But it wouldn't be asking what you can do, it would be telling you what you can do. And what if you could make a better wage doing something else? Would you have to settle for the 7 or 8 dollars an hour at the childcare centre because you'd be serving your country? Or could you take that 12 or 15 dollar an hour job doing whatever and support your family? Why not just let people go out and get a job?

What happens to our universities if we keep putting kids into the military or into forced service? Ok, some might go on to university, but there's a 2 year gap in classroom learning/application. How many will go back into academia for that? And I don't think the Greek system would survive, from a totally shallow point of view.

Basically, I don't want ANYONE telling me what to do, nor do I want anyone to take my brother, boyfriend and friends away against their will. Patriotic speaches are just that, speaches. The guys who make them will rarely have their kids on the firing line.

"Don't wave your rights with your flags."

I think it comes down to be WAY too big of a culture change to be feasible. Also, where would the money come from?

A comment on your last one first. Your government tells you what to do all the time. Pay your taxes, wear your seatbelts, get a drivers license, obey traffic signals. It's called the law. There is ample precedent for forced service, too -- just look at the draft. The mechanism for that is still in place, by the way. I hope it is never reinstated because I saw personally how badly it was handled in the past. As I said somewhere before, thank goodness for ROTC in my case.

Your first point quoted above brings back the thoughts of one of my favorite professors (A fairly young, newly minted PhD in English Lit). His feeling was that it would be much better to send people off for a couple of years of military or community service before college. His reasoning was that people coming out of high school, for the most part, have no real skills at living on their own, don't understand time management, and in many cases have no idea what they want to do in the future. He felt that the added skills and maturity forced by two years of service before college would not only make for better students, but also serve as a way to weed out in advance those who may not really belong in higher education. The flunk out and drop out rates were fairly high. Most "big" schools had "flunk out" courses in the freshman year that they used to clear out the not ready for college students.

Clearly, his thoughts were not shared by a lot of us who were faced with the draft in the middle of the Vietnam war, but in looking back after not only years of volunteering in Delt chapters but also serving as an adjunct faculty member -- I can see his point in many cases. I'd love to get Carnation's perspective on this as a college professor.

The large number of WWII and Vietnam veterans who went directly to college (generally on the GI Bill) immediately upon their discharge would seem to allay your fears about a huge impact on schools and even the Greek System. There was a pretty fair number of post military fraternity men when I was in school. In many cases, it was their maturity and leadership that helped build strong chapters.

Finally, regarding mandatory community service in high school, it was the case in our school system. I think I'm for it. Mrs. DA used to run a very poor not-for-profit organization which relied heavily on volunteer help. The high school students who did their service with her were great kids, and did learn something -- if nothing else, some people skills. The few hours they put in were certainly life-savers for a very small and highly stretched professional staff. So, to me, it's a win-win -- providing the student has any kind of motivation at all.

Rambling thoughts for a Thursday morning.

IT could also be argued that the military may not teach them time management...as a general member, you follow a schedule laid out by a superior, would you not? Its not like every private gets to sit there with a planner and say ,"right, 0630, breakfast, 0700 PT, 0800 range practice, well, no, ok, i could do range practice at 1100." When they leave the military, how will they respond to a university without the structure provided in their military training? Is that any easier than jumping from HS to university?

I agree with that. It always struck me as well that the military claimed to teach leadership skills. I don't see those leadership skills translating very well to the real world though. Consider in the real world, you have to lead people with free will. In the military, if you're a 'leader,' people do what you say, or they go to prison.

Translating military skills to real-world skills I think is pretty darned difficult.

I would argue that, in many cases, the military runs much like any other "job." There are managers (officers), Mid-level supervisors (non-commissioned officers) and workers (grunts).

Everyone is given a job, and a time frame for completing it. In some cases, that may be to be ready to follow the NCO from point A to point B starting at a given time. In some cases, it's working in an office -- or fixing a truck. A relatively small percentage go out and shoot at people.

Actually, I think you've made one of my points by talking about the unstructured schedule in the university setting. I believe that once you've learned those time management skills, you keep them as necessary. Someone who is used to the structure of business or the military is more likely to be able to plan classes, study and free time.

just popping in to totally agree with the above - besides a great weight managment program (hah hah) i definetely feel that time management was an invaluable skill set that i gained from my time in the army. and yes, this has transfered to my civilian life effortlessly.

- marissa

This reminds me of discussions of alcohol use and abuse by college students, which often focused on the fact that many college freshman don't have it together when they go away to school and, as a result, get there and act a fool with alcohol, sometimes with terrible consequences.

Just like I don't think it's the responsibility of universities or student organizations or anyone else to teach people how to be responsible with alcohol, I also don't think it's the responsibility of the military or any other form of mandatory service to teach these kids how to be adults or develop the skills needed to live on their own. That's the job of parents.

Good luck on some of todays Parents.

While they may want to, it is now Law that a Parent cannot correct a child by laying a hand on them.

If they do, The Child can call 911 and report them for Child abuse and they are taken to jail, no questions asked.

The same thing goes for Teachers who try to correct unruly Children. They can lose their jobs PDQ!

So, today there is a bunch of ignorant unlearning want to be gang bangers!:confused:

If they want to fight, put them in the Military, and learn dicsapline (SIC) and time magagement, some thing has to rub off!

I'm not saying it is the military or other service organizations responsibility to teach time management. I'm saying that I think being away from a sheltered environment like home or school naturally imparts those skills -- at least to some.

Actually it would strongly hurt Greek life. My father came back from Korea (not a draftee), and went to school. There were several fraternities after him, and they told him that they would help him be a man.

After a couple years of living overseas, working and being on his own, he didn't need help in that regard. Many other men seemed to have the same idea. The 60s and 70s were the dark era in Greek life, remember?

Though there was also a social awakening that deemed Greek life as part of the establishment, and thus bad. These men that I'm talking about however, some were the type that liked establishment.

The 60's and 70's were the dark era because people didn't want to be part of something that they thought was "establishment", not because men came back from the service and didn't want to join. If you came back from the service and went onto a college campus in that time period, whether you were in Vietnam or elsewhere, I'm sure you had enough issues and questions thrown at you by your fellow students without joining a fraternity on top of it.

Did you not read the last paragraph of my post?

I'll stand by my comments. I was there in the mid to late 60's. I suppose your dad and I had different experiences.

The right way, the wrong way and the military way...

I could not get the "gist" of the comments, but I do think that military skills do translate to 'everyday skills" if focused appropriately, that is the benefit for going back to civilian life after the military... The only exception to this rule are those in combat... How does one explain defusing an IED to folks?

Anyhow, most of the officers I knew that retired got some extremely cushy CEO jobs running the show... Like Rear Admirals to Generals... They like, can run the entire corporation... And corporations--namely those like Halliburton, or other defense department corporate contractors, love these officers...

And if you are a military healthcare professional... Whoa...

And if you are a pilot and have been in combat, the commercial airlines will hook you up on general principle...

So, from my perspective, I've seen some translation... But those are for officers... Not for enlisted...

As far as compulsory service in the military or community service, my state has manditory community service in order to graduate from high school. ~50 hours. Kids do all kinds of stuff to graduate. I think it's great and the programs could be a tad more focused, but overall, young people need to know that not everyone grew up in single-family dwellings in the suburbs or that some people just fail and living life and need help, sometimes... Gives folks a reality check every now and then...