What is National Service and why would you be forced to do it?

Question

Obama wants to let low income people attend college for free..but the catch is they would have to volunteer for National Service. What kind of service is that specifically?

Does this have to do with his plan to rebuild the military, is this some sort of draft?

Answer 1

Being from the UK I wouldn't be sure exactly what Obama has in mind but National Service is a common name for mandatory or voluntary government service programs most often focusing on military service. If it runs as a similar system as Britain used to have then men from 17 to 21 would do a year to 18 months in one of the armed forces and remain on the reserve list for four years, with a liability to be recalled to their units for up to twenty days service or training on not more than three occasions in the four years. But this was specific to Britain and Obama may have other ideas.

There are other forms of National Service that could involve work within a community.

There are other countries that still adopt National Service some of which include Mexico, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Israel and Switzerland.