Jewish World Review Jan. 9, 2001 / 25 Teves, 5762
Debra J. Saunders
Other people's children
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com --
IN THE WAKE of the Sept. 11 attacks, Sens.
John McCain, R-Ariz., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind., are
sponsoring a bill to expand the AmeriCorps
fivefold, to 250, 000 paid volunteers, with half of
the new jobs slotted for homeland defense. Atlanta
Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker has
proposed two years of mandatory service for every
American young adult. "Not a military draft
necessarily, although military service should certainly
be one of the options, " she wrote.
Foreign terrorists invade American territory to kill
3,000 civilians, and the answer is more reading
tutors? Oh, and maybe some more troops.
It tells you something when America is attacked and
military enlistments do not go up. "We did notice a
marked increase in the amount of interest expressed
by young people in the wake of the Sept. 11
attacks," explained Army Major James Cassella.
"But subsequent enlistments did not reflect any
increase above what we would normally see."
(Normal is 200,000 recruits annually, the number
needed to keep the military an all-volunteer force.)
Instead of voicing new respect for military service,
politicians are telling kids to show their love of
country by working in a soup kitchen. They give
short shrift to the sine qua non of American life:
defense. Without a military to keep aggressors at
bay, this country will not remain free.
So opinion leaders scold middle-class kids about
their duty to help others, but not about their duty to
do military service. Hey, let poor folks -- many who
enlist largely for the educational opportunities -- do
the grunt work in America's defense.
Tucker and Robert Litan of the Brookings
Institution argue that mandatory national service
would be a great equalizer -- as the military used to
be. When a sense of duty led the sons of patricians
to serve beside the children of coal miners and dock
workers.
But there would be no equalizer in mandatory
service that allows students to opt out of military
service. Indeed, such a plan would continue the
ghettoization of the military by allowing the precious
children of elite college graduates -- many of whom
attend the estimated 10 to 15 percent of high
schools that bar military recruiters from their
campus -- to opt out of boot camp to work for a
politically correct cause.
I should disclose that I have never served in the
military. And yes, it is convenient that at 47 I find
reasons why others should do so. But if the
Pentagon should find itself facing a volunteer
shortage, then the answer might be a mandatory
three-month national service for college-age
Americans -- of both genders -- followed by a
two-year nonactive reserve status. Three months
would keep the federal government's costs down,
not interfere unduly with college or work and
introduce young people to a world of service, duty
and obligation. As well as participating in their own
defense.
Such a draft would change the dynamics of a world
in which the children of professional people grow up
expecting other people's children to defend them.
Yes, it's a dirty job, and someone else has to do it.
Thus, when John Walker Lindh emerged from his
Taliban service, many yuppie parents saw their own
children in him. They could see, they confessed,
how their children might take a wrong turn on the
road to self-discovery. They did not see their
children in the faces of slain CIA agent Mike Spann
or the now- dead Sgt. Nathan Chapman. Their
children might join the Taliban, but not the U. S.
Army.
Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here.
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