'Bring Back National Service'.....Yay or Nay???

[tiredemma]

Just seen a news item on Sky where a 'Knife Tsar' is suggesting brining back National Service.

Brooke Kinsella (sis of murdered Ben Kinsella) suggested the same the other day.

I know very little about National Service so cannot comment on whether its a good thing or a bad thing.

What do you lot think????

Nooka - Those episodes again are the minority. What happened in Cyprus (the rape) was shocking and has left terrible scars no one would deny.
T
here is a strong loyalty, pride, respect and ethics that are instilled and taught through military training. The gratitude shown by the parents of the trainees that recently graduated from my DH's course demonstrates that. They were so proud. Some were in tears thanking my dh for what he had done and how they had changed for the better. They had an appreciation of life too. The padres are an important part of the training and not from a religious pov. The military are not a bunch of brain washed thugs as some would like to believe.

Dh's view, and that of the armed forces, is that they didn't want to have a group of ill disciplined yobbos lacking motivation to work with. He saw his role as the defence of this country, not a remedial morals teacher.

That said, for the right sort of person the armed forces can be a real life saver (no pun intended) leading kids away from drug and crime and into self respect.

True it doesn't work for all, and there are arse holes in the military, but there are in every walk of life.

I don't see people on MN hissing 'Don't let your ds be a doctor FFS look at Harold Shipman '

Slur - X-posted.
You are right. The military are just like the rest of us actually. There are all sorts, including criminals and fantastic community minded individuals.
I have re-read my post and think it was a bit unnecessarily defensive.
And actually I posted earlier that I don't agree that the 'National Service' should be military, but in some cases it would be a good thing. Truly.

Indeed neither would I make med school complusory. Or even university attendence

I wouldn't want this thread to become a military bash fest, having national service to mean military muddies the waters I feel. A more interesting thread is about whether teens should be made to do any sort of complusory service to their community or country, and whether if they did that would reduce crime.

I am still thinking no. But annoyingly still can't quite think why I object...

Perhaps we should have national service for all 30-40 y-olds. And these Generation Xers have to give up half their weekends for a year to volunteer in some local youth centre, or to mentor young offenders or work with the homeless and drug agencies. They have to put something back and they can't whinge about childcare or being a nurse or anything like that.

Let's do that. And if you don't turn up or refuse to attend on the grounds that the young don't know how lucky they are/ are lazy and lucky / bite the hand off that feeds them then they are locked up for fifteen years.

I think that might be a goer you know.

FWIW I don't think that national service needs to be military.....and said this far earlier in the thread.

I do feel that some form of activity that takes kids away from home for a while, and from all the preconceived ideas and attitudes that they may have, that may limit their ambition and life choices, is a good thing.

Bravo, ahundred times!

Actually I agree with you 100times that some form of community service for everyone would be a good idea - but what about childcare, if one is a single parent with no family nearby, or has a sick child or something? It would only be feasible if creches were provided, really.

as someone who has bumped into (i.e had the shit kicked out of me) quite a few "squaddies" on leave (i.e. getting pissed). it is only too clear what can happen when you get people with the wrong mentality in the armed forces.
rather than teaching them discipline,they have simply trained these scumbags to be fitter and more accomplished at kicking the crap out of people.

now i know this is the absolute minority (1%) of the armed forces, but i personally would fear that these incidents would rise quite drastically if you forced people who already have a disposition to random violence and no respect for the law to do basic military training through national service.

there is a lot of men who i fear in a fewa years as a reult of the wars wil eb a real prob in society

I wouldn't mind some voluntary work being available where I could bring my child along as well to help. Adults and youngsters working alongside each other seems much better than adults telling children they need to do this or that because it's good for them. It's good for us all.

As an aside to the childcare thing, I volunteered as an adult numeracy and literacy mentor and Sure Start paid my childcare costs with a childminder.

Sorry Vanilla, I wasn't trying to say that everyone in the military was badly behaved. Just that it's not a panacea in the way that some people try to make out. My brother in law was in the Royal Engineers and he is lovely. It's the enforcement idea that I dislike - why should kids be forced to march about etc if they don't want to - I know I would have absolutely hated it. For me the most important part about my year out was that I made my own choices about what to do (which included shop work, traveling and voluntary work) and I think that's what helped me grow up. From the successful schemes I have seen in action for young people it is the presenting of (supported) choices that breaks the cycle of low expectations, gangs and criminality. Otherwise you will have unwilling kids doing community work (badly) and military service (probably badly too) and then going home and picking up the same habits they had before.

In any case it still doesn't address the fact that many of the kids who are getting into trouble are school aged and so would not be in this sort of scheme at all.

Nooka, thanks .

It is not for everyone, I know.

Yay, big time

Yes definitely - 2 years' service compulsory for all. This would hopefully instil a sense of discipline, purpose, self-worth and national pride into people I believe.

The whole thing about making someone do what they don't want to do is that that is the way life is. We all have to do things we don't really want to - maybe stay in a job we hate. By teaching people the self discipline to make the most of themselves they can take that back into civilian life and actually have a chance.

definately

yes

What about what it would do to the forces? What would be the effect if they were filled with sulky kids who didn't want to be there instead of the motivated professionals there now? In spite of the rights and wrongs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's a reason Bush is so keen on keeping the British forces with them - it's because they're bloody good.

National service was compulsory for men in the 50's (my dad served then) and our forces were still amongst the best in the world. Many of the sulky kids who wouldn't want to be in the forces to be honest wouldn't want to be in education or work or doing anything else constructive either so what shall we do with them? Leave them to run riot? Or try to help them to find some meaning to their lives?

The problem with a lot of kids now is they have no hope, no focus, nothing to achieve. National service would give them all of these things. It might just manage to turn around some of the ones who might have got into trouble and would just provide valuable experience for everyone else as well as a bit of pride in themselves and their national identity.

Well luckily it's not going to happen. I think it would be an incredible waste of many young people's lives to force them to go off and do some meaningless activity (what precisely would they do during this compulsay two year period I wonder, as we now don't have an Empire to send our forces to). I also wonder educationally how disruptive it would be (would you be able to postpone until after university for example or would you get an exempsion if you said you would study something socially useful like medicine for example?). Also should it be compulsary for those who missed on the last batch of national sevice to put their two years in? I wonder how many on this thread would like to do this NS themselves?

Perhaps we should just send all the ASBO types to Iraq and hope they get killed off?