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.

I agree that the idea of some form of none military based national service should be compulsory for a year after school - to fill the low paid jobs that no-one seems to want to do. Make it lottery based so people don’t play the system to get the cushy jobs and ensure that people can’t wriggle out.. Might also act as a way to foster some bonding between different groups in society. Working in care homes, restaurants, fruit picking, supermarket check out etc….minimum wages for all these jobs could all be the same…..perhaps you could have 3 four month rotations between physical labour, caring and customer facing? At the very worst it would address the short term problems with labour shortages and divert people from entering the benefits system straight from school. After doing this sort of job for a year it might actually create some ambition and drive in those that would have otherwise drifted. I know that we have volunteering but I don’t think it’s the same as this would be a real leveller among all socioeconomic groups. Plus I would like to see the offspring of the super rich working side by side in the fields with the rest of us pleb’s kids!!!

The services don’t want a bunch of conscripts. They want to invest time and money in people who will have a career.

I'm not sure where corporal punishment comes in to this.

I personal think we would be a better country if all the CEOs, politicians and hedge fund managers etc had spent a couple of years in their late teens/early 20s providing basic public services to their fellow citizens and experiencing working unsocial hours, in the way they expect others to do so in order to provide the public services that they utilise. They might even make better decisions based on their experiences.

@EgonSpengler2020 nope, it's still taking away freedom from people. We bloody well ought to be better than that. If you want to tackle societal inequality, there are better ways. I would agree that it should be impossible to be an MP unless you've actually done a proper paid job (not hedge fund manager!) on your CV somewhere, but beyond that forcing young people into shitty jobs will only (rightfully) breed resentment. It's still authoritarianism if it's well intentioned.

Use the money for properly funded youth services, school support, high quality youth mental health provision, training provision etc

I Absolutely agree with this.

I’ve lived in a country where National Service is obligatory, but only for males. It’s pretty tough, I understand, with pretty poor living conditions. The upside is the country has a very low crime rate, with very high employment. “Yob culture” doesn’t exist.

My late father did it and went to the Korean War - although I think it finished just as he got there. He learnt a trade in the Army - he became an electrician, which he then did for the rest of his working life. If he hadn't done the National Service, I'm not sure he would have had as much opportunity, and may not have learnt a skilled job.
I'm by no mean saying it's a good thing for people now, but just saying it actually did help my father.

Its a no from me.

Although I vaguely remember hearing about a country that had national service, but it was in customer service roles etc and I thought it was a fantastic idea as it could possibly help eradicate the horrible attitude some have toward those in customer service. However I’m really not for enforcement of something like that.

Also when I was in retail management we were part of one of the ‘back to work’ schemes for young people. It was an absolute nightmare as the majority did not want to be there and it felt very morally wrong them working full time for pennies. It was more work for the rest of us too.

I am in the UK and I've never heard people of any generation other than baby boomers agree with bringing back national service. Obviously not all baby boomers will agree with NS but I would bet my life that those who do agree are of that generation.

I’ve lived in a country where National Service is obligatory, but only for males. It’s pretty tough, I understand, with pretty poor living conditions. The upside is the country has a very low crime rate, with very high employment. “Yob culture” doesn’t exist.

That sounds good on the surface, but you could say the same about countries like China and North Korea, where any kind of dissidence is severely clamped down on; not just crime or seriously antisocial behaviour, but anything that the ruling classes don't like.

You could eradicate all rape by locking up every male over 16; you could eradicate burglary by forbidding people to own anything! You're still punishing everybody for the crimes of the few.

I also come from a military family.
Both grandads served - one RAF, one army and both saw active theatre.
My dad was a Royal Marine (falklands vet). His brother in the army (northern Ireland vet).
3 of my cousins served in the army (Bosnia, iraq and Afghanistan veterans)
I then joined the army at 16, and then spent 8 years married to a soldier.
I think national service is a terrible idea. It’s hard enough to shape a civilian who’s willingly signed up to do the job into an effective soldier. Trying to do that with thousands of young people who don’t want to be there is not only going to be a difficult task, but I could see it also resulting in a military made up of bods who can’t/won’t do their job to the standard required. Even among those who willingly sign up, there’s people who simply aren’t built for it, and can’t meet the standard required either mentally or physically to carry out tasks put to them.
I’ve been on live firing ranges with people who couldn’t manage to listen to, understand and carry out clear instructions, either because they are genuinely just not understanding or listening, or because they simply don’t give a shit…and it’s terrifying. Those people were few and far between, but I can imagine it would be more and more commonplace if national service was implemented.
People always like to trot out the line that it would help tackle anti-social behaviour among young people, but I see that as utter bollocks. Yes, a certain amount of aggression is required to be an effective soldier. But that aggression is channelled and you are taught to deploy it in a controlled manner. There’s always the odd loose cannon, but again they are few and far between. Don’t see national service going well from that perspective - disaster waiting to happen.
There’s always the odd few who rock up to basic training with a chip on their shoulder, massive authority issues etc and yes, they try their luck in the first few weeks, thinking they will win. And they soon learn through physical pain and constant mental stress, that they will not win. But because it’s a career they want to do, they back down, get with the program and end up becoming a decent soldier 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t see that happening with the loose cannons with authority issues who haven’t chosen that particular career path and are only there because the government tells them they have no choice.

Hmm, teaching people who don't want to be there how to use a gun...

What could possible go wrong with that plan?

My DD will be still 15 when she sit's her GCSE, it's impossible for her to get a job thanks to too much red tape.

No way I would support that she would be dragged out of proper education while so young (so just 16 according to your idea) unless it would really help her with her further education.

16 is already too young to have a very limited education limiting her school subjects.

@Suprima same in Germany. At least it used to be.

Why did a Conservative defence minister himself think this was a terrible idea only a few days ago (before the policy was announced)? See attached.

You know this is a two year old thread?

That was also my experience. I was very optimistic and quite excited to go, but the reality was frightening, really frightening. The level of complete lack of critical thinking by some jurors led me to believe that there must have been many cases of miscarriage of justice.

Sunak has lost the election with this .

No. It was already lost long ago. This is only being announced because they know they will never have a chance to enact it.

@Suprima But my teenagers haven't chucked anything off a bus stop or anything else.
Why should they be coerced and indoctrinated because other people indulge in antisocial behaviour.
Why should my well behaved teens be forced to live and mingle with the psychos, rather than the friendship group of decent kid they have already?
Genius.

I said before and I'll say again - we don't owe the state anything other than to comply with the law and pay taxes - we definitely don't owe the state national service.

What really annoys me about this is that it will be 70+ year olds who vote for it because they think they fought in WW2 even though they weren't even born, and they were too young to have done National Service themselves.

That said, sending every post GCSE student off to a shop to work for a month would be a good idea to teach them how to deal with rude customers (and stupid MPs). As long as they were paid as proper employee.

I don't think the Army would want a bunch of clueless teenagers either! And neither would a care home.