Flocc has many good points about why universal service is bad, but I've also noticed he is proud of his service and the things he learned there.
Where'd you get that from? I quite like talking about it here in the UK because it's something different that not many people in this society have experienced and often makes quite a good conversation point but I, quite frankly, think it was a waste of 30 months of my life. I spent far too many nights sitting in the mud in a jungle. The pay was low, the food was bad and the officers were wankers*. I've forgotten all the combat medic skills I learned. The only thing I got out of it was chronic back pain (which I really should get checked up, I suppose).
Yes, the two extra years of life experience before entering university might have done me some good maturity wise but people in the UK get that through taking a gap year after leaving school and before uni if they want to.
*lovely little story about one CO who, while we were on an exercise forgot to make arrangements for water resupply for the medical platoon.
No draftee starts as an Officer, one might opt to volunteer,and then recieve a Commision,John Kerry did such in the Navy.
And where, pray tell, are you going to get enough junior officers to run a massive draftee army? Of course they won't
start as officers but you're going to
have to select conscripts who performed well in basic training and put them through 10 month instant officer courses. Instant officers are bad officers. I've served under enough products of such a system to know the type.
Conscription just doesn't work in most forms of modern warfare- you need smaller numbers of trained motivated professionals at
all ranks, not hordes of cannon fodder.
The only ways it can work are
(1) in countries like Israel which has a seige mentality built into it's national ethos, thus providing justification in the minds of the populace for universal conscription (including females in this, extreme, case). It could be argued that Switzerland also exhibits this siege mentality.
(2) countries like Austria or Singapore which aren't likely to go to war with anyone. Thus they can afford to maintain weak, rotten-at-the-core conscript armies. After all they won't be invading anyone and if they're invaded, this will, as above, provide justification in the minds of the populace. People are going to be a lot less pissed off if little Johnny dies bravely beating back the Indonesians storming the beaches or heroically, defending Vienna as opposed to him getting killed in a foreign war.
In a country which has a need for offensive capability, like the US, conscription is a really, really bad idea. Conscripts can't be used effectively in offensive wars. The concept really doesn't fit with American military needs.
As for the idea that it might instil discipline, well, firstly, I've given evidence to refute that in the other thread. Secondly, and more importantly, do we really feel comfortable with using the military as a social engineering tool? Surely that shouldn't be part of it's responsibilities?
