Mandatory Service for America’s Youth

The events of September 11 renewed the sense of patriotism and community in American people. On Capitol Hill, Senators John McCain and Evan Bayh have proposed expanding the AmeriCorps program from 250,000 participants to 500,000. Many Americans in our post September 11 world are looking for ways to contribute to their communities, and some are proposing the idea of mandatory national service for youth between high school graduation and college or careers. Although some would argue that young people should decide of their own free will to participate, instituting a mandatory service program is the right thing to do both for our youth and for our society.
Some people might say that a mandatory service program would be impossible to implement, but to do so; one would only have to look to the existing voluntary programs which are already providing great benefit to America. In the AmeriCorps*NCCC program, youth from the ages of 18 - 24 volunteer to work on projects on public safet...