Young Americans

NOSTALGIA IS DANGEROUS. Perhaps disco or the decreasing number of minor league baseball players are responsible, but the collective psyche of the young generation disturbs many older concerned citizens. Gazing toward a rosy, if hazy, past, they focus on World War II, remembering fondly the unity of spirit and pride in nationhood. If only that spirit could return, if only, as President Carter instructed, we could "say something good about America." The answer, some say, is National Service, to revive our recalcitrant souls.

The idea of National Service had been simmering in Washington for some time when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompted the new interest in reviving the draft. The combination of the two creates a disquieting alliance between a chunk of the liberal establishment, who want so badly to feel good about America again, and right-wing hawks, who ache to show some old-fashioned American muscle at some corner of the globe. Drafting young people will satisfy both.

The most widely publicized endorsement of National Service came in a 1979 study called Youth and the Needs of the Nation, a Ford Foundation-financed effort, co-chaired by Jacqueline Grennan Wexler, former president of Hunter College, and Harris Wofford, long time Kennedy associate, former president of Bryn Mawr, and, like Wexler, a pillar of the liberal community. The report calls for engaging "a million or more young people in a new system of voluntary National Service designed to help meet this country's non-military needs." Though the report's conclusion calls for a "voluntary" program, it repeatedly cites the advantages of a mandatory system, and how one might work better than the voluntary program. Specifics on what these people might do are spare, but there are several mentions of laudable goals like "caring for the sick and the elderly" and "repairing our abused physical environment."

According to the report, the nation should say to its youth, "We need you and ask you--along with all other young people--to serve your community and country in demanding and disciplined work on some of the important problems of our society." Stirring words, meant to refute conservatives' accusations that liberals prefer hand-outs to self help. But this joint venture of rich and poor, white and black for a year or two of their lives will not alter economic inequities; liberals have again overestimated the efficiency of government programs.

The report, reeking good intentions, was composed in the dreamland of a think tank, and it programs, VISTA for domestic projects and the Peace Corps for foreign. About 9600 people participate in those projects now, with no signs of an immediate increase in sight. The authors surely know this, but they presumably feared the reaction of young people to what they really wanted: compulsory service.

COMPULSORY NON-MILITARY service is a misguided attempt to force-feed patriotism. Goals like "caring for the sick and the elderly" sound admirable on paper, but how would these programs actually work? How would nurses' unions react to this intrusion of essentially unpaid labor into their turf? How would construction workers' unions react to volunteers building "facilities for the handicapped," or for "waste treatment and recycling?" Furthermore, the Wexlers and the Woffords ignore a fundamental ideal while struggling to revive others: freedom of choice. The youth of this nation are no less moral than others, despite their lack of enthusiasm for do-good voluntarism. This nation had a draft for only 30 of its 204 years and patriotism survived undaunted; until now no one has said that a one or two-year sacrifice to the nation was required for developing that spirit.

President Carter has mingled the interest in a National Service with his disturbing draft registration proposal, carefully remaining on safe political ground. He calls the present situation in Afghanistan "the most serious threat to world peace since World War II," knowing full well no one wants to be seen as treating a threat to national security lightly. The more dangerous the crisis, the less effective his opposition. By asking for registration, he has made the crisis seem that much more serious. He awakens images of steely American resolve and warns grimly that America must stand firm.

HAWKS LIKE Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) love it. For Nunn and those with similar beliefs, Carter's tough line reminds them of an America whose embassies were treated with respect (or fear), whose foreign policy was determined from a position of strength, and whose influence usually determined the course of world events.

Our declining strength abroad comes not from insufficient numbers of troops, but from continuing dependence on nations whose future we cannot control. No longer will sending in the Marines contribute significantly to our national security; young people should not have to pay for this defunct vision of the world.

Both of these plans--National Service from the left and the draft from the right--look to the nation's youth to gratify nostalgic fantasy. Their authors demand that this generation give their time or perhaps their lives to projects obsolete at birth. Working to improve the nation is fine if the methods will work. National Service, conceived in altruism and probably executed in a festival of pork barrel and waste, will not correct the social ills disturbing the liberals. Forcing 18- to 20-year-olds to spend a year or two in the military will not erase the damage done to our position in the world from years of immoral foreign policy and economic abuses. Yet the nation calls on its youth to atone for those mistakes.

Young Americans would undoubtedly come to the aid of their nation if it faced a genuine threat to its security. But young people will not, and should not, march into the street or overseas to help their elders recapture the failed crusades of their youth.