A VISION FOR YOUTH
Meyer, Ernest L.
Vision For Youth By ERNEST L. MEYER AFTER all other arguments fail, and even after the coming of the atomic bomb demonstrated the use-lessness of vast standing armies as a technique of war, the...
...A goal riot transitory and destructive such as war, but enduring and constructive in which plowshares preempt the sword...
...There are alternative plans for the enlistment of youth in the service of the country which are more sane and workable...
...Hence the breakdown in morale and widespread increase in violence and crime...
...Give them the dream to hold, and the tools with which to labor, and they will not fail us...
...Fill their eyes with this vision, then transplant them to another valley, say the Missouri, and ret them to work to tame its turbulence, build dams, conquer floods, spread security and well-being...
...Recent events, however, notably the alarming increase in crime and hood-lumism in sections of America and Europe, cast doubt on the validity of the argument that Army service fosters either self-discipline or respect for community law...
...That is the weakness of Army discipline built on universal conscription: the fact that it requires actual war to make it function and to make it stick...
...but expertness in the technique of murder remains...
...The N YA, to be sure, was sneered at and eventually scuttled by the same rabid and reactionary forces that sniped eternally at the "leaf raking and boondoggling" of the WPA, totally ignoring the thousands of projects that stand as a monument to that agency's labors...
...They would see a vast valley of people working voluntarily together toward the accomplishment of good and ascertainable ends...
...Yet a wave of crimes of violence, of sex crimes, of looting, larceny, and black-market profiteering is sweeping many countries, including even regimented Russia where extra police have been mobilized...
...The situation demonstrates that the type of discipline inculcated by the Army and effective during combat does not in a great many cases carry over into peacetime modes of life...
...The body-building argument has been often and successfully exposed as folly...
...The compulsion was directed toward one end: the annihilation of the enemy, and in the attainment of that end the soldier's self was submerged to the welfare and efficiency of the group...
...WHAT aggravates the case is that soldier offenders are armed and trained in the use of arms...
...It is disproved at the very outset by the fact that the weaklings, the chronically diseased, the neurotics—in other words the very men who are most in need of medical and psychiatric help— are automatically screened out of the Army which wants only the sound and the able-bodied...
...Because today we have many millions of men trained in the Army not merely for one year but for as long as five or six years...
...A year of forced Army service, they maintain, is desirable for every youth because the training builds bodies, creates self-discipline, and fosters a group morale valuable as an asset to democratic citizenship...
...Vision For Youth By ERNEST L. MEYER AFTER all other arguments fail, and even after the coming of the atomic bomb demonstrated the use-lessness of vast standing armies as a technique of war, the supporters of peacetime military conscription fall back on one line of thought...
...Something, perhaps, along the lines of the National Youth Administration which under the able leadership of Aubrey Williams some years ago hung up a record for remarkable accomplishment...
...GTVEN an army of young men, enlisting voluntarily for national service, it would be good to give them an aim and a dream for which to strive...
...During the war, of course, these same men performed valorously, submitted on the whole good-naturedly to comnulsion, and were capable of self-sacrifice and real nobility...
...The reasons for their remaining in uniform are, for many of them, ill-defined and obscure, and the more obscure the reasons are the greater the degree of resentment against compulsion...
...Add to this the fact that no competent authority recommends the stilted mechanics of military training as an adequate course in physical culture, and the fact that camp life itself incubates aberrations and neuroses that might never have developed in civilian life, and the whole case for the "body-building" benefits of the Army falls flat...
...During war the act of killing is a mark of valor and virtue...
...A conducted tour and survey of the operations of the Tennessee Valley Authority would outline a goal with a tremendous grip upon the imagination...
...The case for military training as a creator of discipline, morale, and the ethics of patriotic citizenship deserves special scrutiny because it is one easy to advance and not so easy to disprove...
...Give war veterans insecurity, doubt, discontent, and no ascertainable goal to strive for, and you have the makings of a fraternity trigger-happy and quick on the draw...
...We are learning that now, and the lesson should unite all reasonable people in resisting the attempt to foist upon this nation a svstem of permanent peacetime military draft...
...FOR if the argument were true, the world right now would be enjoying a season of unparalleled civic safety and orderliness...
...War's end removes the ethical sanction for homicide...
...The war ended, but for millions still in uniform on many of the late fronts the compulsion remained...
...And what is most significant is that a large percentage of these crimes are being committed by soldiers and ex-soldiers, graduates from the vaunted Army school of discipline...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 49
