the armed services, and some 2.8 million had been drafted.[8] This meant that more than half of the almost 4.8 million Americans who served in the armed forces were drafted. Due to the effort to incite a patriotic attitude, the World War I draft had a high success rate, with fewer than 350,000 men "dodging" the draft.'

'During World War I there were three registrations.

The first, on June 5, 1917, was for all men between the ages of 21 and 30.
The second, on June 5, 1918, registered those who attained age 21 after June 5, 1917. A supplemental registration, included in the second registration, was held on August 24, 1918, for those becoming 21 years old after June 5, 1918.
The third, on September 12, 1918, was for men age 18 through 45.'

[GKS]

Thank you! 

[Ricky Earp]

There is "evidence" that boys as young as 14 participated in combat in WWI. Some in the French Legions, and some in the AEF, a few in Canadian Units. In 1918 less than one-third of American citizens had "Birth Certificates" (My late Mother born in Rural Akansaw in 1928 didn't have a birth certificate until she was 25, when my late older Sister was born! Neither did my Father born in 1927 in Arkansaw at home.) All of this comes from FINALLY opened US Census Bureau files. The oldest man ever to live in the US, Charlie Johns(e?)n, who died in Doral, FL at what HE thought was 122 proved to be AT LEAST 126 by radio-carbon dating of his bones. He was a mule-skinner in the AEF Transportation Corps. There were NO Negro "regular Army" enlisted or Officers until 1921. "Black-Jack" Pershing wouldn't allow it, no matter what you see in revisionist historical "photos" or "documents". In 1917 he was sent to France and he THOUGHT (the family Bible recording his birth was destroyed when his Parent's house burned) he was 19. He joined the Army in 1914, his quote "$10.50 a month were great pay fer ah Alabama Ni**er Boy wid no schoolin'!" I have a videotape of his story, I think from PBS.