Federal officials are trying to fill selective service boards across the country, but they denied Thursday that the effort was a prelude to reviving the draft.

But with the nation at war and American forces spread thin, questions about the possibility of re-establishing the draft are increasing.

“I don’t think you ever want to see the draft reinstated,” said Bryan Young, a Wichita junior at Kansas University. “But if the draft was necessary to achieve what President Bush thought was needed, I would say it’s my duty as a citizen to honor that commitment.”

The draft ended in 1973 amid controversy during the Vietnam War. Critics said the poor and minorities were disproportionately conscripted, while young people from middle- and high-income families were granted college deferments or other excuses that kept them out of the armed services.

This week, rumors about reinstating the draft leaped to the forefront after a U.S. Department of Defense Web site sought applicants for local draft boards.

The headline on the posting read: “Serve Your Community and the Nation. Become a Selective Service System Local Board Member.”

A spokesman for the Defense Department who declined to identify himself said the posting was taken down after several people called expressing concern.

Officials with the Selective Service System, a civilian agency that registers young men in case a draft were re-established, denied that the posting on the Defense Department Web site represented a new effort to reinstate the draft.

“This not even remotely resembles efforts to kick it up a notch,” said Dan Amon, a public affairs specialist for the Selective Service System.

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He said the Selective Service routinely sought applicants to fill 11,000 slots on local draft boards nationwide to be ready if the draft ever were reinstated. The terms on these voluntary boards are for 20 years, and many are now expiring, he said.

“We’re just going through a cycle,” he said. He said when the information was posted on the Defense Department Web site, it raised some alarms. “We’re not even quite sure how it got there,” he said.

A draft could only be authorized by the president and Congress. Under that scenario, the local draft boards would decide which draft-age men would receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service.

During most of the Vietnam War, if a college student could show progress in his studies, he was excused from military service. If a draft were instituted now, a college student’s induction into the military could be delayed only until the end of the current semester.

Some have argued that the draft should be reinstated.

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has said that the all-volunteer force is largely made up of the nation’s underclass. Others have said that the nation had an aggressive foreign policy because few in Congress or the Bush administration had military experience.

Young, the KU student, said he would be disappointed if the draft came because it would mean the nation faced an emergency.

“I would feel disappointed only to the extent that it was war, and war is unfortunate. I wouldn’t feel disappointed to discontinue my college career,” he said.