Enlisting With Uncle Sam

By Jacob V. Lamar Jr

Some see it as a way of filling the ranks of the military at a time when the pool of new 18-year-olds is shrinking. Others regard it primarily as a way to foster a work ethic while meeting the nation's domestic needs: restoring parks, cleaning up inner cities, repairing roads, caring for the elderly, tutoring children. Proponents of the idea still disagree as to what extent the program should be mandatory or voluntary. Yet there is growing talk these days among politicians of various stripes about instituting in the U.S. some form of national service, a program that would recruit or draft young people for a year or so, allowing them to choose military or civilian work. "We have to try to instill a sense of service in the country," says Morris Janowitz, a sociologist at the University of Chicago.

Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli of New Jersey plans to introduce this week the most comprehensive national-service plan yet: a bill that would draft all American men and women ages 18 to 25 for one year of service in either the military or approved civilian projects. Oklahoma Democrat Dave McCurdy will submit a proposal for a voluntary program that would require applicants for federal college loans to spend a year in national service first. Neither of the bills is likely to pass in this session. But they will help stimulate a debate that has been under way since the draft was abolished in 1973.

Reform-minded Democrats have been at the fore of the cause. "A new system of national service," says Presidential Hopeful Gary Hart, "will ask young Americans to return some of the advantages and investments they have received ; from our society." The Democratic Leadership Council, an organization headed by former Virginia Governor Charles Robb, has endorsed the notion as a way to "foster a new spirit of citizenship and patriotism."

A primary concern of the national-service supporters is the "baby-bust generation" and its effect on the military. In 1980, 2 million young men reached their milestone 18th birthday. By 1986 the number was down to 1.7 million, and by 1992 it will have dropped to 1.6 million. Says a Democratic Leadership Council report: "The coming manpower pinch will make it difficult to maintain the current quality and size of the all-volunteer force without driving up its already considerable cost." Pentagon officials argue that the all-volunteer force has had no trouble getting quality recruits or controlling costs.

There are some state-level models for the civilian component of a national- service plan, most notably the California Conservation Corps. Created in 1976, it currently enlists 2,200 young men and women in a twelve-month program that includes fighting floods and forest fires, maintaining parks and clearing streams. The pay starts at $580 a month. The conditions often feature military-style barracks in isolated areas. At the end of a tour of duty, corps members are eligible for a $500 cash bonus or a $1,000 scholarship. For many workers, the program offers an escape from broken families, bad neighborhoods and the self-centered apathy that afflicts many young people today.

One underlying goal of national service is to bring people together from different ethnic and economic backgrounds to work in a common effort to serve the nation's military and domestic needs. But voluntary programs like the CCC and New York's City Volunteer Corps -- an organization that enlists youths to work for one year performing such tasks as tutoring schoolchildren and renovating shelters for the homeless -- generally enroll a disproportionate number of poor and minority youths.

Professor Charles Moskos of Northwestern University, author of a forthcoming book on national service, advocates tying a voluntary program to educational loans and grants as a way of attracting a cross section of American youth. His plan would deny federal aid to college-age students who have not performed a year of national service. Moskos admits this would create a loophole for wealthy students, who can afford college without any assistance, but he would willingly agree to a solution proposed by Columnist William Buckley: getting the U.S.'s top colleges to require that students spend a year in national service before they can enroll. Such a plan would have to be phased in gradually to avoid wiping out an entire class year.

"If I could have a magic wand, I would be for a compulsory system," says Moskos. That would raise serious questions. Congress has the right to raise armies, but the Constitution does not give it the right to conscript people to work in civilian occupations. The White House, along with many conservatives and libertarians as well as liberals, opposes national service on the ground that it would be an unnecessary intervention by the Government into people's lives. Some wonder how a program could be enforced. "What are you going to have?" asks Alan Weisberg, a youth-employment consultant in Oakland. "Criminal penalties for those who don't work?"

There is disagreement on how much national service would cost. The Pentagon says a program for civilian and military duty would be too expensive. In Moskos' scheme, though, the Pentagon would drastically reduce military pay, pensions and family allowances for junior members of the enlisted ranks, and the savings would cover the costs of the civilian side of the program. He estimates a program for 650,000 civilian volunteers would cost about $7 billion a year. In his plan, an additional 350,000 low-paying places would be available in the military.

Despite questions about its feasibility, advocates argue that a universal national-service program has transcendent benefits for the nation as a whole. "The real advantage of national service is not to the young," says Moskos. "The fundamental benefit is to society itself in reinstating its sense of comity, community and service that we all seem to have lost."

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington and Lawrence Malkin/Boston