Would you like to see your son, daughter, niece, nephew or teenage neighbor become hard-working, respectful, disciplined, honorable and prepared for life? Would you like to see crime, teenage pregnancy and substance abuse rates decline? No, this is not an advertisement for a magic pill; this is an argument for mandatory military service.

AWOL offers some prescriptions for closing the civilian-military gap. They include a serious commitment to military recruiting among every element of the population, including elite educational institutions; the Progressive Policy Institute proposal for an education tax credit linked to national service; and a far more robust "citizen-soldier" option as part of the country's national service effort (another DLC/PPI proposal).

National service has always been the bridesmaid but never the bride in American politics. From the time the idea of some kind of service more comprehensive than military duty in the militia or in the conscript army became popular in the early 1900s, it’s had a lot of support—mostly on the center-left, some on the right. But national service has never really gotten very far. Now, after a century of failed attempts, we have proposals for some comprehensive service programs at the federal level.

Replace selective service with national service. Specifically, we should replace Selective Service with a National Service System that recruits young men and women to serve their country in one of three ways: in the military's new, short-term "citizen soldier" enlistment program; in AmeriCorps; or in the Peace Corps, which should become a vital component of U.S. efforts to promote political and economic freedom abroad.

Now, with the war going badly and the Army chasing potential recruits with a ferocity that is alarming, a backlash is developing that could cripple the nation's ability to wage war without a draft. Even as the ranks of new recruits are dwindling, many parents and public school officials are battling the increasingly heavy-handed tactics being used by military recruiters who are desperately trying to sign up high school kids.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said in an interview that he fears that regular forces and the National Guard are being stretched thin as enlistment rates decline. "They're rotating National Guard kids in and out of the countries two, three, four times," he said. "We need a debate about the draft. That's the issue."

Are we going to need a military draft, or is national service better? William R. King believes a broad system of compulsory national service promotes fairness.

A draft for the 21st Century is the only answer to our national security needs. Such a draft would have three tiers of youth service, with 18-month tours of duty for citizens ages 18 to 25. The first tier would be modeled after a standard military draft. The second tier would be for homeland security, such as guarding our borders, ports, nuclear installations and chemical plants. Included in this category would be police officers, firefighters, air marshals and disaster medical technicians. The third tier would be for civilian national service, such as the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Teach for America, assistance for the elderly and infirm, environmental work and the like.

America should move toward a system of compulsory, full-time, 18-month service for all ablebodied high school graduates (and in the case of dropouts, all 18-year-olds). They should be allowed to choose between military or civilian service, but if all slots in the military were filled, they would have to perform civilian service. It would cost at least $60 billion per year to fully implement this system, which would certainly slow its development and could well impose a ceiling on participation. A lottery, to which all are exposed and from which none but the unfit can escape, would be the best response to these constraints.

Building on ideas developed at the Progressive Policy Institute, we propose an alternative, voluntary path to universal service. Based on the model of the post-World War II G.I. Bill, our plan would offer federal student aid to young Americans willing to give something back to their country through either military or civilian service. It prescribes concrete steps for scaling up AmeriCorps with the ultimate goal of making national service “a common expectation—a rite of civic passage—for young Americans on their way to responsible and productive citizenship.”