Make National Service Mandatory

...Still, I believe that Americans would be far more receptive to such a call for service than many believe...

...It should involve women as well as men, in stark contrast to our draft and the male-only service plans of most other countries...

...My hope is that this new initiative is so quickly overwhelmed with applicants that our choice becomes a clear one: Either we turn a vast number of Americans away or boldly decide to include all of them and millions more in an unprecedented effort to help ourselves...

...And consider the costs, tangible and intangible, of not having such a system...

...Given current military manpower needs, only about 10 percent of the 18-to-21-year-old population would be needed in uniform...

...Volunteers today already contribute billions of hours to worthy community projects through their schools, churches, and civic associations...

...The military never has been and likely never will be a paragon of virtue...

...Community service helps not just the receiver, but the giver...

...Many of our young people succumb to too-early parenthood, to drug and alcohol abuse, to gangs and violence...

...Eventually, it should ask something of all Americans, just as the jury system (at least in theory) does now...

...health care...

...And the small efforts I have made since, such as being active in (and recently moving back to) an inner-city, lower-middle income neighborhood are but pale substitutes for devoting a year or two, full time, to a worthy cause...

...Crime and gang activity increase as our police have far too little presence in our communities...

...I never did find time to take those two years...

...Now think of all the work that isn't getting done—and the tremendous price we're paying for that...

...The self-esteem that's built from tutoring a younger child, cleaning up a park, or talking a peer out of self-destructive behavior can be a powerful antidote to the devastating—and expensive—trends now so prevalent in our society...

...But millions of Americans have learned invaluable lessons about citizenship, the value of individuals, and democracy because the draft gave them no other choice...

...I'm a realist...

...And during the campaign, to the eye-rolling surprise of his chief aides, President Clinton consistently received his heartiest applause when he talked about national service...

...public safety...

...Also that year, I turned 18, drew a high lottery number, and wasn't about to volunteer for a military still fighting a war I strongly opposed...

...Consider, too, the widespread ethos that encourages people to think of government as merely a broker among interest groups—with the loudest and best-organized holding sway—and "citizenship" as a collection of rights but not responsibilities...

...has been an acute sense of important lessons and experiences not learned and perhaps never attainable...

...Exceptions for prison inmates, for example, but definitely not for the college-bound or well-heeled...

...But we should go much further than the draft ever did and even further than the systems widely used elsewhere in the world...

...The strong friendships I forged in my early adulthood inevitably were among people with largely similar aspirations and social, professional, and ethnic backgrounds...

...The nation's infrastructure is in shambles, requiring trillions of dollars for repair and costing billions each year in lost economic opportunities...

...Serious problems with discipline, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal behavior, and shoddy work would be inevitable...

...Considerable obstacles, to be sure...

...The military draft, at least for a subset of the male population, used to play that democratizing role...

...They would need to do real jobs, not make-work...

...Personnel costs—which account for a far greater share of Pentagon spending than all our low-tech and high-tech weapons and missiles put together—would be billions lower...

...I told myself I'd get around to it someday—and then proceeded directly to Yale and built a career that now has included journalism, service in the state legislature, and election to statewide office in Oregon...

...It exposed people of different backgrounds to each other but also—and this is critical—asked them to work together on something of importance...

...Make National Service Mandatory for All BY PHIL KEISLING in 1973, the United States made a big mistake—and so did I. That year, an unlikely coalition of anti-Vietnam War liberals and Milton Friedman-inspired conservatives convinced Richard Nixon and Congress to abolish the military draft...

...But we've risen to considerable organizational challenges before, from World War II and the sixties' space program to the recent flooding in the Midwest...

...Society values your contribution...

...Bill-style benefits for additional education and training...

...don't forget racial discrimination and, more recently, Tailhook and the official ban on homosexuals...

...Obviously, national service would be costly and raises a host of practical and logistical problems...

...But it can communicate a powerful message that often isn't received by our younger citizens—that you can make a difference...

...This democratizing institution is now gone...

...the rural environment...

...Along with the rhetorical discomfort it obviously now causes—"How can you advocate mandatory service for others if you didn't serve yourself...

...Phil Keisling, an editor of The Washington Monthly from 1982 to 1984, is Oregon's Secretary of State...

...It's a good investment—and it's the right thing to do...

...It should be broad, not narrow, with exceptions based on inability rather than personal inconvenience...

...Educational achievement falls and drop-outs increase as classes get bigger and bigger, students bring more serious problems into the classroom, and teachers feel overwhelmed...

...Finally, consider the less tangible but staggering costs to our society and its democratic underpinnings as our citizens become increasingly divided and isolated from each other, not just along racial lines but class lines as well...

...After all, if millions around the world believe that democracy is worth risking their lives for, isn't it time we acknowledge that it's at least worth interrupting our lives for here at home...

...College students are increasingly engaging in service, like the group from the Los Angeles area who spent their spring break in Portland this year helping weatherize low-income homes...

...What to do with the rest...

...Health care costs skyrocket, in part because we lack even the most rudimentary ability to provide simple, prevention-based care...

...But neither did I seriously think about volunteering for the Peace Corps, VISTA, or similar organizations...

...Such a system should be mandatory, not voluntary...

...Just one example: It's been estimated that as many as 300,000 Americans now in nursing homes—and half of the nation's nursing home costs are financed through Medicaid—could be served in normal community settings if they had someone to assist them in their daily routines...

...Participants would have to be properly trained and supervised...

...So would retirement costs, which now run more than $11.8 billion a year...

...Twenty years later, the foolishness of both decisions increasingly gnaws at me...

...The Peace Corps recently received 115,000 inquiries for fewer than 3,200 slots...

...Just think about five areas—education...

...You matter...

...the urban environment...

...Clinton's voluntary service plan, where students get stipends and educational vouchers, is a decent start...

...For starters, today's military budget is higher than it would be if highly compensated, career-track men and women were a substantially smaller backbone of our armed services than they are today...

...I have become convinced that the U.S.—like most industrialized nations—should enact a mandatory system of national service...

...Comprehensive national service won't arrive tomorrow or next year...

...National service obviously won't be a panacea...

...But it's only a small start...

...Young parents go on or stay on welfare because basic child care is unavailable, too expensive, too low in quality, or all three...

...Secondary schools—sometimes at the behest of the students themselves—are putting service into their core curricula...

...It would require the kind of well-planned, efficient government organization that most Americans consider highly doubtful if not impossible...

...For example, given that between 3 and 4 million Americans turn 18 each year, a full-fledged program might easily cost $50 billion a year, including living expenses, supervisory costs, and G.I...

...And our second major democratizing institution—our public schools—is in true peril, increasingly homogenous, and unacceptably inadequate in educating all of our citizens...