Give `Em A Taste Of National Service!

Jabberwocky · 10-10-2006, 18:14

So, you heared about prison overcrowding, of how the poor dears are all uncomfortable when three or more are crammed into their four star cells, so what about an alternative?

National Service.

Would it do them any good?
Should ALL young people be eligible for it or just the bad lads?

Were YOU a naughty boy who now thinks that a spell of National Service would have changed his life?
Are you old enough to have experienced National Service? What do you think it did for you? Good things? Bad things?

Would the armed forces actually WANT any of the chavs that infest the streets today? Most of `em are hardly perfect specimens of humanity are they?

I remember when i was 19 in 1980 when Thatcher made a tentative suggestion about bringing it back and I dont mind admitting that I soiled myself in a big big way- the very idea of it made me quake in my boots, but I wasnt a bad lad, I worked and had never experienced unemployment and I hadnt even thought of breaking the law.

So, what do you think?

Halibut · 10-10-2006, 18:22

I think there could be some mileage in this idea; I was mightily impressed with some of the changes wrought by the stint of National Service shown on the TV programme 'Bad Lads Army'.

Jabberwocky · 10-10-2006, 18:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halibut

I think there could be some mileage in this idea; I was mightily impressed with some of the changes wrought by the stint of National Service shown on the TV programme 'Bad Lads Army'.

Thats what I was thinking of. Ok some of them stuck out their lip and left but the majority stuck with it and did well.
However, the course was only a few weeks, how would they manage with two or three years of it?

seriessix · 10-10-2006, 18:25

I feel most alone when I’m with people I know and trust.

taxman · 10-10-2006, 18:28

You'd turn the British Army into one big borstal cum kindergarten. Half of them would have to bee taught to read before anything else and would you really think it a good idea to teach some of these chavscum how to kill people?

The army is stretched as it is, imagine all the time and resources needed to take in hand all these extra and unwilling recruits

Jabberwocky · 10-10-2006, 18:31

Well then why not create a seperate "Army" for them? Im sure they could be financed in some way or another, but the end result would be the same, theyd in all probability come out of it as more decent members of society.
I wonder what the crime levels were in the 50s when there WAS National Service... I wonder if they were lower than today, or higher...

Bartfarst · 10-10-2006, 18:31

The anti-everything brigade will of course object to the idea, put their heads in the sand and claim that it would just make them 'fitter, harder criminals'. But that is of course rubbish.

Scrotes are what they are for a number of reasons: bad genes, bad upbringing, bad role models. We can't cure the first two, but the latter can be radically changed.

Rather than aspiring to the great heights of becoming the leading drug dealer on the Manor, or whatever sink estate they come from, the individuals would learn to aspire to better and more meaningful things. They would come to see that there really is honour, and pride, and loyalty in the world, and it is through those feelings that they would find a new identity and a new focus - through loyalty to their fellows within a corps, and pride in both their Service and their own achievements.

The Army and other Services, structured as we currently are, would neither wish to nor be capable of taking on the job, but it would do the country enormous good.

Hecate · 10-10-2006, 18:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxman

You'd turn the British Army into one big borstal cum kindergarten. ...

Exactly, especially if Jabber's latter suggestion of recruiting the 'bad lads' was implemented. Some of them can do enough damage as it is, without providing them, legitmately, with weapons for them to come up with new and interesting ways of inflicting GBH.

Jabberwocky · 10-10-2006, 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hecate

Exactly, especially if Jabber's latter suggestion of recruiting the 'bad lads' was implemented. Some of them can do enough damage as it is, without providing them, legitmately, with weapons for them to come up with new and interesting ways of inflicting GBH.

But surely the main thing the forces teaches people is respect?
Not to mention Self Discipline.

Bartfarst · 10-10-2006, 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hecate

Exactly, especially if Jabber's latter suggestion of recruiting the 'bad lads' was implemented. Some of them can do enough damage as it is, without providing them, legitmately, with weapons for them to come up with new and interesting ways of inflicting GBH.

Please see post number 7.

Hecate · 10-10-2006, 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jabberwocky

But surely the main thing the forces teaches people is respect?
Not to mention Self Discipline.

Respect and self-discipline can be taught in many different ways by a wide variety of different people and bodies. Moreover, I'm not sure that all potential recruits would respond to the armed forces' particular methods of building character.

Jabberwocky · 10-10-2006, 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hecate

Respect and self-discipline can be taught in many different ways by a wide variety of different people and bodies. Moreover, I'm not sure that all potential recruits would respond to the armed forces' particular methods of building character.

From what i understand, they break the body and personality down and then build it up into a better combination.
Of course im far from being an expert in this, but my brother went into the Coldstream guards in the 60s and it seems thats what happened to him. He went in a spoiled softy and came out a decade later and joined the police force.
His life could have taken a far different route, but then anyones life could have.
Im aware of different civillian methods of ceating a feeling of responsibility and respect in people but... Im not sure if Ive seen any instances of it being successful, the word "Recividist" seems to be in use more in recent years than at any other time in history.

Bartfarst · 10-10-2006, 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hecate

Respect and self-discipline can be taught in many different ways by a wide variety of different people and bodies. Moreover, I'm not sure that all potential recruits would respond to the armed forces' particular methods of building character.

I strongly suspect that you know nothing of the Armed Forces' 'methods of building character'.

We don't build character, we open people's minds to their own potential, and let them develop their own character as a result. For some of the younger recruits in particular, there is nothing short of a revelation in their rate of maturing and mental expansion during the initial phases of training.

Basic training puts recruits of both the enlisted ranks and the officers into stretch, and without exception people learn more about themselves. They also learn to get on better with others, to understand interpersonal relationships, and to become better as team members as much as they do as leaders – we push heavily that leadership cannot succeed without followership.

My current post is extremely rewarding, because I see civilians of varying backgrounds developed into officers. The development they achieve over a few months is remarkable and reassures me that the Services do a very, very good job of training their personnel and providing them with very positive aspirations and role models.

Not something the lefty do-gooders of this world would, or could, understand.

Zaytsev · 10-10-2006, 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxman

...............................would you really think it a good idea to teach some of these chavscum how to kill people?

I don't think they need much tutoring on that subject:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...6032691.stm?ls

me-and-pippo · 10-10-2006, 20:08

My uncle was an R.S.M. and served in world war two, he had to train people of this nature we now call chavs. He thinks the program 'Bad lads army' is a right joke,as the training in his time was a lot more severe than that. He has told me about the the discipline that was used to turn this type of person into a soldier, and it was not very nice at all. To these lads at the time he was a right b*****d, but after the initial training and discipline he became well respected and liked. And to this day now he is proud to admit that these kids 'robbers' 'layabouts' he trained in his time, chavs in ours. Did come out of the army as men with principles and ambition and proud to have made an acheivement.

me-and-pippo · 10-10-2006, 20:48

Bartfarst, i do take it then that you have been or are a member,of the 'armed forces' then.

StarSparkle · 10-10-2006, 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jabberwocky

From what i understand, they break the body and personality down and then build it up into a better combination.

And you think this is a GOOD thing?

And then you use the word 'respect' in the same posting?

Bullying and brutalising are wrong, whoever's doing it.

StarSparkle

Jabberwocky · 10-10-2006, 21:12

How is brutalising defined though? Not that im saying its a good thing, As I mentioned in my first post, I was terrified of the idea of National Service, but at the end of the day it DOES APPEAR to be beneficial, even though it does certainly appear brutal and in lots of ways a brainwashing process.

Its a fact that sending thugs into paint shops and sweat huts to "Get in touch with their mystic" side doesnt work, but there are countless oldies who were in the army etc who said it did them no end of good.
Are they just saying that to justify the hell they went through?

CHOIRBOY · 10-10-2006, 21:18

I was quite a shy child my period of National Service gave me confidence and helped me become an adult and stand on my own two feet The friendships made during NS were very strong ones and helped me to integrate and get on with people from very different backgrounds and cultures from my own. It taoght me how to be a team player I am not sure that National Service teaching people to kill each other is a good ideas but some form of Compulsory Community Service which teaches discipline self control and helps yuoung people develop into mature adults would be a good idea.

Jabberwocky · 10-10-2006, 21:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHOIRBOY

I was quite a shy child my period of National Service gave me confidence and helped me become an adult and stand on my own two feet The friendships made during NS were very strong ones and helped me to integrate and get on with people from very different backgrounds and cultures from my own. It taoght me how to be a team player I am not sure that National Service teaching people to kill each other is a good ideas but some form of Compulsory Community Service which teaches discipline self control and helps yuoung people develop into mature adults would be a good idea.

So would you say that during your training that you were brutalised in any way?