It seems that the justification was to fulfil British military commitments in a post WWII environment, globally.
Low pay, not great conditions, do your duty, and come home. Some stayed on as full time soldiers. Presumably the experience was grueling for some, and for others it gave a sense of camaraderie and friendship.
It’s all about what I expected to read, I suppose.
The question for me is why is it necessary now?
It had a particular rationale after WWII, I get that. And then it was phased out.
It doesn’t seem like a necessary thing to have, these days, at least for the UK.
Obviously if reintroducing National Service became official Government policy, it will need justification, and all the details being laid out so people would know what’s what.
It’s usually seen as a way to teach youngsters respect and discipline,it can also give them the incentive to be physically fit and healthy.
This works for many but it also gives the arsehole element the knowledge of basic combat,this can be useful as a criminal or a police officer
Was half expecting that joke, but this was a real rabbit. As in a hoping about bunny rabbit she kept in her room, and would chew the fuck out of everything. The only way I could have turned it off was with a hammer.
Our bunnies are purely outside only. Although have mentioned to Mrs about running an access pipe from one of their hutches into a petting area in the conservatory. As you do.
I get bored easily.
Anyway, Labour are shit at looking after rabbits and under a Starmer government, your house would be full of them and he’d ban hammers.
There is a sort of rose tinted view of national service which was probably informed by TV programmes like “Get Some In” that it was all merry japes and more or less a boy scout camping weekend.
Of my father’s generation (father and uncles) who did it, they were all assigned to active war zones: Palestine, Korea and Malaysia. For the most part they didn’t have a good time. They had friends who died out there.
I can recall a suggestion by the Labour government for a form of national service to address NEETS (young people not in training, education or employment). I think the idea was that those kids that had fallen through the system could work on community projects that would give them a bit of life experience and also take them out of potential poverty traps.
The problems associated with that is that often those people were unpaid carers so the scheme would have to have been carefully structured. I believe the funding for it was removed by the Conservative government in 2010 so it never saw the light of day.
As for military national service, it’s about the last thing the armed services need. They are very much focused on needing highly trained career personnel with a minimal natural turnover.
Yes, its one of those ideas that gets floated from time to time as a solution to many issues but never really gets very far when presumably it is looked at more seriously by government.
That’s the funny thing about the German model. The military part, which was the original idea, got cut shorter and shorter and became increasingly useless in modern military, so when they got rid of that they also had to get rid of the alternative civilian service, which, imho, had a real useful, valuable effect on both the young people taking part in it as well as social/medical/care institutions.
There’s a couple of my colleagues who were Red Cross drivers during national service. One, in particular, actively started working for our company as a result (we are a supplier of medical monitoring equipment of which DRK are a major user).
I don’t know if any of my colleagues went for the military option. My line manager is ex-Bundeswehr but he was very much a career soldier.
I can think of a whole raft of areas, not necessarily military that could benefit from extra resources and how that can feed back to those people doing those roles.
2 that spring immediately to mind are RNLI or mountain rescue services. Both are sadly volunteer services which is crazy but they train their people and people learn fantastic skills in the process. They demand a level of teamwork, integration and discipline too. But you’re asking government to start some level of funding for these services so there’s a cats chance in hell it happens
He’ll miss the boat AGAIN. Should be banging their manifesto promises now. Ram them home, advertise everywhere, leave nobody in any doubt what they’ll actually do if they win.
But no, Rishi will slowly turn it round, win back faith, improve the pound, reduce the boats, negotiate peace in Ukraine and the country will get off its knees. By then it’s way too late. Starmer should be screaming from the rooftops, but why do today that which can be put off till 2024?
The problem is that Rishi will steal any good ones or start his press buddies on tearing them to pieces. He’s right to play his cards close to his chest but I fully understand the frustration in some quarters because of it.
