“It’s the five years in jail that’s the big one,” said first year Nat Heatwole. Five years is longer than high school, he pointed out. Five years is longer than many students spend in college. To an 18 year old, five years is almost a third of a lifetime.

And yet, Heatwole decided he would rather spend five years in jail than participate in a system he did not believe in by registering for the draft.

The Selective Service System, an agency of the federal government, sends every male citizen of the United States a registration form in the weeks prior to his eighteenth birthday. According to the letter of the law, he has 30 days to send it back. If he does not, the penalty could include a $250,000 fine, and the loss of all benefits provided by the federal government. And, of course, five years in jail.

Nat Heatwole turned 18 on May 29, 2001. On August 18, he mailed back his form, still blank.

Heatwole did not register because of his belief in non-violence. He is not officially a Quaker, but follows many of the tenets of the Quaker faith. In addition, he objects to the idea of conscientious objection because COs, as they are called, still serve war efforts in various non-military ways. Heatwole questions the constitutional basis for what he sees as forced labor for citizens who have broken no laws.

But rather than simply ignore the registration form, Heatwole wanted to express his views. Along with the blank form, he sent the SSS a letter explaining his position.

“I wanted to let them hear the voice of dissent,” he said, “just in case they were listening.”

Someone was listening. Someone, however, did not like what he heard.

On Sept. 19, 2001, Nathanial Heatwole was officially registered with the Selective Service System. A few weeks later, he received his Registration Acknowledgement Card in the mail.

How did this happen? Heatwole may never know for sure. But he believes that the strong language of his letter, combined with the tragedy of Sept. 11, led the SSS to register him illegally. “Someone over there was so upset,” he surmised, “that they basically wanted to really hit me where it hurt.”

Heatwole considered suing the SSS for their actions. “It doesn’t seem right for a government agency to break the law,” he said. But in the end, he decided that the potential gains would not be worth the costs. Even if he were to win his suit, he would still be guilty of refusing to register and probably spend his time in jail.

And to Heatwole, the most important thing is not the card in his wallet that proves he has registered. It is not the list — the SSS database — that now includes his name. What really matter are his beliefs and his integrity, and those remain intact.