Wow, I love it! It should precede military service. I don’t believe that many people would enlist after a year of volunteering. It’s too hard to sign up to kill strangers after discovering how good it feels to connect with them. Which means that, not only would it change the individual and therefore the country, but possibly the whole world, too. Maybe as these kids vote and govern, it will be harder to get this country to war.
Mandatory public service…not a bad idea. When I was faced with a low draft # during the the Viet Nam war, as a struggling college student, I would have jumped at a chance to avoid military service, yet do something that I considered positive for my country and/or the rest of the world. Going to Canada was not an option I would have considered. But once I flunked the induction center physical and the pressure was off, I still would have gladly signed up for a less strenuous activity mandatory activity–for which my hypertension would not have been disqualifying–again, had it been mandatory. I was anxious, as graduation neared, to finish college and start finding a job. No grad school for me. Starving student was not just a cute term to me, I really did live at below poverty level since the family cash flow for my education had dried up before I transfered from JC to UC. I took five years to accumulate sufficient graduation qualification credits due to dropping out to work at several points. So, to make a mandatory program of public service work, today, with the even higher cost of living, massive public funding would be required. It could be done. The right leadership would have to be in place and some screening would be required to qualify. I’m not sure how this type of program would affect the young adults that are entering the prison population through gang-banging, drug dealing or other no-self-esteem activities. The sense I have of how this would work seems to involve mostly middle and upper class “kids” of all races with some wicking up of less advantaged youth who would use this program to escape being bound to ghetto-ization. Does a national service or a state service program make more sense? Would money be taken from other services to low income citizens to front the costs? Could college tuition credits be accumulated–like the armed services?
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