spinhouse247 said:
Your sarcasim is the diatribe of the future, I worship thee. I'll shed my conservative ways, put my gun back in its holdster and stay real with my anti gay ways. Stereotypes are the new era!
Mucci, is that you?
Couldn't be. He only misspelled two words (and dropped a hyphen).
spinhouse247 said:
Your sarcasim is the diatribe of the future, I worship thee. I'll shed my conservative ways, put my gun back in its holdster and stay real with my anti gay ways. Stereotypes are the new era!
Mucci, is that you?
Couldn't be. He only misspelled two words (and dropped a hyphen).
NickFaust said:
The point for me is that universal - co-ed - military service would possibly cause a redefinition of what consitutes a "threat" and what it means to "defend this country."
I just had to edit this whole damn thing after reading back over your previous posts.. (need more coffee!) Anyway..
Universal military service is a nice idea, but this bringing back the draft nonsense is not going to help anything and it's certainly not going to prevent another Vietnam or Iraq.
I'm interested to know what exactly you mean by universal military service.. A friend of mine in PA had some rather extreme ideas about this, for example.. forcing us to serve under a particular branch of the military based on a skills assesment.. I'm not particularly fond of that idea myself, but I do think universal service might work if we were given enough options.
spinhouse247 said:
Your sarcasim is the diatribe of the future, I worship thee. I'll shed my conservative ways, put my gun back in its holdster and stay real with my anti gay ways. Stereotypes are the new era!
Mucci, is that you?
Couldn't be. He only misspelled two words (and dropped a hyphen).
NickFaust said:
The point for me is that universal - co-ed - military service would possibly cause a redefinition of what consitutes a "threat" and what it means to "defend this country."
I just had to edit this whole damn thing after reading back over your previous posts.. (need more coffee!) Anyway..
Universal military service is a nice idea, but this bringing back the draft nonsense is not going to help anything and it's certainly not going to prevent another Vietnam or Iraq.
I'm interested to know what exactly you mean by universal military service.. A friend of mine in PA had some rather extreme ideas about this, for example.. forcing us to serve under a particular branch of the military based on a skills assesment.. I'm not particularly fond of that idea myself, but I do think universal service might work if we were given enough options.
For me, it simply means that every man and woman would spend two years in the military before they turn 25. Not community service, no exemptions, no deferrals, every person serves in some cacacity.
As to branches, etc.I don't really have an opinion. Everyone goes through boot camp, physical conditioning and is trained to do some aspect of what needs to be done.
I don't know how other countries that have this handle it, and I am certain the Senators would find someway to protect their children from the impact of there decisions, but I feel strongly that the country as a whole would feel differently about war if their sons and daughters were in the mix.
R0nin said:
... I'm interested to know what exactly you mean by universal military service ...
For me, it simply means that every man and woman would spend two years in the military before they turn 25. (...) I don't know how other countries that have this handle it...
Singapore requires between two and two-and-a-half years of military, police, or civil defense service (followed by about 20 years as a reservist) from all male citizens, and from the male children of permanent residents. There's occasional talk of widening the requirements to include women, though that's unlikely to happen in the forseeable future.
Exemptions are extremely rare. In 24 years I've only met one person who received one, and that was due to a serious congenital heart condition.
I don't approve of some of the details of the system, but on the whole it works quite well. There's a brief summary here.
... I feel strongly that the country as a whole would feel differently about war if their sons and daughters were in the mix.
You may be right. The SAF has never fought a war, but soldiers - including national servicemen - have been sent abroad as UN peacekeepers, and people here take such deployments, and the well-being of the troops sent, pretty seriously.
NickFaust said:
For me, it simply means that every man and woman would spend two years in the military before they turn 25. Not community service, no exemptions, no deferrals, every person serves in some cacacity.
As to branches, etc.I don't really have an opinion. Everyone goes through boot camp, physical conditioning and is trained to do some aspect of what needs to be done.
I don't know how other countries that have this handle it, and I am certain the Senators would find someway to protect their children from the impact of there decisions, but I feel strongly that the country as a whole would feel differently about war if their sons and daughters were in the mix.
Makes sense to me. There's something to be said for the discipline people gain through military boot camp and I don't know about you, but I think kids are pretty damn lazy and undisciplined these days! Maybe start this mandatory service at age 18 before they go off to college? I think it would help prepare them to do better in life.
Who knows? It might get us to start paying more attention to the political decisions being made that lead up to something like the debacle in Iraq, but it's pretty sad that it could take something like mandatory military service to get us to think long and hard before we send in our troops..
Unfortunately I don't see the United States ever implementing something like 2 years of mandatory military service...
skeptik
New Orleans, LA
February 2004
NOV 20, 2006 09:17 PM