<OT> One more reason I am glad I don't live in CA

[Chong Yu Meng]

Andrew L. Gould wrote:

>On Wednesday 10 March 2004 07:24 am, Net Llama! wrote:
>  
>
>>I've got no problems with mandatory public service.  Mandatory military
>>service is best left for police states such as North Korea.
>>    
>>
>
>I like the idea of mandatory public service, military or civil.  I think 
>providing high school grads a taste of responsibility and social purpose 
>prior to college would help them get more value out of their education, among 
>other things.  These days, the first couple of years of college seem to 
>prolong childhood more often than enhance adulthood.
>
>  
>
Actually, as I get older, I sometimes look back on my service days and I 
feel terrified. Luckily, I never had to shoot anyone, but when I think 
about the American boys in Iraq, it just gives me all kinds of feelings.

The decisions you make when out in the field can affect the men under 
your command disproportionately. This may sound like a cliche, but a 
mistake out there, and someone dies, or gets wounded, and sometimes, the 
thing that determines whether  a decision is right or not is a lucky 
bullet from a sniper. In peacetime, military service can be a rite of 
passage, but if things turn nasty, the responsibilities on these 18, 19, 
20 year-old officers and NCOs is -in my opinion - a monstrous imposition.

This is not to say that we should ban it altogether. Someone somewhere 
is always willing to take the idea that "power comes from the barrel of 
a gun" to its extreme, and someone needs to stop them.

-- 
"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and
to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and
his children are smart." 
					-- Henry Mencken
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| Pascal Chong                                                   |
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