What are the positives and negatives of National Service?

[just_words]

There were far more members of the Communist Party, other parties to the left of Labour and organised Trade Unionists during the 1950's than there are today.

 

Ah, but in reality they sort of wanted the same thing, even if slightly different end results. Also they were united post war.

[Longcol]

Ah, but in reality they sort of wanted the same thing, even if slightly different end results. Also they were united post war.

 

They wanted the same thing as who? Not the Tories that's for sure.

 

And who were united post war?

[Rupert_Baehr]

Does it still have to be just be military service and not civil service too?

 

You can make it up to be whatever you like, but I suggest that if you talk about 'National Service' in the UK, then those who are familiar with the term are going to assume you are talking about military service.

 

Why would you want to include the Civil Service in your definition?

 

What about Silver Service? Or the No 51 Bus Service?

 

The fact that something has the word 'service' in it doesn't link it to National Service.

 

I understand that Spain has compulsory service (as does Germany - or rather as did Germany [until the 1st of July this year]) The German law (das Wehrpflichtgesetz) allowed a conscript to serve in the Bundeswehr, in a number of civilian organisations or even as a volunteer [for a minimum period of 6 months] in a civil protection organisation.

 

You could be a Malteser for 6 months.:hihi:

 

(In the UK, you often see Ambulances with 'St John Ambulance' written on them and a Maltese Cross as the emblem. They exist over here, but they're not known as 'The St John's Ambulance Brigade'- they're Maltesers.) The equivalent of '6 months volunteering for St John's' in the UK would have met the German National Service requirement.

 

The idea of doing something to help the community is (IMO) a good one, but when people talk about 'reintroducing National Service' in the UK, they're usually talking about 'giving young lads a taste of military discipline'.

 

I very much doubt that modern Basic Training has much in common with that undergone by National Servicemen, so those who advocate its reintroduction would be shooting in the wrong direction.

 

The 'reintroduction of National Service' has been discussed many times (probably starting the day after it was scrapped) but the idea is generally unpopular with professional soldiers/airmen. The armed forces have shrunk significantly (and many times) since the end of National Service, they are over-stretched at the moment and they simply do not have the manpower available to provide 1950's-style training (and certainly not modern training) to hordes of 18-year olds.

 

If the government was to reintroduce conscription, then presumably (given we now live in an equal-opportunity world) that conscription would apply equally to both males and females. If any of the conscripts were ever to be sent into battle, then female conscripts would (presumably) be equally liable as males.

 

Do you think the electorate would stand for that?

 

The UK has all-volunteer Armed Forces and has done so for many years. The system works. Changing that system is, I suggest, unlikely to improve it.

 

If you wanted to introduce a 'Public Service' commitment for young people, then that would be feasible, but it would probably cost a great deal of money. - Money the government simply hasn't got.

 

If the training is going to be worthwhile (and if it is going to be cost-effecive) then it will need to be followed by a long(ish) payback period. That would only be feasible if the trainees were willing to accept the terms.

 

Given that the government plans to reduce the size of the Armed Forces even further, then I suggest that the chances of them finding the money for training are nil and the chances of them increasing force levels to allow people to repay some of the training costs would be even less.

 

AFAIR, one of the options in Spain is to serve in the equivalent of the Forestry Service. If the Forestry Service in the UK was to accept such trainees, then no doubt they would require additional funding to pay those conscripts and to pay people to train them. Wasn't the government talking about selling off Forestry Commission land to raise money?

 

The last National Serviceman, Second Lieutenant Richard Vaughan of the Royal Army Pay Corps, was demobbed on 16 May 1963.

 

Even after that the Armed forces provided excpetional 'Trade Training'. The Royal Air Force had 'Apprentice Schools' and 'Trenchard's Brats' (the name given to RAF Apprentices) were highly-qualified - and, after they had completed their service commitments, had few problems in obtaining well-paid jobs in industry.

 

The down-sizing of the Armed Forces led to reductions in training and the opportunities for young people to obtain apprenticeships through the service are greatly reduced.

 

It's all down to money ... or rather, the lack of it.

[Rupert_Baehr]

Some (scandanavian?) countries do indeed have national service where you can choose either military or civil.

 

I think you'll find that's 'Military Service' or 'Service in a civilian organisation' - which, as I'm sure you will agree is not the same as 'The Civil Service'.

[buck]

The initial post-war duration of National Service in the UK (as laid down by the 1947 Act) was one year with a possible Reserve liability of 5 years. That was increased to 18 months by the National Service (Amendment) Act in December 1948 and to 2 years during the Korean War.

 

The standard basic training course is 14 weeks, but that is followed by 'Trade Training'- which can take over 2 years. A 2-year conscription wouldn't be long enough to allow the conscript to complete training.

I joined the RN as a regular in 1949. The Navy didn't encourage conscripts much, and would only accept them if they were willing to do 7 years, and 5 reserve. Licensed pilots could get a 3 year commission. However we had a few short term conscripts, the Army and RAF getting the bulk of them. As for inter service sports, we were in terrible shape compared with the other services, because most of the young pros went into them. They fought honorably in Korea, Malaya, Suez, and other trouble spots. They came home (some of them ) and went back to life and work normally. I often wonder what Vietnam was all about. There are still men around who are mentally damaged by that war.

[Rupert_Baehr]

Training military personnel was expensive enough then, but the training costs have risen dramatically.

 

My military training cost about £2 million and took 3 years ... and that was at early 1970's prices, when a house cost £2000.

 

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I was required to serve for rather longer than 2 years.

 

The Air Force found itself short of aircrew in the late 1970s and introduced short-service commissions for aircrew.

 

It was a disaster! The idea was that people would join, get trained, decide they liked the life and stay for a full career. - What actually happened (in all too many cases) was that people joined, got trained, fulfilled their service commitments, left and went into well-paid jobs elsewhere.

 

When I joined the Air Force, sport was a definite attraction! The Queen (or rather you, the taxpayer) paid for me to go climbing at Stanage Edge every Wednesday afternoon, to go shooting at Bisley once or twice a month (and for the Service meeting) and paid for me to go sailing for about 4 weeks a year.

 

(I did buy my own rifles - but you paid for my ammunition. 7.62mm at about £1.20 a pop and 9mm at 80p. [That cost you! ] I 'gave up' 2 weeks leave each year as my personal 'contribution' to sailing, but the other 2 weeks were counted as 'duty' and I didn't pay to hire the boats.)

 

There were downsides - but military service is a way of life, not a job.

 

When I joined the Air Force, they had just been through a major drawdown. Far-East Air Force had gone, Middle-East Air force had gone and Near-East Air Force was tiny. We had a mere 98,000 people ... not quite enough to fill the (then) Wembley Stadium. I knew most of the people in 1 Group.

 

Nowadays, the Air Force is tiny. - I expect everybody knows everybody else.

 

After the next round of defence cuts (due next month, AFAIK,) the Army will be smaller than the Air Force was when I joined it.

 

Any suggestion that the Armed forces should accept (and train) National Servicemen is ludicrous. There simply aren't enough people to do the job.

 

It's expensive to run large Armed Forces, but they can be very useful (for the economy.) If you give a soldier a pair of boots, he will walk around in them and wear them out. then he needs another pair of boots. - That makes a job for Messrs Bata (who made the boots.)

 

I wore an immersion suit in winter and they don't last very long.

 

That helped to provide employment for the workers at Messrs Frankenstein, in Liverpool. (really!)

 

An instructor at one of the service colleges I attended once asked my course to name 5 major companies in the UK which did NOT have a contract with the MOD. We couldn't do so ... because there weren't 5 major companies which didn't have such a contract. The military is a consumer and its needs can provide work for many thousands of people. The military-industrial complex (much maligned) is also the major driver for research in the Western World. (I spent a few years at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico. About 5000 military and about 5 times as many civilians - all of whom were involved in research which (although it was funded by the military) made huge amounts of money for the US economy through sales to industry in the US.

 

When we had a large Air Force, we needed lots of technicians. - No 1 Apprentice School at Halton (and schools elsewhere) filled our needs and provided training for large numbers of fitters. When those fitters left the service, they provided a supply of highly-qualified and very highly-skilled fitters for the UK's aeronautical industries.

 

The post cold war military draw-downs (in the UK, the US and in Europe) may well have done far more damage to the economies of the Western World than has been appreciated.

 

Few companies in the UK (there are a few exceptions, but not many) provide significant numbers of good apprenticeships. Those that do have been unable to take up the shortfall in supply caused by military drawdowns.

 

'National Service' (as per the post WWll model) is probably a non-starter, but perhaps something (somehow?) should be done to replace the lack of technical training courses caused by the post-1970 (and particularly post 1987) military drawdowns.

 

Not my problem ... or "Not me, chief - I'm airframes.":hihi:

 

The Americans sent a Colonel (an engineer) to Japan after WW2. - He was the guy who introduced them to their manufacturing techniques. [i can't remember his name ] We need another one of those.

 

Another George C Marshall might come in handy, too.

 

Unfortunately, early 21st Century politicians (and their advisors) seem not to be anywhere near as competent as their mid 20th century predecessors.

 

It's not just the youth who screw up.

[Odin's Wrath]

I don't see why everybody should have to do national service when some are clearly not meant for it.

 

You're telling me that a maths or science whiz should be hauled off to do this crap instead of using his brains to help mankind

[HeadingNorth]

Last time there was National Service the country wasn't filled with subversives and malcontent's.

 

There were far more members of the Communist Party, other parties to the left of Labour and organised Trade Unionists during the 1950's than there are today.

 

There were also far more people with outside toilets. Perhaps the lack of outside toilets is responsible for social decay in the last fifty years?

 

 

Or perhaps we should actually produce some logical arguments intead of assuming that a correlation proves a cause?

[HeadingNorth]

I don't see why everybody should have to do national service when some are clearly not meant for it.

 

You're telling me that a maths or science whiz should be hauled off to do this crap instead of using his brains to help mankind

 

If national service were to be introduced nowadays, it would not mean national military service as it did before. (Maybe it ought to have a new name, so that people who remember the old form of National Service would not automatically assume that the suggestion is to bring back conscription.)

 

Whether the OP intended to mean conscription, I don't know. The biggest single opponent of national conscription nowadays is the Armed Forces themselves, chiefly for the reasons already mentioned about training. A two-year tour in the Army isn't even long enough to become fully trained and do anything useful.

[just_words]

You can make it up to be whatever you like, but I suggest that if you talk about 'National Service' in the UK, then those who are familiar with the term are going to assume you are talking about military service.

 

Maybe, but by broadening what people do in the National Service, could help them into careers, maybe consider it a bit more like an apprenticeship and helping the community at the same time.

 

Most national services e.g. NHS, Police, etc, do include good training and discipline.

 

 

P.S. When I used the term 'civil service' last night, I was referring to anything which was civil, but in hindsight I probably should have said state, even though at this point I wouldn't discount much, throwing it open to any respected organisation which showed use and management for such service.

 

 

If they all had some basic training in first aid, fitness, leadership, etc, then yes it'd benefit all and allow for use in times of emergency, e.g. floods, disaster appeals, public order, etc...