SORRY, I OPPOSE A DRAFT, AND I OPPOSE MANDATORY “NATIONAL SERVICE” EVEN MORE: Ron Fournier: How To Defeat ISIS With Millennial Service:
I know a better way to fight ISIS. It starts with an idea that should appeal the better angels of both hawks and doves: National service for all 18- to 28-year-olds.
Require virtually every young American — the civic-minded millennial generation — to complete a year of service through programs such as Teach for America, AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, or the U.S. military, and two things will happen:
1. Virtually every American family will become intimately invested in the nation’s biggest challenges, including poverty, education, income inequality, and America’s place in a world afire.
2. Military recruiting will rise to meet threats posed by ISIS and other terrorist networks, giving more people skin in a very dangerous game.
This may seem like a radical plan until you compare it with two alternatives: the status quo, which clearly isn’t working, or a military draft, which might be the boldest and fairest way to wage the long war against Islamic extremists.
Remember in September when the beheadings of two Americans galvanized the nation against ISIS? President Obama, who had dismissed ISIS as a “JV team,” promised, “We will degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State. Nine months later, ISIS is winning.
Well, that part’s true. But it’s because of the personnel at the top, not at the bottom, of the chain of command.