For more than 50 years, the United States military has operated as an all-volunteer force, a structural shift that came after widespread public backlash against the forced conscription that pulled 1.8 million Americans into service during the Vietnam War. Now, a decades-old manual self-registration system for potential military conscription is on track to be replaced by an automatic enrollment process, a change that could take effect as soon as this December. If implemented, the policy shift would transfer the responsibility of signing up 18- to 25-year-old men from the individuals themselves to the Selective Service System (SSS), the independent government agency that oversees potential draft eligibility.