national service

[fairwater]

would you bring back compulsory 2 years national service for boys and girls.
self discipline, self respect and respect for others, learn to live in a community, learn a trade. what do you think, would this be something to petition for.

I agree with everything Totally said. And i will add than many of them pay to obtain certificate for mental illness so that they avoid the service. Or they come into uk and 'study' for ever.

My husband did compulsory National Service, he calls it '2 wasted years'. Why do you want your dcs to spend 2 years learning how to use a gun and how to fight 'enemies'?

FGS Alien... so the boys get let off the hook and the girls get punished. Nice.

I think the Armed Forces there's 3 of them not just the Army have enough problems without young lads and lassies who don't actually want to be there being forced to join up.

FGS

How is it punishing the girl and letting the boy off the hook ?

If a boy or a girl are doing this hypothetical 21st Century national service and become a parent they are both subject to the rule that 2 years need to be served in total, equality no ? Maternity leave/Paternity leave couldn't be allowed to count.

Do not let your softer side believe that some girls won't see getting pregnant as a possible avoidance scheme and so the cumulative period of 2 years rule would be required to close this potential loophole.

No-one's options would be affected other than those who have no other plan/option ("there's no jobs for people like us, nothing to look forward to but a life on benefits". They are the ones who would be caught by the safety net of compulsory hypothetical national service to give them something to do. Those who plan to go to higher education/university and straight into work, no change. Those who find work after leaving school at 16 or 18, no change.

The hypothetical national service would only come into play if you were not in training or employment. The NEETs whose only option or even dare I say it plan is to start their post school life living on benefits with no daily discipline in terms of getting up at a reasonable time, doing something constructive with their notional working week.

National Service is a safety net I would want to be available for my children to do rather than them drifting into a life of benefits at 16 or 18 or 21.

i think thats a great idea.

great idea never thought of that, just wondered what people thought as someone said about N.S. in passing a while ago to me.

sorry to all reading this for a third time , i am new to this so obvious that i am not posting correctly, what i mean to say is to
mycatoscar and bikerunski
i think your ideas are excellent, offering it as part of vocational option. really good ideas.

The Government has today announced something called National Community Service for teens aged 16+.

I'll see if I can find a link that might explain what they mean.

An idea that's been around for a while DC speech in 2006, and is apparently already underway: recent BBC article.

I really am sick about announcements that prove to be about things that have already been announced.

Could be a good scheme though.

Having met and studied with a large number of Israeli students who had just completed their national service, I didn't feel that they were outstandingly well-adjusted, thoughtful individuals - in fact they were very similar to the UK students who hadn't done National Service (only they had all been trained to shoot people).

I don't think 2 years national service would help my son. He is quiet, thoughtful and hardworking, and about to start a degree course which will hopefully lead to him being able to work in the field he loves. If he interrupts that either now, or in 4 years time, to spend his time on assault courses and learning how to shoot at people for 2 years (or whatever the RN and RAF equivalents would be), it will not make him a better person, but would be more likely to leave him angry and disaffected at a state that thinks he's a problem just for being young.

How about targetting 30-50 yo's who have never had a job, if you want to pick a group who could be doing something a bit more positive for their community? Though a proportion of those probably are active in their community, even if not in paid employment. So how does anyone pick out the ones who "deserve" to be scapegoated?

If DC brings this in I will encourage the DDs never to take British nationality and instead keep their Dutch/US passports. Let's see the government force them into this nonsense.

Of course it won't happen, because decent provision of this kind costs money, and this government is cutting services and training for young people left, right and centre. It'll end up being state-enforced slave labour make-work that has no real benefits.

And I'm withAMIS on this - let's target the people who have never had a job, who have no intention of ever getting one, who may be the 2nd and 3rd generation never to have worked. Leave our youngsters alone, they are innocent until proven guilty.

I live in a respectable middle class area with good schools and parents who raise their children properly so it wouldnt be needed around here, but it would certainly help those from more troubled backgrounds where no-one sets boundaries. Rights come with responsibilities.

Someone asked to hear about the bad aspects of National Service. My Dad did his in the 50s.

During their basic training a number of the boys committed suicide because they couldn't take it.

My Dad made money from being one of the few able to polish stuff up to an acceptable standard - others couldn't do it and paid him to do theirs.

If you read John Peel's autobiography, his account of doing his NS was that it taught him how to steal stuff from supplies and the NAAFI and operate a black market, and gave him expertise in work avoidance.

I suspect the forces these days are much more professional and I doubt if they would welcome being saddled with large numbers of youngsters who don't want to be there.

No. Why should my teenagers have to do some dick-head military service just because a small minority of people of various ages have behaved criminally?

OP do you distinguish between national service and military service?

The first, comprising military, community or volunteering overseas for a year I would be in favour of with waivers for specific professions with a long training period or who end up doing something counted as one of those in any case such as joining the army, becoming a doctor/nurse/teacher/social worker or going into overseas aid.

The second I wouldn't. You can't force people to join an organisation to which they might have ethical objections.

I would also object to 'national service' because it would still be two wasted years of dick-head nonsense whilst all the 18 year olds with well connected parents and various 'reasons' somehow manage to avoid 'the draft' and take up the best university places.