10/11/2002: Mandatory military service in the US?
HR 3598, the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 2001 (Introduced in House), would, if passed: “… require the induction into the Armed Forces of young men registered under the Military Selective Service Act, and to authorize young women to volunteer, to receive basic military training and education for a period of up to one year.”
[some comments I left at Josh’s site]
I think a one-year stint in some kind of national service (not exclusively military: a revived CCC or domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps would be more useful, in my view) would be a fine thing.
Why? I think it would get people engaged in the world or at least their country to a degree that 7 hours of daily TV and the less-than-rigorous schools can’t.
I’ve come to believe that people act the way they do — road rage, low voter turnout, voting for Tim Eyman’s crackbrained initiatives — because they don’t understand how things work — that basic civics is important and they own a stake in this country and the world.
Working and living side-by-side with something their own age from someplace they can’t find on a map, but with whom they have much in common, could be a great experience.