Years ago, when I was a "young American" in what was surely an age of idealism, many of my peers signed on for national service work in the Peace Corps and in its domestic counterparts. When I talk to those friends today, those aging baby boomers speak in the same terms as military veterans even though their national service experience may a have been vastly different. They speak of their service as among the most meaningful and significant times of their lives. They say that despite poverty, difficult and sometimes thankless work, those were the days, months, and years in which they came to understand the blessings of being an American. What started as idealism, a sense of obligation, or maybe even a youthful lark grew for both military veterans and those who served our nation in other ways into a profound and abiding love of this country. It is a sense of true nationality which comes gradually and through participation in the life of our country.
Aging Baby Boomers look back on the Peace Corps as the best years of their lives
Mandatory Service Should Be A Part of Growing Up
Margaret Dickson, Up & Coming Weekly, Nov. 27 - Dec. 3, 2002 November 27, 2002
Tomorrow millions of Americans will sit down to a Thanksgiving bounty with those nearest and dearest to us and with new found friends. On this uniquely American occasion, we will bless our "Creator," each other, and our good fortune as Americans. Some of us will relax with full bellies, slipping away into a secure slumber within the borders of our great nation. Many of us will also discuss among ourselves the very real possibility that our nation may soon be at war with Iraq and what that may mean for us, for our families, and for the rest of the world.
I think about that possibility frequently, and my thoughts often turn to my own precious children, two now old enough to be eligible for military service and one just two short years away. My older son registered with the Selective Service at his 18th birthday, an occasion which gave considerable pause to a mother from the Vietnam era whose own father had served many years as chairman of the Cumberland County draft board during that painful and turbulent time. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that our all-volunteer military can handle any conflict with Iraq, and as a member of this community, I certainly believe him.
But I am also more convinced than ever that America's young people, our children and grandchildren, do have a responsibility to give of themselves in service to our nation. I think each and every one of them who is physically and mentally capable should devote a year of his or her young life to the United States in exchange for the great and life-long privilege of being citizens before they move forward to where ever their own lives take them.
Mandatory national service is hardly a novel concept. Many of the world's nations require military service of their young men, a few of their young women. The United States had a draft until the unpopularity of the Vietnam War made it politically impossible. But mandatory service, not just military service, is a concept our nation should revisit and strongly consider.
As our nation continues to diversify and as our social institutions evolve, the ties which have traditionally bound us together continue to loosen. We seem to have less and less common ground of all sorts, even in what were once common experiences like public schools and our places of worship. National service for both our young men and women would instill in them a missing sense of community, of shared responsibilities, and of common nationality with their fellow citizens. It would teach young Americans that no matter how different their personal heritages, faiths, and experiences may be from those of others, we all share one common bond. We are all Americans with the same rights, responsibilities, and privileges of citizenship.
Mandatory service could be military, and surely some who choose that option would make it a career. But national service can and should be much broader. Young Americans can both learn and serve in all sorts of ways - teaching, mentoring, working in medical settings, in parks, with children, with the elderly and the disabled, in urban centers and in rural settings, applying themselves to skilled and unskilled jobs as their own talents dictate.
Years ago, when I was a "young American" in what was surely an age of idealism, many of my peers signed on for national service work in the Peace Corps and in its domestic counterparts. When I talk to those friends today, those aging baby boomers speak in the same terms as military veterans even though their national service experience may a have been vastly different. They speak of their service as among the most meaningful and significant times of their lives. They say that despite poverty, difficult and sometimes thankless work, those were the days, months, and years in which they came to understand the blessings of being an American. What started as idealism, a sense of obligation, or maybe even a youthful lark grew for both military veterans and those who served our nation in other ways into a profound and abiding love of this country. It is a sense of true nationality which comes gradually and through participation in the life of our country.
My three children are in high school and college and none has confronted the issue of national responsibility, willingly undertaken or mandatory. If I were a Harry Potter wizard, I would say "Poof" and create a mandatory service system which would work despite real world and daunting logistical and financial questions. But I am not a wizard. I am a mother, and I hope each of my children will have an opportunity to serve our nation in some way, both to render what service they can and to understand deeply what it means to have been born an American citizen with both privileges and obligations.
We are all truly blessed. A happy and peaceful Thanksgiving to all.
©Up & Coming Magazine 2002
