Army drafts... Imaginary Friends?

[HawkerHurricane]

Claim: A few years after a couple of kids used a made-up name to sign up for a free yearly ice cream cone, they received a draft notice for their non-existent friend.
Status: True.

Origins: In 1984, a Palo Alto, California, family received a Selective Services reminder that it was almost time for Johnny Klomberg to register for the draft. Problem was, there was no Johnny Klomberg living at that address. Or anywhere else. He was purely the fictional invention of the two boys who did live there, Eric and Greg Hentzel.

To remind them to register for the draft, Selective Service had been tracking down young men through commercial mailing lists. They got caught out at this practice when they sent such an invitation to a fictional kid who'd been dreamed up by a couple of young Dillingers whose dad was an ex-Serviceman, a lawyer, and not amused.

He didn't think it right that a kids' "free ice cream" list should be turned into a Selective Service name harvesting opportunity. I don't either.

Young men had to register for the draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Selective Service tried to trace those who have not done so through driver's license records and, sometimes, Social Security cards and the Internal Revenue Service. Failing to register was punishable by a maximum $10,000 fine, up to five years in jail, or both.

Fair enough. But using a kids' birthday club list?

Selective Service didn't see anything wrong with what they were doing. "We do everything we can to get every 18-year-old to register," said Will Ebel, their director of public affairs. "Our concern is equity. If your son registers, the guy who lives across the street who is 18 should have to register too."

That's all well and good, but news of an ice cream parlor's birthday club mailing list being used for such recruitment struck a number of people as plain wrong.

Seven years earlier the Hentzel brothers dreamed up Johnny in an effort to weasel free frozen treats out of the local ice cream parlor. Farrell's birthday club rewarded its members with a free sundae on their special day. It was but a matter of filling out a form with name, address and date of birth -- a Farrell's invitation for the annual free treat would arrive through the mail at the appropriate time.

Magic, the Hentzel boys thought. Also too good an opportunity to pass up on. "We made up really phony names and put different birthdays on but our own address," said Eric. Which is how Johnny Klomberg's Selective Service notice ended up arriving at their house.

Their bit of childhood perfidy uncovered what the government had been up to. Selective Service was forced to acknowledge that in 1983 it paid a mailing list broker $5,687 for 167,000 names of other birthday club boys who would be 18 that year so that it could remind them to register. Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor Restaurant, a large national chain, was "outraged" to discover its list has been passed to the government without permission.

The restaurant had kept a list of the children's names and addresses so it could mail out "free ice cream" invites to those signed up on it. It also sometimes rented its list through a direct mail broker. (Mailing lists are rented or traded between various businesses as a matter of due course. The standard agreement provides for the payment of a fee or a list swap in return for the one-time use of the names; each additional mailing using those names generates another fee or swap due. All rentals and trades have to be agreed to
by both parties. Which brings us back to Farrell's "outrage" -- they'd never agreed to this use of their list.)


"The broker is authorized only to let people use the list with our written permission," said Alexander Hehmeyer, senior vice president and general counsel of Farrell's. "We have no record of any request by government. We were shocked and outraged; we would never give permission for its use by a government agency."
"It smacks of big brother government and use of information by the government that citizens would not want used," he said. "I have two young sons and would be very upset if I thought I could sign them up for a free ice cream at Farrell's and they'd hear from the draft."

The list broker, George Mann Associates of New Jersey, acknowledged it had allowed Selective Service to buy the list without first checking with Farrell's. When this came to light, Selective Service threw out the names it had so harvested as, without Farrell's express permission to it, they shouldn't have had the use of them.

"The use of this commercial list was entirely appropriate and we don't have any moral qualms," said Will Ebel. "But it appears the list broker may have sold us the names without the permission of the originator, and in these circumstances we feel it best not to use them."

Moral of the story -- be careful what you sign your child up for. You never quite know what use the information will be put to.

[XanaDUer]

1. I remember reading about this years ago

Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Parlors were offering "free" birthday cones and the lists went to Selective Service.

[MatrixEscape]

2. New Flavor at Baskin-Robbins:

Big Brother Double Cluster Fudge

[shesemsmom]

3. Blast those *free offers* anyway

There is always some catch,....this on is get a free ice cream for you kid so they can be shot at some where. This world is insane. Don't it make you feel warm and fussy all over. :grr:

[signmike2]

4. When I was a teeny bopper

senior in high school, 1962, we had to fill out a simple 3x5 card which was mailed to us when we turned 18, to be completed and sent back in. It basically verified the mailing address, name, and had two boxes to be checked; male or female. My friend's name is Jan E. Butler. When he got his card in the mail it was addressed to Jane Butler, the e was next to the Jan - so he marked the female box, figuring if he got caught he'd say "Oopsy Daisy" and he signed it Jane and sent it back to them.

He never heard from them again.