It is time for the federal government to institute a national service. That is a service where it is mandated that younger people are drafted to service the public good for two years. This is not a military draft, mind you, but a system where college graduates can first apply their skills for the general benefit of the American Citizenry, and where high school graduates and dropouts can learn trades and other ways of becoming productive members of this society.
In my plan, people will have a choice regarding which service they care to enter. They can devote their newly learned business acumen to joining others in repurposing our neglected factories and manufacturing plants in the Rut Belt and Eastern Seaboard. Rather than rely on imports, we can once again rekindle our manufacturing ability that initially made us the dominant country in the world. A reconstituted effort in manufacturing would alleviate some of our natural deficit and reliance on trading partners we would rather not owe money.
Young people can use their cutting edge technological and business skills and combine them with seasoned business executives, many of whom are currently out of work in this dreadful economy, in redeveloping factories for domestic production and manufacturing. This would put the laid off factory workers back on the job and rekindle the economy in blighted parts of the nation. We would be servicing our fellow Americans and not just the bottom line.
Other younger folk can work with seasoned veterans in rehabilitating our infrastructure and developing alternate energy sources. They could work on environmental cleanup. They could work in healthcare where personnel are needed to serve our sub-income and even middle income citizens. They could work in legal areas and provide legal assistance to people in need. In short, they could work to improve the general health and economic well being of this nation, and not just a corporate bottom line.
Those who have such an affinity, can be drafted into military service. This is becoming essential. While an all volunteer army has its merits, and a professional army is a better performer, certain drawbacks to the notion of our volunteer army are starting to reveal themselves. Not the least of which is our shortage of troops and the constant reliance on our National Guard. This has caused the degrading of performance, despite all best efforts, as troops are cycled over and over again back into combat duty without adequate rest. Our troops are just exhausted. Should a real war erupt, where we need hundreds of thousands of combat ready troops we may find ourselves lacking.
Additionally, there have been those who have attempted to instill in our military the type of religious fervor that has no place in any government institution. It is one thing to have your beliefs, as we are all entitled, but when those beliefs are eclipsed by evangelical elements who all but enforce the doctrine of their own religious this is in direct contradiction to both our constitution and the wishes of our founding fathers. There are such incidents reports at the Air Force Academy and on Army bases around the world.
A drafted army would go a long way in ameliorating such religious fervor. People who are drafted for two years, would embrace the long honored military tradition of wanting to go in, do your tour of duty, and then go home. They will bring to the party, or the military, in this case, not only secular perspectives but the perspective other other religions. They will not look on their military duty as a religious crusade to smote the infidel but to protect and defend the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic.
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While I am not overly worried, history has dictated that an all volunteer army can become a mercenary army that is loyal principally to the people that lead it and feed it. This is a far cry from a good thing. Additionally, when civilian soldiers are involved, Presidents and political leaders are less inclined to commit troops for useless and misguided wars. Can we say Iraq? When there are civilian soldiers, there is a much greater chance of public outcry and the sort of protests that finally ended the Vietnam debacle. Simply put, people seem less concerned about an all volunteer army as they are when it is their family members that are part of a citizen army. In all, we should consider the long run ramifications our army.
What would a government national service do? Besides all the do gooder, stuff, it would serve to bring this country together. Despite all national media, the information on the Internet, cell phones, texting, and everything else, we are probably a more disparate nation than we have been in half a decade. Technology hasn’t served well in bringing us together. We are segmented and alienated from each other.
Since changes start with the young, it will behoove us to have a national service that not only augments our efforts to regain our national economy and sense of pride, but to share viewpoints on a person to person, intimate level. In short, it would benefit us all to see how the other half lives. MBA’s would be less eager to create the sort of business models that would leave a good segment of this country suffering as a result. Instead of a good portion of the country being numbers in a chart, they would be real people with real needs, hopes and dreams.
People would share in their efforts to rebuild this country. Sharing promotes camaraderie and is a boost to general morale. We would get to know each other again. We would get to work together. By starting this with younger people, acceptance and understanding would be infused into our culture, rather than forcibly spoon fed by the media and public school system. Mutual cooperation for the greater good would be for real rather than theoretical.
Call it the new, lemon scented, reconstituted WPA of the Roosevelt years. Call it the Peace Corps for the homeland, or Vista with Teeth. Call it whatever you want. But do it soon.
