Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> I think Universal Military Service is a good idea. It makes people hate the
> army and doesn't put the burden of service on the poor. It also makes for a
> less ideologically coherent (right wing) military. jks
>
It also gives military training and familiarity with modern weapons to the mass of the working class. This can be awkward. One of the difficulties for the government at the time of the 1968 Chicago Dem. Convention (I forget exact details here, such as the number of the battalion &/or division concerned) was that they could not call on the main military unit on reserve in the U.S. for crowd control because it was clear that they could not trust large numbers of black soldiers in that unit in such a situation. I once had a copy of an article written for the Army by some officer on the breakdown of the u.s. army in Vietnam. It was a really complete breakdown -- and had there been _really_ huge disorders at home the military force to contain them would not have been available.
Carrol