Mandatory Military Service......

[rotor]

“Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”

I am a believer that some form of of service should be a requirement for citizenship in our great country. The statistics that I have seen show that only 3% have ever served. The youth today do not understand the blessings they have received by being born into the greatest country in the world. The only accomplishment that they had to do to have this honor was to be born on American soil. I don't think that everyone needs to serve an extended period but a short "boot camp" type of service say 3 months should be a requirement. Foreigners that become American citizens know more about this country than birthright Americans.
I agree that you can not make good soldiers without a volunteer force but you can make good Americans out of what right now seems to be a cesspool of misguided youth.

 

[Younggun]

“Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”

I am a believer that some form of of service should be a requirement for citizenship in our great country. The statistics that I have seen show that only 3% have ever served. The youth today do not understand the blessings they have received by being born into the greatest country in the world. The only accomplishment that they had to do to have this honor was to be born on American soil. I don't think that everyone needs to serve an extended period but a short "boot camp" type of service say 3 months should be a requirement. Foreigners that become American citizens know more about this country than birthright Americans.
I agree that you can not make good soldiers without a volunteer force but you can make good Americans out of what right now seems to be a cesspool of misguided youth.

The answer your looking for isn’t going to be found in 3 months of boot camp. It’s only to be found by years of good parenting and a society that values hard work and integrity.


The government can not shape society. It’s the other way around. And since society in general wouldn’t be in favor of mandatory service of any kind, it will not be shaped by such service in a way they you would hope.


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[TreyG-20]

“Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country”

I am a believer that some form of of service should be a requirement for citizenship in our great country. The statistics that I have seen show that only 3% have ever served. The youth today do not understand the blessings they have received by being born into the greatest country in the world. The only accomplishment that they had to do to have this honor was to be born on American soil. I don't think that everyone needs to serve an extended period but a short "boot camp" type of service say 3 months should be a requirement. Foreigners that become American citizens know more about this country than birthright Americans.
I agree that you can not make good soldiers without a volunteer force but you can make good Americans out of what right now seems to be a cesspool of misguided youth.

Yup only the youth of today is misguided. What year did that start again? I know back in the day there were never any trouble makers.

 

[candcallen]

I've got no problem with military service in exchange for free college or wiping out student loans after words.

That's the only free college or student loan forgiveness program I'll be for. Except for some of the underserved communities programs already and for a long while in effect.

I do think 2 or 3 years out of high school would make most kids much more successful in life but making it mandatory creates huge turn over in many MOS that they already have trouble filling.

 

[Younggun]

That’s not “free college” though. And it’s pretty much already baked in (although you better read the fine print or you may find you can’t use it)


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[rotor]

Perhaps we need a pole of this group to see how many have served. It takes a lot of work to become an American citizen. It takes no work to be born one.

 

[Younggun]

I’ve served. It helps to inform my opinion on the subject.


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[toddnjoyce]

1. Mandatory national service is simply a jobs program paid for by the taxpayer and the kissing cousin of socialism, which is a transitory state on the road to communism. It doesn’t do a damn thing to generate patriotism or any other shit in people that don’t have any to begin with.

2. We can’t afford it. To give you an idea of what the numbers look like, there’s roughly 20M 15-19 year olds in the US. FY19, the DoD military pay line item was about $1.92B to for about 1.3M people.

Lets say half, or 10M, of the 15-19 years olds are doing two years of national service at any given time. That’s about $2 trillion, with a T, in extra revenue that comes from taxation. That’s just pay alone, and not to mention, those 10M ‘new’ jobs from mandatory service would double the size of total federal workforce today.

 

[satx78247]

etmo,

I would NOT be adverse to two years of federal service for every 18YO who does not serve in the Armed Forces, balanced by two years of paid tuition, board & room & fees at a community college for every young person who acceptably completes their period of National Service.
(Three men in our family, including my dad, were members of The Civilian Conservation Corps & all three looked back with pleasure & not a little pride in their accomplishments as a "CCC Boy" in the mid-1930s. Similarly my Aunt Gladys Helen B_____________ attended/graduated from RN training under the National Nurse Cadet Corps & was commissioned as an Ensign, USNR at the completion of her RN program.)

just my OPINON, satx

 

[MTA]

Idk about compulsory service but its a sign of a healthy society if individuals are drawn to serve out of love for their country. That said, as the country grows weaker and weaker, here is a problem it is facing now that will only get worse:

The Looming National Security Crisis: Young Americans Unable to Serve in the Military

According to 2017 Pentagon data, 71 percent of young Americans between 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve in the United States military.

www.heritage.org

 

[rotor]

1. Mandatory national service is simply a jobs program paid for by the taxpayer and the kissing cousin of socialism, which is a transitory state on the road to communism. It doesn’t do a damn thing to generate patriotism or any other shit in people that don’t have any to begin with.

2. We can’t afford it. To give you an idea of what the numbers look like, there’s roughly 20M 15-19 year olds in the US. FY19, the DoD military pay line item was about $1.92B to for about 1.3M people.

Lets say half, or 10M, of the 15-19 years olds are doing two years of national service at any given time. That’s about $2 trillion, with a T, in extra revenue that comes from taxation. That’s just pay alone, and not to mention, those 10M ‘new’ jobs from mandatory service would double the size of total federal workforce today.

Perhaps it would take a portion of the welfare population and teach them how to become productive non welfare participants and save money in the long run. Instead of free college education for no service you get college education for service as the military has done as part of VA benefits. Right now we have a huge population dependent on welfare for life. Given a boost that might change. I certainly wouldn't mind my grandchild serving. I think it would make him a better person.

 

[Axxe55]

1. Mandatory national service is simply a jobs program paid for by the taxpayer and the kissing cousin of socialism, which is a transitory state on the road to communism. It doesn’t do a damn thing to generate patriotism or any other shit in people that don’t have any to begin with.

2. We can’t afford it. To give you an idea of what the numbers look like, there’s roughly 20M 15-19 year olds in the US. FY19, the DoD military pay line item was about $1.92B to for about 1.3M people.

Lets say half, or 10M, of the 15-19 years olds are doing two years of national service at any given time. That’s about $2 trillion, with a T, in extra revenue that comes from taxation. That’s just pay alone, and not to mention, those 10M ‘new’ jobs from mandatory service would double the size of total federal workforce today.

Todd, that is entirely a different perspective I hadn't even thought about. Very good point.

 

[toddnjoyce]

Perhaps it would take a portion of the welfare population and teach them how to become productive non welfare participants and save money in the long run. Instead of free college education for no service you get college education for service as the military has done as part of VA benefits. Right now we have a huge population dependent on welfare for life. Given a boost that might change. I certainly wouldn't mind my grandchild serving. I think it would make him a better person.

Counterpoint: a college education ain’t what it used to be and the nation doesn’t really need to transfer money by the boatload to colleges and universities who don’t put out a product (skilled worker) the economy needs.

For example, take a kid who spends four or five years earning a degree in computer science. Chances are that kid has zero industry certs or experience for the $30K in loans he took out to chase skirts and generally **** around while at school and won’t get hired into one of those lucrative full stack developer roles.

Had the idiot spent four years right out of high school grabbing certs and experience he’d have avoided the debt, gotten the experience, and been making real money early at a point in life where it doesn’t take much money to get by. But that’s not the popular thing to do.

Want to get people off welfare? Turn it into workfare, with some type of paid apprenticeship route with a contractual payback period as a condition for receiving welfare to begin with.

 

[oohrah]

I support Rotor's position. Not mandatory service, but service to earn citizenship and the right to vote. And not necessarily just military, but include other forms of national service. This way, it is completely voluntary, and the volunteers are well motivated.

 

[etmo]

1. Mandatory national service is simply a jobs program paid for by the taxpayer and the kissing cousin of socialism, which is a transitory state on the road to communism. It doesn’t do a damn thing to generate patriotism or any other shit in people that don’t have any to begin with.

2. We can’t afford it. To give you an idea of what the numbers look like, there’s roughly 20M 15-19 year olds in the US. FY19, the DoD military pay line item was about $1.92B to for about 1.3M people.

Lets say half, or 10M, of the 15-19 years olds are doing two years of national service at any given time. That’s about $2 trillion, with a T, in extra revenue that comes from taxation. That’s just pay alone, and not to mention, those 10M ‘new’ jobs from mandatory service would double the size of total federal workforce today.

Some solid points, I'll try to address them all:

First, let's dispense with the "it's communism" charge -- plenty of societies have mandatory public service and are not the USSR nor Red China. Switzerland is actually more democratic that we are, Israel is a parliamentary democracy, etc.

It might not generate patriotism in people that don't have any to begin with, but it will get them some skin in the game, which might generate some appreciation for the amount of work required to preserve our way of life, and we will get some service out of them, so even if they grow up to be America-hating progressive types, at least they'll have dug some ditches and America will have gotten something useful out of them before they get degrees in LGTBFYZ Studies and start whining about how to pay for their college loans.

However, it will generate patriotism in many other young people, and it's impossible to quantify how valuable that might be to our nation.

So 15-19 year-olds is a 4 year span, and we're talking about a 2 year span, 18-20 year olds. So let's say it's half, and that there are 10 million such creatures roaming our countryside.

DoD military pay includes officers and other relatively high-paying positions, such as soldiers who have served for decades. We'd be paying untrained youngsters the lowest wage rate only, say E1 pay. Still a lot of money on first blush -- 21k per year x 10 million = 210B, but it's only 1/10th of what you estimated.

However, much of that work is currently:
1) not getting done, and costing America money
2) being done by more expensive personnel, and therefore costing America more money

For an easy win on #1, the low-hanging fruit is infrastructure. Our crumbling roads and bridges make it more expensive to transport goods, and as you know, virtually everything is transported by trucks over those roads and bridges. This is why Trump has been trying to get Congress to pass a 1T infrastructure investment bill. According to a report from the American Society Of Civil Engineers, the U.S. economy is expected to lose just under $4 trillion in GDP between 2016 and 2025 if investment gaps in infrastructure are not addressed. This could hit $14 trillion by 2040 if the nation's aging roads, railways and bridges are left to decay even further.

A massive, inexpensive workforce would more than pay for itself many times over simply doing grunt work on our aging infrastructure, and might well generate massive savings for America for decades to come as we are able to maintain our infrastructure at greatly reduced cost, which has a ripple effect of reducing the cost of almost all goods and many services for all of America, and even increases our competitiveness internationally.

Using the above example, the report has us losing about 400 billion dollars annually from infrastructure maintenance issues alone. If the workforce can ameliorate only half of those issues, it is already more than paying for itself, because of the savings in wage rates as mentioned in #2.

And infrastructure maintenance is just one area, there are a great many such projects across America.

 

[toddnjoyce]

... First, let's dispense with the "it's communism" charge...

Socialism and communism are economic systems, not government systems. I’m well aware of the many non-dictator led countries that have a national service program.

...DoD military pay includes officers and other relatively high-paying positions...

Anywhere between 1:5 to 1:8 O:E ratio but it’s macht nicht since the people in the program are going to have to be supervised somehow and there’ll need to be people needed to do all sorts of things on the support/staffing side to make sure everybody meets their Congressionally mandated training requirements that, by law, every federal employee has to complete. I’ll bet my back of the napkin math is closer than yours is.

...Our crumbling roads and bridges make it more expensive to transport goods, ....

Sure, signholders are cheap, but average pay in the road construction business is $45K/year and heavy equipment operators can easily command six-figures.

Let’s also start talking about what happens when all these infrastructure projects that are being done by the national service kids starts putting the private sector segment of the industry out of business because the pool of slave labor is cheap. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

... the report has us losing about 400 billion dollars annually from infrastructure maintenance issues alone. If the workforce can ameliorate only half of those issues, it is already more than paying for itself, because of the savings in wage rates as mentioned in #2....

If it could be done profitably, the private sector would be doing it. But it doesn’t matter that much because .gov still has to pay for it since most infrastructure is publicly owned.

 

[Axxe55]

Some excellent points being made, both for and against mandatory service.

Something I thought of, is this. Today's youth is much different than many of us, or our parents, or grandparents. Many seem disconnected with the values, ethics and morals we hold to be important. Like a good work ethic, loyalty, patriotism and concern for others.

 

[toddnjoyce]

...mandatory service.

It’s an academic debate due to 13th Amendment prohibition on involuntary servitude. How the draft got past that is the Constitutional power to raise an army. There is no constitutional power to raise a national service corps.

...Something I thought of, is this. Today's youth is much different than many of us, or our parents, or grandparents. Many seem disconnected with the values, ethics and morals we hold to be important. Like a good work ethic, loyalty, patriotism and concern for others.

It doesn’t take mandatory national service to fix that.

 

[Axxe55]

It’s an academic debate due to 13th Amendment prohibition on involuntary servitude. How the draft got past that is the Constitutional power to raise an army. There is no constitutional power to raise a national service corps.


It doesn’t take mandatory national service to fix that.

That is a good point about the 13th Amendment. Plus I doubt that mandatory service could also be applied to the right to vote either.

You are correct. Much of that could be fixed if parents would be parents, then raise and discipline their children, as needed, instead letting them become entitled and spoiled brats.

 

[Coop45]

Axxe55,

As a retired service member, I personally don't want anyone in our Republic's uniform who does NOT desire to be one of our comrades in arms.
(When I was first in the Army in 1969, we still had draftees & a large percentage of the "didn't want to serves" were WORTHLESS to our unit.)

just my OPINION, satx
USA, Retired

About that time the Marine Corps was accepting draftees. Couldn't really tell who was and who wasn't. That was about 1967. Late 69 I was out and the division was back in Okinawa and Hawaii. When I got there, we were Bastards From the Sea. We were SLF 7 and spent our time being opcon to every Tom Dick and Harry so we became Rent a Battalion. Yes, even to the army. They gave us those dehydrated rats, but by the time we got to our night position it was well after dark. If you are ever tempted to eat dehydrated chili dry.....DON'T LOL!