Should serving your country be mandatory?

Question

It is mandatory in most countries for all citizens and residents to serve their country in peace time, around 18 years of age, usually in the military for at least a few years. Would you support mandatory service of your country, with the choices being service in the Military, the Peace Corp or Americorp? If so, which would you chose?

Answer 1

A one word answer: YES. The person may choose which way to serve, participate and give back to their country.

Answer 2

Of course it should be mandantory in some manner. The options you suggest are excellent alternatives to military duty. I might add community service as another choice. At the same time, I think it would be good to make everyone go through boot camp. Not so much to teach combat training (that should be voluntary) but to teach discipline, team work, self-reliance and respect for others.

As for my personal choice: I would go Navy again. The travel was amazing, the work was easy and the experience was priceless.

Answer 3

Yes this would be a good idea.

Answer 4

Killing is against my religion therefore NOT! And why is it we should help any country in the Peace Corp? I don't get it I don't see them here helping the needy

Answer 5

I don't think so. Earning an education and getting into the workforce is also a way of supporting your country without being forced to do it.

Answer 6

Good question. Yes, it would eliminate a lot of the disdain for America on this website. I would choose the US Army.

Answer 7

I chose the navy, them village people made it sound great

Answer 8

Most of the nations that have military conscription are reforming their forces into all-volunteer forces. Making things mandatory will just bring back an era of rank hypocrisy as Americans try every trick in the book to avoid serving. You can see a microcosm of this behavior at any courthouse with respect to people who have been served summons for jury duty.

Answer 9

If I had to choose I would probably take the peace corps. Actually help people, rather than just killing.

Answer 10

Yes, I believe serving our country should be mandatory.  Either in the military, the Peace Corps, VISTA, or some other type of service.

Answer 11

I don't think it would be a bad Idea, plus everyone would be entitled to a college education.

Answer 12

I think some type of service should be mandatory. You list a couple besides the military, but there could be more. The devil is in the details: how long?, how is your service duty decided?, Cost to the country (training, equipping, etc.) no matter what kind of service. But overall, I think it's a good idea.

Answer 13

I would support a mandatory one or two year service program, with all of the programs you mentioned.  Teach for America would be another program that could be added (not entirely sure  if that's under Americorp or not) and one that I would like to take part in.

Civic virtue is always something to be encouraged.  Wonderful idea!

Answer 14

Sadly, I think we're past the point where this could be implemented without a huge uproar, lawsuits, riots, etc, etc. I think it's a great idea and that it should be done. I do have issues with letting the government control our lives for "x" number of years, but I think it's one of the best things we could do for our country, *and* for our citizens. Besides, they already do it with jury duty. And all those options would have to be more interesting than the average day on jury duty.

Volunteering  work like this would save the country trillions of dollars, I'm sure, and could lower taxes considerably. I think it would also bring the people of the nation closer together. It could help lessen racism and maybe even narrow some of the gaps between the different classes and cultures of the U.S. I know from experience in the Army Reserve years ago and other situations that when you're thrown together with a bunch of people you don't know and have to work alongside them, you learn a lot about people, and you learn a lot about other cultures, races, genders, etc. You spend a lot of time with people you would never spend time with under any other circumstances. You start to see that every single person is different, regardless of how they look, skin color, where they're from, how much money they have, etc. Stereotypes and unconcious generalizations can be eliminated or at least lessened in your mind. You learn to respect people based on "the content of their character" instead of judging them by what they do for a living or how much of a "success" they've been in life. Watch "American History X" - even prison can do good things for you if you can keep your mind open a crack.

And being away from all the people you know, all the people who see you a certain way and perpetuate you seeing yourself in a certain way is an amazing experience. You can grow in a situation like that in ways you never would have guessed. You're more free to change and don't have the fear that people will think you're being weird or uncool because you're not like them or whatever. You don't have anyone but yourself reminding you of all the mistakes you've made or the bad habits you have. Free of all the negative reinforcement and other peoples opinions about you, you can change your behaviors and start being the person you want to be. This could cause major changes in the country if it worked well. Gang members and criminals would get time away from whatever environment contributed to their situation.

General guidance counseling (like in high school) should be available, with more in-depth counseling available, if you wanted it. They should have a vocational center, help with remedial skills and learning disabilities, alcohol and drug dependency issues, and free medical and mental health care.

Finally, they should have one-on-one exit counseling to help them develop an outline of what they're going to do when they finish: where they'll live, what kind of work they want, and what their goals are. Then send 'em off with a polished resume and a couple grand in their pockets (with cost-of-living increases over time as needed). A re-entry to regular society plan. With follow-up contacts and support if they need it.

Another possibility is allowing immigrants entry into the programs, and after, say, double the regular time period, grant them citizenship. While they're serving their term, teach them English, if they don't know it, and get them educated about all they need to know to live here and to pass the citizency test.

I think there should also be some sort of a GI Bill type of program as well, helping you to get an education after or during your service.

There should be college deferments available to people wishing to study for badly-needed professions, with the program assisting in one way or another (directly, tax breaks, loan repayment). After school, they would spend the time of their service working wherever they were needed most and provided with the standard room and board or stipend that anyone else would get during their term. I think their terms of service should be longer than most, depending on the profession and how much their education costs the government - longer for a med student than a teacher, for example.

To quell objections to the whole thing, I think there should be some very limited ways that you could skip doing it. Since these people serving their country would be saving the government substantial amounts of money, they should have lowered taxes set at a certain rate for life. Those that don't serve would be taxed at the same rate as we are now - or more - for life. I think doing it that way might keep rich kids from trying to buy their way out of it. Specific physical limitations, family emergencies, or people having to care for disabled dependents, etc.

But, like I said, I don't think there's really much of a chance at all that any of this might actually happen. Roosevelt could have thrown it in with the New Deal, maybe, or it could have been done after WWII, since the nation already *was* volunteering and actively supporting our troops and helping to win the war, rather that chatting online or playing X-Box back home and forgetting all about it. And Kennedy might have been able to pull it off, and it would have been right up his alley.

Unfortunately, we've allowed ourselves to become so selfish and self-centered and shallow that most people wouldn't stand for it now. It's always somebody else's problem. All we ask is what our country can do for us. Something like this just might be able to bring us closer to what America once was. What we like to think of it as, but most refuse to contribute to. By having all young people (and any older people that volunteer) go through this sort of experience, maybe we could raise the next "Great Generation."

..... This went on for far too long, and I jumped around a lot, so if something makes no sense, I probably just forgot to finish my sentence or something! I just had a lot of ideas on the topic. I've got more too, but I've just got to shut up already.

BTW, since I served in the Army Rerserves (in peacetime) previously, I would lean toward that. I didn't like it at all, but it was good for me and I liked the people. I also feel, at times, a sense of duty - not toward the government, or even the cause of the war, but to the troops there. However, due to somewhat unusual circumstances, I couldn't re-enlist. I didn't do anything wrong, but I know they wouldn't take me. If I had to choose from the other two, it'd be hard to pick. Both would be good. Probably Peace Corps. See the world, and remind them that overall, Americans are pretty good.

Good question, btw.

Answer 15

h**l No!