Service without a smile
From Mr Jeremy Taylor Sir: Charles Wheeler (`The barmy army', 8 July) must be right when he claims National Service didn't make any of us who did it happy. Obligatory soldiering for two years wasn't meant to. I don't think it was planned as a method of ensuring Britain's safety either. Such an enormous and costly standing army was a hindrance, not a national benefit. National Service was intro- duced to keep potentially unemployed or unemployable young men from becoming idle, infesting towns and villages and caus- ing trouble at football matches. Bullying NCOs and foppish 2nd Lieutenants saw to it that the Teds phenomenon of the Fifties was controllable.
National Service of course wasted our time and kidnapped our precious last teenage years, when we could have been dancing or stealing cars while some of us waited for university entrance. It was terri- bly expensive, and much of it was boring. But had it never been withdrawn, it is a fair bet there would be fewer shaven-headed, be-ringed, drunken, drugged, fiancée-bash- ing lumpenlouts at every corner.
Jeremy Taylor
(Royal Norfolk Regiment 1958-60), Tenerife
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