Required Service in America

Mandatory service is not my choice, there are arguments for both sides but I believe it should be a choice

 

Many countries have mandatory service, typically two years for males. It has pros and cons. It would be good for character, and there are large segments of the population in desperate need of character. Every family would have skin in the game, so to speak, when it came to using our military. But, it's completely unnecessary and goes against the American tradition against forced servitude.

Lower courts had ruled registration for the draft to be unconstitutional because it discriminates against men, but the Supreme Court sided with the registration. In our absurd drive to pretend men and women are the same, is it even an option to not demand more from women if we're demanding more from men?

 

I agree with having an all-volunteer force except during a national crisis like World War II.

 

Yes, agreed. However back then, men of all ages flocked to join up. After all we were being attacked.

 

True. Korea and Vietnam did not present that same shock value as Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

It would probably help, but I am against forced service either in the military or in any other way. Our professional volunteer Armed Forces has served us well.

 

On 9/11/2001, I was well past draft age, but in the months following that attack, I investigated a number of ways I could directly serve our nation. I looked at a number of options, including the CIA and other covert service, but the kind of wars we fight these days require a lot of specialized training, and our military and government services rightly want to invest that training in younger volunteers who can spend many years serving our nation.

I gladly signed up for Selective Service a few months before my 18th birthday, although I believed the calling for my life was in another direction. If we had had a national emergency or I was called up, I was prepared to accept that as the will of God to serve.

I like the idea of high school graduates engaging in a voluntary two-year service with the military (something along the lines of basic training and constructive service), or another yet-to-be created public service arm of the government, which would build character, teach responsibility, and allow the lessons of teamwork and diverse friendships to develop. This could be tied to financial assistance and scholarships for those young people to get further specialized vocational training or a college degree more easily.

We have a huge problem on the near horizon regarding many traditional blue-collar jobs in manufacturing, transportation and shipping, warehousing, retail, and certain vocations such as coal mining. Those jobs are going away and are unlikely to ever return. The use of coal is being rapidly displaced by abundant natural gas which is cheaper and cleaner to burn -- as well as better for the environment -- as well as other energy sources such as wind power. Manufacturing, transportation and shipping, warehousing, and retail are all being rapidly automated, where only one or two human beings will be needed to run an massive distribution center (to monitor, maintain and repair the robots and equipment), and that type of job requires advance vocational training. Unless we have some sort of affordable training available for our citizens in the near future, we are going to have a massive unemployment crisis, since there is little motivation for the private sector to train large groups of people since the numerical needs for a workforce will be greatly diminished.

And if you think what I have just written about the automation of the economy is wishful thinking, until recently I worked for a company that designed and built automated warehouses, automated manufacturing facilities, and prepped both kinds of facilities for the automated trucks that will drive themselves, dock, and wait for loading/unloading by the robotic systems of the facilities they serve. I also live in Fort Worth, Texas, a center of the natural gas boom of this century. My previous firm also designed and built out massive electrical grids to gather and transmit the enormous amount of wind power generated in West Texas that is used on the Texas electrical grid. There are times during the night when the weather and usage are at such levels where Texas is almost completely powered by wind energy. As it currently stands, Texas gets just under 20% of its electrical power from wind energy, and Texans benefit from that on our electrical grids. These days we don't see as many coal trains out of Colorado coming into the state since those old coal plants are being converted or replaced by natural gas.

 

The way that technology is going, in the near distant future, if the Lord doesn't come, Wars will probably be fought on the computer... Video gamer's will be the soldiers, kinda like terminator, but then again that would be boring and they would want to go mano eh mono and duke it out... I guess that's just our nature... Brother Glen

Matthew 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

I know I've been watching to much sci-fi!