FFS he should clean up his own act and the Government's first. A friend of mine was an embedded consultant in the Pentagon for over a year and saw dysfunction to rival that of Congress.

A hitch in the Obama Brownshirts for every young thug!

Just do like Bush did - crash the economy and generate a bunch of unemployed young people for your next invasion farce!

As long as we're putting ludicrous partisan spins on something a military careerist has to say, let's go all the way.

Back to the question at hand, though - this won't fly because the children of the privileged won't have to do it.

Just like Bush jumping the line to hide out in the pooty-TANG and avoid the war.

The moneyed elite simply will not serve up their kids to be cannon or broom fodder, because they saw what happened to John Kerry. His Vietnam service drove the conservatives berserk with jealousy. And who wants their kid to risk their life only to be swift-boated when they get home?

Screw that!

I wonder how he is planning on paying these people?

I am afraid, like everything else, the solution is going to be to print money to pay people to pretend to work.

"The moneyed elite simply will not serve up their kids to be cannon or broom fodder, because they saw what happened to John Kerry. His Vietnam service drove the conservatives berserk with jealousy. And who wants their kid to risk their life only to be swift-boated when they get home?"

That's it. I am berserk with jealously over John Kerry's two scratches, and a hangnail, four month tour in Vietnam.

Yes, it's true - the DOD had a secret plan to make sure every Purple Heart handed out was only for the most grievous wounds, except John Kerry's, because the DOD is a liberal organization, and they knew he'd run for Prez.

It's all so obvious!

Meanwhile, back in today's world, I don't think the idea for forced service is going to work. Bush and Cheney had to lower the standards and raise the age limits to get enough people for the wars. They were smart enough to realize the draft simply wouldn't be accepted this time.

I see nothing wrong about giving back something to our country. This gives new grads a chance to achieve some maturity and to do something for someone else. I say this after obtaining two college degrees and serving two years in the army. Looking back, I do not regret having done so.

The military has a system in place to train and employ their members. The rest of the government has no way to either train, supervise or distribute these civilian "volunteers" unless you want to send them all to the TSA....:-)

I served seven years in the military. A wonderful experience in many respects, a lot of hard work, but not something I want to mandate as I remember all too well, the Vietnam era draft.

At Cafe Hayek:
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From the late economist Milton Friedman’s essay “Why Not a Volunteer Army? (Spring 1967 - New Individualist Review) [edited]:
( oll.libertyfund dot org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2136&chapter=195469&layout=html&Itemid=27 )

A volunteer army would preserve the freedom of individuals to serve or not to serve. Or, put the other way, it would avoid the arbitrary power that now resides in draft boards to decide how a young man shall spend several of the most important years of his life, and whether his life shall be risked in warfare. An incidental advantage would be to raise the level and tone of political discussion.

A volunteer army would also enhance the freedom of those who now do not serve. Being conscripted has been used as a weapon (or thought by young men to be so used) to discourage freedom of speech, assembly, and protest. The freedom of young men to emigrate or to travel abroad has been limited by the need to get the permission of a draft board if the young man is not to put himself in the position of inadvertantly becoming a law-breaker.
=== ===

AMG: The military appeals to some men and not others. It makes as much sense to draft people at random for the army as to force people at random to become construction workers or librarians.

If the political complaint is that a volunteer force costs more money in higher pay and amenities, then that reveals part of the true cost of defense and war. Those who risk their lives should be paid for it. The remarkable thing is how low the pay is for military service, at least for those who serve voluntarily in place of a draft.

Actually I think it's a good idea, provided that NO ONE can plead special circumstances, and that everyone is mixed in together. Colleges take so few poor kids, kids from the Rust Belt, etc..

The thing about a conscripted military or any similar service corps is that you have to take the good and the bad people.

That includes the barely literate that was passed through ghetto school 101. They think they can show up, do nothing and the choice is that there will be no consequences or imprisonment for malingering or dereliction of duty.

The military is facing the issue already. They have found more than one gang-banger that wants to get a "free pass" to the armory so that they can steal military grade weapons.

Then you have the people who think they don't have to live to the standards that are required. That includes alcohol, drugs, work hours, etc.

This isn't the days of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Great Depression. A large part of the modern 18 year old think they are entitled and don't have to work for it.

I hope this line doesn't mean what I think it does."Returning military veterans would be treated as the civic assets they are and permitted to use a portion of their GI Bill benefits to support a period of civilian national service"
Does that mean returning vets who have served their time. Would be required to give up some of the benifits they earned, and be made to sweep streets in the hood?

Now, if you did it like the Swiss, a few months military training, then send them home with their ruck, service weapon, and a couple hundred rounds, you might convince me.

National services works in many countries, but I don't see it working in the USA.

Just as an example, here, in Switzerland: Young men must either participate in the militia system or do some sort of equivalent civil service. Generally speaking, they have the choice of serving a couple of weeks a year, or getting it all over with in a single go. With the first option, there is no need to delay starting a career.

The main criticism of this system is that men and women have equal rights under the law, but women are exempted from national service. This should be corrected, but won't be.

Aside from the work accomplished, the main benefit goes to the many teenagers who lack direction, and in many cases lack obvious career prospects. They benefit from working in structured environments and gain experience.

This system works in Switzerland, because the whole country is smaller than New York City. There is no room for a huge bureaucracy, kids wind up working locally, you work with people you already know, and meet future colleagues. The military aspects, well, this *is* our military, and it's a purely defensive militia system.

I can only imagine what an unmitigated disaster this program would be, if run by the US federal government. There would be more bureaucrats than workers. There would be endless lawsuits because the government didn't adequately respect the cultural choices of inner city girls who would rather get pregnant than do something useful. Rich kids would somehow be magically exempt. It would be nothing short of horrible...

Women take time off when they have children, though, generally 3 months. If you made them serve in the military, too, putting off their careers, and then they had kids, it would be catastrophic career-wise or birth-rate-wise. Birthrate among native Swiss is low enough as is.

In practice, any guy who wants to get out of military service can do so. I know several who did. You get a doctor to write you a note. It's not hard.

It hasn't been my observation that kids work locally, quite the contrary. Part of the point of the army is to mix the different linguistic groups. I don't know -anyone- who served in their village or town, most didn't even stay within the canton.

The army's supposed to build solidarity between German, French and Italian and Romansch speaking parts, to build a common identity between the different ethnic groups. This has always been cited as one of the main benefits during peacetime.

I'm currently serving in the Navy and we already have a hard time with some of the modern "kids" that volunteer. The last thing I want to deal with is modern youth who are forced to serve--that would be an absolute nightmare!

On the other hand, I would prefer a system of enfranchisement similar to the one Heinlein proposed (with a couple variations): You would only be allowed to vote after having served the country in some capacity (not necessarily military) or being being a property owner. In other words...you'd have some skin in the game.

Because, voting to take away someone's money/property or rights would probably mean a bit more if you actually had property of your own and/or had done something to protect those rights.

@NicoleK much of that is a question of how far away is still considered 'local'. Probably very different there. Awhile back some friends were talking about the locally grown food fad. The question came up what does local mean, answers varried between 20 miles and 150 miles. 150 mile radius in Switzerland is a big chunk of the country.

What about as a loan forgiveness program? Don't make it mandatory, but make it a way to pay back your loan.