Bring back National Service!

[AlternativelyWired]

This was often the cry of my late dad who did do his a National Service and my own thoughts wander in that direction at times and wonder if it would be a good thing?

To be fair I know next to nothing about it, I think it's just an automatic brief thought I have (thanks to my dad) when parts of society are behaving appallingly especially with antisocial behaviour locally. They'd have to start about age 10 or 11 in some cases though!

Is there a good and non-biased source of information on this? I'd love to know more about it and wish I could ask my dad about his experiences but sadly he's deceased.

We were a military family. My grandad served in WW2, my brothers were military, my dad did his National Service, uncle in the Army along with a cousin or two. Only the males of the family showed interest until I came along but I have bad asthma so couldn't join.

Part of me thinks the general concept of independence, discipline, respect, team work, learning skills etc would be a good thing and that's the reason for those brief thoughts.

On the other hand, on a very personal level, I would hate for my ds to be gone for 2 years at such a young age. They are still so young at 16. My brother joined up at 16 and broke my mother's heart and mine. I was only 2 and for years I would be deeply upset whenever he had to go back to wherever he was stationed around the world.

I also think that whilst many would benefit, far too many would find it traumatic to be away from their families and there be no choice about it.

Why just males too? If it were brought back (highly unlikely I would have thought) would females also be signed up?

I think my dad's generation saw it as doing their bit but I don't know what it involved so I'm going to go and find out more. If anyone can point me in the direction of a good book I'd be very grateful. I'd also love to hear the thoughts of others on this. Do other countries still have this? Why? What do they do?

A lot of questions, I know. I'm autistic and this has as of tonight become my latest special interest.

You can choose to not be on the electoral register. Some people can differ if they are carer for someone or other major problem.

I know someone who was 18 and juror on a rape case. She found that very difficult. People are extremely horrific cases can be excused for life from jury service. often wonder how many jurors are not intelligent enough to understand what is happening in the court case.

If everyone at school leaving age had to do a year in a customer-facing role in either retail or food service, imagine the reduction in people being absolute arseholes to staff. That would be much better than national service 😀

It was for 18 yr olds and over. Could be deferred until finished Uni or apprenticeships.
National military service is only useful if there is danger of war. It ended for us in late 50s or early 60s. Russia used to rehearse invading W Germany from East Germany every few years. Danger was there even if getting remote.
Finland and Switzerland have a majority of male citizens already familiar with weapons and methods. Finland recently did exercises with aircraft landing and takeoff from motorways. They are designed with that in mind. So is Switzerland. sometimes you find a wide curve and a short road coming out of a hill. Emergency shelter for two fighters.
Finland is serious about it. They could easily have been Ukraine.

Excluding anyone with SEN, it’s not a bad idea for those late teens who are not in education or working. It might offer some the discipline and structure they are clearly crying out for.

Magenta82 · Today 20:50
From my understanding the biggest opponents of national service are the military. Its hard enough training willing volunteers, why would they want people who are forced to be there.

To be fair Magenta, conscripts very much played a huge part in winning WW2 and I suspect many other wars.

Not that I'm in favor of it.

To be fair Magenta, conscripts very much played a huge part in winning WW2 and I suspect many other wars.

And it's very different being in a world war vs (relatively) peaceful times. There is no need for conscription from a national service point of view, the military is not there as a safety net for poorly parented youths.

I think Israel is the only country that has national service for both men and women.

I agree with bringing back borstal.

If a PRU isn't working and by 13 they are still off the rails, then a borstal out of area to complete English and Mathematics GCSE and a selection of one other choice like Art, PE, History should be the ongoing option.

I think Borstal out of area would also cut down on the county lines problems some major cities have, because if they aren't around at ,13 to be dragged into it and they don't come out of Borstal till 17 the chances of them returning to join a gang is lesser.

So if you took the youth from London and put them in Yorkshire, and then the ones from Yorkshire to like Mid Wales, then the Welsh ones to Norfolk you'd get them far enough out of the area to potentially save some of them from a life of gang culture.

I have huge respect for military personnel. They have bravery and discipline I’ll never know and moreover I couldn’t do it just on orders if I didn’t agree - but someone has to.

However military service is a TERRIBLE idea.

I agree with those who mention a "community based" national service - I think that something along those lines is not just a good idea, but will be essential going into the future if western countries are actually serious about reducing global population growth. We can't continue to rely on immigration to do the jobs our home-born population either can't do or don't want to do, we've got to consider how we can "get the jobs done" using our current population. With the demographic structure of the population becoming more square than pyramidal, I think we will need most people to spend part of their lives doing low-skilled work.

Caring professions, agriculture, cleaning, rubbish collection - all areas that should continue to provide careers for some, but might benefit from an expectation that young people will spend time helping in as well. There are probably other relevant fields. Any such plan will need to be carefully thought through as regards pay, accommodation, training requirements, not destabilising the existing workforce, age ranges and so on.

Some teenagers might benefit from a chance to step away from school and work for a while then go back into education with a bit of maturity and experience behind them - time to work out what they want out of life and how they can get there. Others might do better to complete A levels or even a degree before pausing. It might prove appropriate to have the option of doing eg 4 months harvesting work a year for a few years (could we provide altered school exam timings / some university courses around the times pickers are needed?)

Oh hell no. What would you do about university places, to start with?
And forcing people would make them useless.

I am also opposed to jury service, but that is because you don't need a jury system to have good and effective justice. Many European countries manage perfectly well without one.

Magenta82

I'm against conscription.

@Pythonesque ah yes, slavery for the young to deal with the recruitment crisis caused by Brexit. You're Liz Truss, aren't you?

Jesus. Every other thread is shit these days.

My fil apparently really wanted to do it but it stopped the year he become old enough. He was then going to join the army but then met my mil and she persuaded him not to.

But National Service was from 1949-60. Actual baby boomers.

Who do you think ‘ boomers’ are?

I don't think that would be a good idea for kids with SEN. My sons would all be cannon fodder which is a shame as they are bright and have much to offer.

I can't help watch the news, look at the dead Russian Young solders and wonder for their mums and sisters.

It's just such a fucking waste and personally I'd rather dream of a world where we didn't need armies or war. Imagine bringing your son up, teaching him to read, ride a bike, kissing away tears just for him to be shot miles away from home in sham war for a crazy arsehole. I can't comprehend it. I don't want the thing to make my sons 'real men' being blowing another kids brains out. It's not my dream.

My 28 year old said he has seem images of this war that will haunt him forever. A young solders back blown open. So no, I don't think it's a great idea. National service is for army's and armies exist for war.

No way would I ever want my DC to join the armed forces. My dad was in the army and they fucking broke him, he was on active service in Ireland and the raging PTSD he was left with fucked up my childhood. Did the army give a shit? No, because they got what they wanted and it wasn't their problem after he left. Take a look at the mental health, homeless, suicide, and prison stats for veterans and then tell me that sending all of our young people into National Service is a good idea.

Ditto borstal. There is a reason it was done away with (hint: because it didn't work and in fact had the opposite effect).

Excluding anyone with SEN, it’s not a bad idea for those late teens who are not in education or working. It might offer some the discipline and structure they are clearly crying out for.

I see your thinking, but I reckon it sounds too over-simplistic to apply it across the board. Sending all unemployed young adults into the army - a job that is known and acknowledged to carry a much-increased risk of death - is horrific.

The idea of some kind of structured discipline isn't a bad thing, but why should the military have to take on the burden (or maybe be used mainly as a threat that they will be desperate to avoid)? Why not send them into any other workplace and just expect the bosses and their colleagues there to absorb them into their profession?!

National service in the military is useful for countries with a small military where they want to be able to call on their general population as infantry in a time of war. Our military relies on highly trained personnel operating high end technology (like nuclear weapons) for its might and does not really envision being in the situation of, say, Ukraine, who have been able to pull on the experience of a significant percentage of their population having military training due to the National Service they had until recently. The UK isn’t really planning to be best able to adapt to that type of war.

The military don’t want National Service. I don’t think there’s much evidence that it’s a way to “straighten” people out. Crime rates amoung late teen/20 something men wasn’t particularly low just before National Service was scrapped and about a decade ago I recall research that found ex-military had two or more times the conviction rate of the general male population. There is often a lot of talk about how the military will train you and give you skills, but a lot of the training is not done in a way that is transferable to civilian life and the military culture - accommodation, food covered; pretty much forced into a large, non-diverse, macho social group; a discipline structure that relies on punishment; etc. means lots don’t develop many of the skills through the military that are good for thriving in civilian life unless they are on an officer track.

A special program to give young people a guaranteed job sounds good in some ways. However, in practice those sorts of schemes are expensive, deliver poorly and take away career options from those who would otherwise do the work. they also just kick the can down the road in terms of young people needing to find a way to be employable - which requires to some extent that you realise you aren’t guaranteed a job and you need to adapt yourself to what people want to pay you for. I think those failings could probably be overcome and the learning to adapt to the job marketplace could be easier if the placements developed good, transferable skills that are in demand. But, again, that would cost a lot of money for not a lot of productive output. It might be a good return on investment, but the money might be better spent developing better apprenticeship schemes and other forms of training for everyone.

YABVVU

DH retired from the armed forces, last year, after 35yrs of service. He's against National Service. We brought up our children to be decent, law abiding, respectful people, like most parents. Why should the military step in to sort other kids out where their parents couldn't be bothered?

DS1 has been in the army just over 8yrs. He's in charge of the barrack block he lives in. He hates it because trying to get the lower ranks to clean and tidy up after themselves is so hard. When he's at work they don't realise it's an order not a request when they're told to do something. These people signed up to a military career, they're supposed to want to be there but they just can't be arsed.

Then there's the mental health crisis in the armed forces and multiple suicides amongst them. It's really not an environment people should be forced into.

Baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964, I'd be shocked if any of them did National Service considering the eldest of them would have only been 3 when it began and 14 when it ended.

It's just such a fucking waste and personally I'd rather dream of a world where we didn't need armies or war. Imagine bringing your son up, teaching him to read, ride a bike, kissing away tears just for him to be shot miles away from home in sham war for a crazy arsehole. I can't comprehend it. I don't want the thing to make my sons 'real men' being blowing another kids brains out. It's not my dream.

I'm 100% with you there.

For the record, I'm not really in favour of bringing back Borstal - just would prefer that for proven offenders than NS for ALL young people, if the justification for the return of NS for all was basically to punish/rehabilitate the relatively small number of offenders, and we had to choose one or the other.

I do wonder how much war and military aggression we would see in the world if it were like the old days, where the leaders and their families would be first in to the battle. Kings didn't tend to live to see many jubilees back then....

Absolutely NOT slavery. Contributing to society? Definitely needs to be paid work, needs to have enough flexibility for there to be reasonable choices for all. Guaranteed work experience.

And no, I'm not considering it in the context of brexit at all. I consider it an essential part of preventing us being parasites on less well off countries. I also consider it when thinking about what parts of modern life are proving least amenable to automation. We're ALL going to have to do our bit, and doing so earlier in life is likely to be the best option for most.