Bring back compulsory National Service?

Question

What would be required to get national service back, since public appearance seems to overall be in favour of it.

This country NEEDS dicipline put back into it... and frankly I don't give a monkeys if you've been a good person, people are only too happy to take from this country without giving ANYTHING back.

Answer 1

I would support compulsory service, provided there was choice. If people could serve in an area that fit their interests, DoD, DoS, local government, schools, etc. they could gain worthwhile training and skills, while reinforcing the importance of our social contract, which I agree has gone by the way-side.

Response to Michael P:
South Korea and Greece (along with many others) have mandatory military service. Are these societies breaking down?
The implication that only (or mostly) Americans use fallacious logic is insulting and shows more about you than it does about Americans.
As far as taking from a country, if you believe in a social contract (as I do) then there is a debt owed by each citizen to their government. The debate is centered around the extent of that debt. Our government is charged with educating and protecting us, while providing a stable place for family life and commerce. The government invests in us, in our training, through funding public education and subsidizing public universities. To argue that no debt is owed would put you on a limb, with very little company.

Answer 2

Why should the highly professional armed services be saddled with all the misfits that our society can not control adequately. A return to National Service would worsen not better our forces. What is needed is a return to the old fashioned values in civilian life and to scrap nit-picking political correctness. The mere threat of a good birching for Anti-Social behaviour would go a long way towards this.

Answer 3

The public are pretty ignorant when it comes to the armed services in 2007. How long would national service be ? Let's say it was 2 years. It takes longer than two years to train a soldier for a specific job and it costs loads. By the time they were any use to the armed forces it would be time to leave, in the meantime they would be replaced by another useless gang of forced conscripts. What would they do and what would they be capable of doing ? The forces are a hi-tech machine and not the square-bashing recruits of the 1950s. You would probably be better off with an adult version of the Boy Scout movement.

Answer 4

I see quite a few females who answered this question who are in favour of National Service, claiming it will be beneficial by teaching discipline, giving jobs to the unemployed, taking the hooligans off the streets, etc. But when it comes to paying for this military, will they help pay for it with their taxes? When it comes time to serve - will they?

So, if there were National Service, then it SHOULD include females from the ages of 18 - 40 as well. Perhaps the young women of today need to be taught some discipline and respect, need a job, need to get off the streets, etc.

Answer 5

I think what is needed is some kind of boot camp for the young thugs who nowadays seem to just get a smack on the hand and let out. You only have to watch Bad Lads Army to see how the format works - it should be three strikes and your in the army son.
Our prisons are just cushy numbers too - life should mean life - not 10 - 15 yrs - get rid of the tv's etc - they are there to be punished. A great example of this is an American sherriff in Arizona who runs a prison where the prisoners live in tents - the temperatures there can get to over 100 degrees - they are given PINK boxer shorts to wear - he took their cable tv off them then was told it was a govt law that they were entitled to cable tv - so he restricted them to two channels - Disney and the Weather Channel. When one of the prisoners asked about the weather channel he was told it was so he would know what the weather was going to be the next day when he sent him out on the chain gang!!! When prisoners complained about the heat - he said that the soldiers in Iraq were living in tents - wearing combat uniforms and carrying packs of 50lb or more so stop complaining, Now that is the kind of guy we need over here to sort out our thugs.

Answer 6

You've contradicted yourself in so many levels.
1) being a good person and having discipline goes hand in hand.
2) when you're talking about people 'taking from this country', I'm guessing you're talking about living, as far as I'm aware, to take from any country you must first have a Job, and to have a job means that you'll be working for someone higher than you. Hence you giving your own time to work, which means you'll be giving back to the country's economy.

I'm making an educated guess that you're an American citizen, by your general statement of ignorances and arrogance. I'm afraid to tell you that Diciple can come by other means, weather it'd be family, society and peers. To me it seems that Americans are too caught up with their own views to see other perspectives.

Bringing back compulsory National Service would only break down society, as country's like North Korea have shown, these army is heavily influence by one view... And to think that Americas believed in free speech? It's funny to think that America wants to be known as the free country, but yet your views would stop the younger generation in following their dreams and aspirations.

Answer 7

Would someone please explain to me why National Service HAS to be military?
In the long and far off days of my youth I lived in Franco's Spain. National Service there and then was normally 2 years in the army (the Navy and Air Force were volunteer only) but if the lads requested it they were able to do their National Service in the Fire Brigade or Ambulance Service or, in the case of lads medically unfit for any of these, they had to work in some form of Community Service - I knew of one who worked in the local library.
The two years meant that they were able to actually learn something worthwhile. All the Spaniards spoke of the benefits, regardless of where they had done the 'mili', not only to themselves but also to the community; because he was doing his 'mili' the lad who worked in the library service had to do 8 hours a day for 5 days a week and because of this the village library was able to stay open all week. Otherwise there just were not enough librarians!
Wouldn't something similar be of benefit here? Think of the number of, for instance, swimming pools that are not open all the time because of the lack of trained staff, or the number or 'part-time' libraries.

Answer 8

Bad Idea.
We struggle to keep lads who have volunteered to be in the Army from leaving. We would not thank you for a load of fat, lazy, drug addicted faeries to contend with.
It would be a waste of money(it's tight enough as it is)and time.
The Army should not be responsible for sorting out social problems that are caused by poor parenting and schooling.
Don't forget that most of the problems in our society are a legacy of those who went through National Service ie-your grand parents and their influence on your parents etc etc.

Answer 9

No, its never going to work, you have too many people from ethnic backgrounds now. This is how it goes, National Service is introduced, call up comes into effect, now you've got disaffected youngsters who don't want to be there, and the armed services that doesn't want them. They are trained in all the arts of warfare, combat, disciplined, trained to fight. If we had a world war, or any war for that matter, which side do you think they will fight for, Great Britain the country that trained them or the country they were born into, or feel more allegiance to. You could have trained up people to fight against this country. There was poll taken recently amongst British Asians as to whether they felt "Brtitish" and 75% of those polled said no. And i suspect thats the tip of the iceberg. So the answer is no we shouldn't.

Answer 10

I agree with Francis F. Today's UK military is nothing like the one I joined in 1978 thanks to the PC wallies. Besides, the country cannot afford the costs that would be involved. It's cheaper to keep someone on the dole than in the armed forces. Those who are on the dole and eligible to join but who don't sign up stay on the dole because the Service life is not what they want. If people were forced in, you could imagine the problems there'd be - breach of human rights; compensation claims right, left and centre; abscondees by the hundred...

Now, if you'd said "give certain PRISONERS a choice of military service or twice the term in jail" I'd have backed you 1001%.