Here's the specific page you want, LordKAT:
http://www.sss.gov/Status.html. The forms weren't working when I filled mine out, so I had to go to Google and find one that did work. If you can't download a form, try Google. Or let me know and I'll see if I can hunt up the one I found.
When I first went to the site on the first of January, I thought they had posted a 4-6-week wait time, but I think I was looking at the wait time for something else. Here's what I do know: when I went back to the site at the beginning of March, the wait was about ninety days for new requests. When I went back at the beginning of April, the wait had increased to 120 days for new requests. When I called their office ten days later, the recording said the wait time had increased to 150 days. When I talked to a guy there last Friday, he said they were then processing requests that they had received on January 8. Yes, there's a bit of a backlog.
My SIL should arrive in the mail tomorrow. It was mailed out on Friday afternoon. I sent it off on January 2 or possibly the following Monday, January 4. If we allow about nine or ten days for mailing, it took SSS fourteen weeks (approximately 97 days) to process my request. That's a bit longer than the time period they were estimating two months later. Yet somebody in this thread said that he made his request after I did and received the letter in February.
I thought that the SSS might be prioritizing requests from young guys of draftable age, but the representatives that I spoke to said nothing about any such scheme. You might call and find out if they're doing something like that.
Here's a funny. I got a call from the Census about my job application. I didn't get to talk to the woman who was handling my application--I talked to a guy who was looking at a Post-It that she had placed on my paperwork. Even though I had clearly written on the application that I didn't register because I had an exemption, he told me that the Post-It said I needed to register for the draft now, before I turned twenty-six!! If I did it right away, they might be able to process my app. I interrupted him and said something like, "It's a little late for that. I'm forty-seven." He was quite surprised and started shuffling through my paperwork. Then he said, "Well, you have to fill out a form with the Selective Service. Go to..." I told him that I have an exemption and should have the letter tomorrow. "Oh, then bring it by our office," he said.
I thought it was interesting that the woman had screwed up so badly (was she figuring my age in base 20, or something?) and the guy (admittedly having to wing it) also wasn't really on the ball. These are people in recruitment who have supposedly worked there for months. No wonder the pay is so lousy.
