LETTERS
LETTERS Self service It is not surprising that the idea of national service keeps resurfacing ["We Need You," Timothy Noah, November]. In theory, it is an attractive notion—at least to those...
...STEPHEN H. KAISER Cambridge, Massachusetts Gregg Easterbrook did a good job in his tribute to Ford and Donald Petersen...
...JOAN E. HEALONG Arlington, Virginia...
...Indeed, today, upwards of 50 percent of babies are unplanned...
...the numbers are simply too vast...
...By the way, in those days he knew exactly how old he was and didn't try to convince Selective Service he was born in 1937 instead of 1936...
...I daresay the ends of community support and involvement justify the "fashionable" means...
...Deming did go to Japan with his gospel...
...He thinks it's perfectly okay—indeed, desirable— for the government to come along in 2002 and claim my son's life for a couple of years...
...As for Slackman's argument that higher military pay in the All Volunteer Service has bought us a more experienced workforce, that may be so—but it has also helped promote a more civilianized service, the sense that being a soldier is "just another job...
...industry...
...The infrastructure to process, train, find jobs for, house, feed, clothe, travel, supervise—we are speaking of 18-year-olds here—provide medical care for, give pocket money to, 3,500,000 people a year would need to be so huge that it defies contemplation...
...Undergone a Sex Change...
...And with being enthusiastic to the same degree one would be resolutely critical when expositing a screwup...
...A better idea I am writing in response to your rave on Senator Albert Gore ["The Longest Shot," John Eisendrath, November...
...It's the democratic approach, and its time is long overdue...
...How apparent it is that the pioneering journalism of years ago has incrementally slipped into being little more than a yuppie fluff magazine at the mercy of its advertisers, with its pages "perfumed with the cloying • sweetness of Calvin Klein's `Obsession " I.fear that The Washington Monthly has fallen victim to the same disease...
...If a situation is good, what's wrong with saying so with the same assurance that would be used to condemn a situation that's bad...
...I think it's perfectly un-American...
...Through the League, I have met a lot of other "nobodies" who all have the common desire to be a contributing member, an active member, within the D.C...
...NORMAN L. KAUTSKY Compromising positions Your October issue reveals the agonies of the magazine business...
...I refer him to National Service: What It Would Mean by Richard Danzig and Peter Szanton for the details...
...It was tried at Ford and rejected because it was then a manual process and too slow...
...The answer, I think, lies not in universal service, but in bringing back a military draft—how my sons will hate me for saying so—in expanding existing opportunities for voluntary service, and in creating new ones...
...It's true, Dr...
...But we don't need to give our government license to drag off sons and fathers and brothers—not to mention daughters, mothers, and sisters—from their homes, against their will, to do whatever good or evil deeds the government sees as fitting...
...Costs for program administration could be held to levels similar to Noah's proposal by paying only the 18-year-olds who entered service for a year...
...Together, high levels of quality and experience make for a more capable military force...
...But a much more effective, simpler, and cheaper approach would be a bilateral moratorium on nuclear warhead testing and ballistic missile flight testing...
...Those not enrolled in school in that age group are likeliest to end up poor...
...Well, hell no, you can't have my son, either...
...True, we do still throw the occasional fashion show—but let's face it, fashion shows are effective fund-raising vehicles, or we wouldn't have them...
...So you get people like Gore, Aspin, and Nunn trying to save the first strike MX and the much more powerful first strike Trident D-5 missile system...
...Edwards Deming introduced statistical process control to U.S...
...He made sure that Ford vendors did too...
...67 percent of the Army's recruits were high school •graduates, and 25 percent were in the lowest mental category...
...This would block the R & D necessary for new first strike weapons as well as result in decreased reliability of existing Soviet and American missiles over time, high levels of reliability being important for first strike but not for retaliation...
...GREG TODD Carlisle, Pennsylvania Since today's armed forces are neither so socially unrepresentative, nor so expensive, as Noah argues, national service comes to seem as a solution looking for problems...
...This approach would avoid the unfairness issue (raised by both Jack Kemp and The Progressive) of forcing today's 18-year-olds to do service right away in cases where they would rather pursue other goals and serve later...
...Noah provides no cost estimates) required to set up the nonmilitary side of national service, cities and states could effectively help young people to support themselves while attending six-month to two-year training colleges at up-to-date technical colleges of superior quality— or, for that matter, at any college with a curriculum the young person needs and is qualified to do...
...ALBERT MEISEL Chevy Chase, Maryland Timothy Noah is right about one thing: ". . .compulsory national service can only happen if it is enacted by Congress, by the representatives we elect ." I trust the electorate can see beyond the good but muddled intentions Noah advances in support of compulsory national service...
...Surely serving one's country is a noble, character-building, and important endeavor...
...Those who work on America's roads and bridges, for instance, will not sit still while their jobs are taken by low-paid, 18-year-old conscripts...
...In 1986, the Army and Marine Corps together enlisted more than 90 percent high school graduates, and fewer than 5 percent in the bottom mental category...
...Spiritual desert indeed...
...People could do their service all at once, or in smaller chunks, earning time "credits" from existing volunteer and community organizations...
...Much of the thanks for today's high quality goes to higher military pay, of which Noah seems to disapprove...
...Kaiser can say about Ford is that it courts yuppie consumers and picks dumb names— the article by the way made fun of "Merkur" —that to me sounds like praising with faint damnation...
...it exempted college students...
...And while you might get away with paying next to nothing to the conscripts, you can bet that the bureaucrats and their contractors would not consent to be paid in beans...
...Regardless of his high falutin' morality, Peters, like the rest of us all, does things for selfish reasons...
...It is absurd to think that a program such as the one outlined by Mr...
...I believe a draft can be established that will not exempt college students—on the model of the World War II draft...
...If the worst -Mr...
...Higher military pay has not so much attracted more married men—fewer than one enlisted recruit out of seven is married—as it has convinced experienced men and women to make a career out of the military...
...Is their choice, or lack of it, somehow morally better than mine...
...He was heard and we know the results of that...
...The result, proportionately more trained and highly productive career personnel on active duty...
...LETTERS Self service It is not surprising that the idea of national service keeps resurfacing ["We Need You," Timothy Noah, November...
...What was omitted in the article was the sequel to that story...
...To be sure, Danzig and Szanton do not take into account possible attempts by bureaucrats and contractors to get rich off national service, or the importunings of construction workers who don't want to see low-paid 18-year-olds working on roads and bridges that aren't being repaired today because of DavisBacon...
...What you often get with people who take on the responsibility of bringing their level of knowledge up to that of professional nuclear strategists is a desire to be "reasonable" and to modify rather than to actually stop the nuclear arms race and first strike weapons...
...That's the big "if" we—and the Bill Bradleys, Gary Harts, and Bruce Babbitts—should be working on...
...No fair choosing everybody's favorite whipping boy, David Stockman, as an example of a "prominent American" who dodged the draft by going to divinity school...
...I do have a suggestion: if Ms...
...Unfortunately, I see no way , that universal service can work...
...I have no duty to satisfy his vision of the right way to live my life just as I would never suggest that someone's choice to have "excess" children was somehow morally incorrect and bound...
...But the time is not now...
...Or perhaps Secretary of the Navy Lehman has a back-up game plan designed for an AWOL situation...
...Sounds like yuppies to me...
...Perhaps our country needs a national leadership that will inspire our youth of all social classes to participate in it...
...Look at only one of the propositions always set forth unrealistically by the national service claque: that almost...
...The spiritual desert I noted Mr...
...The results have been dramatic reductions in scrap costs and a new quality image for Ford, i.e., best quality ratings for U.S.-built cars several years running...
...It sounded pretty good until you got to the all-important subject of the nuclear arms race...
...I agree with Mr...
...One national service proposal I have heard about before that Timothy Noah failed to mention is the idea of imposing some period of national service on all of us aged 18-49—not just on today's 18-year-olds...
...So it's not a fair sampling...
...JOEL SLACKMAN Washington, D.C...
...More than that, he purchased and installed small, specialized computers that quickly create the charts needed to statistically control production processes...
...He thinks the government should be able to come and take my son and make him paint a New York subway train or minister to an elderly Republican or help to produce cheap steel or—no less calmly—make him kill Sandinistas or whoever the bad guys are in 2002...
...Long necks, thick fingers I am a member of the Junior League of Washington, D.C., and can assure Charles Peters ["Tilting at Windmills," October] that I haven't even one ounce of blue blood coursing through my veins...
...Over the last few years, the quality of enlisted recruits has reached unprecedented highs, notably in the Army and Marine Corps...
...ensuring, in Noah's own words, "participation by all segments of the population"— including those who missed (and now lament) the chance to serve the nation in some capacity earlier...
...Cutting soldiers' pay under a program of national service would of course save money, but at the risk of diminishing the armed forces' capability...
...And the final journalistic compromise is the back cover of the same issue: a paid advertisement by the Ford Motor Company...
...Fortunately there are some senators and representatives who have taken on the chore of studying nuclear arms...
...Why not make it tougher on your thesis by mentioning Gary Hart...
...Moreover, critics tend to ignore the role of the officer corps, which draws 20,000 highly educated, predominantly white, middleclass men and women into the service every year...
...Perhaps our country's parents should give their children more encouragement to participate in it...
...any 17- to 20-year-old, with minimum (or no) training in the care, development, and education of young children, can provide "quality care" for the kids of the "average working" mother...
...It's reasonable to expect that these factions can come to recognize that...
...Those needs vary from person to person but if filling them is selfish then we are all guilty...
...But we all have an interest in getting vital work done and in promoting a spirit of service...
...That's the essence, to me, of his article...
...My guess, based on almost seven years' staff experience with the Peace Corps and VISTA during the sixties, is that the $30 billion figure—itself staggering, given today's realities—is too low by at least half...
...Yes, and shrimp will whistle, as Comrade Khrushchev used to say...
...I hope I am around to see it...
...magazine {"Has Ms...
...In theory, it is an attractive notion—at least to those of us who view with alarm the increasing fractionalization of our society and tend to deplore a diminishing commitment to social service among America's young...
...I find it remarkably pretentious for him to make a value decision as to the correctness or moral validity of the way I choose to live my life...
...DAN CAROL Takoma Park, Maryland Timothy Noah and I have a basic difference of opinion...
...See "Tilting at Windmills" for Charles Peters's response...
...There is no evidence that he looked to see whether there are old problems that still remain...
...The socio-economic distribution of enlisted recruits generally falls between the distribution of all 16- to 21-year-old males not enrolled in school...
...October] is unrelenting in its cloying puffery, exceeding any PR man's greatest dream...
...Kaiser about the title and wish the Monthly's editors had picked something different...
...As long as there is not too much of an overlap in advertisers, this arrangement might help limit the inducement of journalists to become whores...
...When I was in college and the "compulsory national service" of the era was sending kids off to die for no good reason in Vietnam, the chant in the streets was "Hell no, we won't go...
...My admission to the League had nothing to do with my race, creed, color, dress size, dress labels, nor did it hinge on my daddy or my husband (who are both "nobodies" by social snobbery standards...
...PETER C. BLAKE Aurora, Colorado Timothy Noah replies: I stand by the $30 billion price tag, which includes the infrastructure Albert Meisel seems to think I left out...
...Noah points out that about 3.5 million Americans turn 18 every year and cites estimates that to put this number to work, either in the military or in civilian jobs—a daunting task—would cost $30 billion...
...HAROLD GOLDSTEIN Washington, D.C...
...Our rewards may differ but it all boils down to doing what most satisfies our physical, mental, egotistical, material, moral, philosophical, or other needs...
...There are other things wrong with the concept...
...Gregg Easterbrook's paean of praise for Ford's Donald Petersen ["Have You Driven A Ford Lately...
...to lead to famine and pestilence...
...HERBERT C. JOHNSON Minnetonka, Minnesota Gregg Easterbrook replies: Readers today are programmed to assume serious journalism must be negative...
...A program of national service that returned to draft-era pay levels and a lottery draft could not help but lower today's levels...
...If honest-to-goodness, excellent skills training in the service and technologies were available, coordinated by public and private sectors where possible, you would see eager attendees from all social groups...
...Susan Milligan asks some very penetrating questions about the decline in journalistic quality at Ms...
...But take a close look at those last four words...
...The title is unashamedly lifted from a common Ford advertising slogan...
...is a prisoner of its advertisers and The Washington Monthly is a prisoner of your own, why not get them to police you like you have criticized them...
...But back when there was a draft he was in Yale Divinity School (1961) and Yale Law School (1964), deferring himself right past the maximum age...
...The Midgetman has some merit...
...Back in 1971, a draft-lottery year, only 43 percent of the Marines' enlisted recruits held high school diplomas, and 20 percent were in the lowest acceptable mental category...
...Whereas the Army had fewer than 220,000 career personnel in 1974 (the advent of the all-volunteer force), it has about 305,000 such personnel today, even though its overall force is smaller...
...If social scientists and historians are right in believing that this country is subject to 30-year cycles, we are due for another decade of social concern in the nineties...
...Are they prepared to raise their children to be assets to society...
...It would also better meet the important test of...
...Sure, he's a big backer of compulsory national service now that he's safely in his middle years...
...Was Tom Flores, coach of the Raiders, prepared to send a back-up to stand watch on McCallum's ship in San Diego Harbor...
...In one key sense, the military is highly unrepresentative of America's youth—quality...
...He sponsored Deming's lectures and Deming's training for Ford employees and vendors...
...Today, at a basic community level, voluntary, shortterm care experience can succeed if it involves actual training for young people in situations where local connections serve both volunteers and clients—the young, or the handicapped, or the elderly...
...everyone else would be asked to work for free, perhaps for less time based on some age formula...
...By this measure, the military is getting a reasonably representative sample of the nation's youth...
...I suggest that for the same federal outlay (Mr...
...Easterbrook commends Ford for replacing the old Dullsville cars with "sporty cars that attract young buyers...
...I. don't think that's perfectly okay...
...Are the parents of these children to be commended...
...Mastering the facts, however, does not mean that you get good judgment...
...Noah can be implemented at a cost of $8,600 a head ($30 billion divided by 3.5 million...
...But we have a national service system in place now, a voluntary service system ranging from the Marines to the Peace Corps...
...When Don Petersen became president, he invited Deming back to Ford...
...Slackman also points to the quality of today's recruits compared to those in 1971, a "draftlottery year?' But as I made clear in my article, the Vietnam draft was far from ideal...
...Perhaps we need even more colleges and universities to grant, say, 30 semester hours of credit for a year of participation...
...Nowhere in Easterbrook's article is there any real sense of balance...
...CHARLES MINTON Arcata, California Admiral Plunkett Consider the likely possibility that Napoleon McCallum, while hustling down the sideline carrying the football, was cut down by a Washington Redskin defender and broke a leg ["Tilting at Windmills," November...
...Imagine the size of the bureaucracy needed to carry out such a scheme, let alone its cost...
...community...
...Some stability...
...Joel Slackman points out that the socio-economic distribution of enlisted recruits in the military falls between the distribution of all 16- to 21-year-old males not enrolled in school...
...One is left with the impression that Ford is doing everything right, as if he bought Ford's positive pitch hook, line, and sinker...
...ELEANOR R. SEAGRAVES Washington, D.C...
...Who the heck is he to portray my lifestyle as being part of a wasteland...
...National service" has a nice ring to it...
...Peters's disparaging, perhaps insulting, remarks concerning my "spiritual desert" of a lifestyle based on a quote of mine that appeared in a Newsweek article about couples who decide not to have children ["Tilting at Windmills," October...
Vol. 18 • January 1987 • No. 12
