I'm against conscription. I did do some army reserve training during Uni, and I think it was an interesting experience - certainly enough to know I did not want to do anything else with it.
I wish we had something military-like, but was more SES (state emergency service) based that could be used for a youth service. Make it for search and rescue, disaster assistance and perhaps other community services. Do the training (physical, skills, etc), do the team work, leadership, etc that's useful for youth to get the experience/exposure.
Perhaps instead of being compulsory, other incentives can be used (not necessarily all):
* Pay more than unemployment benefits.
* Make it part-time like the army reserve, so students could use it.
* Maybe some discount on study costs (Uni/Tafe/etc)?
So while this service is providing useful skills, etc to our youth, it's also something useful for the community. Extra skilled personnel for disaster recovery, etc.
Only rough thoughts, but something different to the usual "military conscription" idea that keeps popping up.
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