Should we all be required to spend time in public service?

Today we honor those who have risked and even given their lives in the service of our country.

For the past few decades, they have all been volunteers, chosing to enlist in one of the branches of the military in exchange for experience, promised benefits, and, at least, the satisfaction that they have done the right thing.

For the baby boomer generation or before, that choice was no choice at all -- if your number came up, you could either submit to the draft or suffer the consequences.

We admire everyone who has taken such an important step to keep our country running -- yes, it does function well, for the most part -- but what about the rest of us?

Voting is an important first step, for one, and we've just seen the difference that, we hope, can make in the direction the United States is going.

But what about the AmericCorps and Peace Corps and other means of national service?

Should we require a year or more of national service for all Americans?

There are some compelling ideas.

We already require citizens to pay taxes, send their children to school, serve on juries and, now, buy health insurance.

Those who feel our country has become too polarized might be convinced and compulsory public service could help. Yes, democracy permits each of us to have his own opinion, but national service could help foster a sense of common identity and national purpose among citizens, as it does in other countries with such requirements.

A national service requirement would create a ready source of labor for public needs such a mintaining parks, assisting in hospitals and helping out during natural disasters.

At a minimum, requiring young people to spend time in public service would give them time to grow up, gain valuable experience and explore occupations that they might find fulfilling for the rest of their lives.

To take it one step farther, how about requiring able-bodied recipients of public assistance to take part in public service?

The public assistance issue aside, opponents to mandatory national service say it violates the fundamental principles of individual liberty.

Citing the military as an example, opponents say voluntary national service works well as a part of the American spirit of volunteerism.

We're more sympathetic with the fear that mandatory national service will create a large, costly bureaucracy that won't do as good a job as private volunteers in meeting national needs. Like all bureaucracies, it might siphon off funding for administration that should actually go toward the workers in the field.