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<DIV><FONT color=#000000>Hi all,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>I came across the following article a couple days ago and found it
interesting. It’s written by retired general Stan McChrystal, who advocates a
national service year for all Americans aged 18 to 28 as a way to bring the
nation together through common experience. I have included both the link and the
text of the article below my signature. I’d love to hear what some of you think
of the article and the idea.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000>Chris Parsons</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000>Vice President, National Federation of the Blind
Community Service Division</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Stan McChrystal, a retired U.S. Army general and former commander of U.S.
and international forces in Afghanistan, is chairman of the leadership council
of the Franklin Project on national service at the Aspen Institute and
co-founder of McChrystal Group. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>This month Americans chose many new leaders, but they continue to have
diminished faith in the system in which those leaders serve. Over the past
few elections, American politics has produced a succession of dramatic victories
and defeats but not a sense of common national purpose. Trust in
government is near all-time lows, and social trust — trust in
others — is lower among millennials than previous generations. A change in
elected leaders has not healed the divisions of our nation, because the problem
runs deeper than politics. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>The leaders we elect are not succeeding, in part because they reflect us.
Just as they have grown less likely to cross the aisle to get things done, we as
citizens have become less likely to have a sense of common identity or
experience. Turnout for the recent election was the lowest for a midterm in more
than 70 years. We are increasingly likely to live among, befriend and work with
people with views and backgrounds similar to our own. We have sustained a series
of wars for more than 13 years with less than 1 percent of the population
serving in the military, creating a gap in experience and understanding between
those who serve and those who do not. We lack common experiences that bind us as
a people. We have lost our confidence in doing big things as a nation. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Citizenship is like a muscle that can atrophy from too little use; if we
want to strengthen it, we need to exercise it. We need to support leaders who
ask more of us and not those who simply promise us more. We need candidates who
will cross the aisle in support of a big idea for renewed citizenship. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Two years from now, the United States needs to have an election — and a
corresponding public campaign — that asks more from us as citizens. As someone
who spent 34 years in the military, I have no interest in partisan politics. But
informed by my service, I am concerned about a dangerous gap I see in American
life: a gap of shared experience, common purpose and gratitude. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>So today I’m calling on voters, donors and future candidates to work
together to make a “service year” a common expectation and opportunity for all
18- to 28-year-old Americans. This would be an American version of universal
national service — appropriately voluntary but socially expected. Through such
service, young Americans from different income levels, races, ethnicities,
political affiliations and religious beliefs could learn to work together to get
things done. Such a project should be a defining issue of the 2016 election.
</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>It is no longer enough for our politics to focus on what is comfortable and
convenient; that will only encourage further cynicism and division. If we demand
what is needed and what is right, we can reshape the political debate. Our
country and our citizens have responded to this type of call before — including
the generation of military men and women who volunteered after the 9/11 attacks,
many of whom I was proud to command. Our nation has never preferred what is easy
when it mattered most. Americans have tried, imperfectly at times, to embrace
big goals and to make sacrifices on behalf of the future. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Many people already serve, whether in the State Department, in the
military, in the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps, as elected officials, as teachers or
firefighters, or in an array of other public-service positions. Demand for
national service is high, with more than five times as many applications
submitted for AmeriCorps positions as there are opportunities. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>What we need is a system of national service that goes well beyond anything
that exists today. Every young adult should be called to year-long service,
whether as a tutor or mentor in one of our country’s 2.3 million classrooms, a
conservation worker in one of our country’s national parks or wilderness areas ,
an aide to one of the 1.5 million Americans who require hospice care each year
or in one of numerous other areas of high unmet need. Such service should
provide a moderate stipend to ensure that people from any background could
participate, count for some sort of course credit in college and be designed to
help make it easier for a service member to get a job. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>If candidates ask voters to support this big idea, I know that they will
find millions who want to answer the call. Donors who insist their candidates
support such an idea will be giving something big back to their country beyond
their financial contributions. Voters who support such an idea will be electing
candidates who ask them to move beyond an easy citizenship. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>Imagine if, during the next election season, candidates at all levels
competed to propose serious ideas for the civic transformation of America.
Afterward, our newly elected leaders would possess a mandate to converge on a
unique patch of common ground. And there is no better common ground than the
common experience of serving our country.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><A
title=http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mcchrystal-americans-face-a-gap-of-shared-experience-and-common-purpose/2014/11/14/a51ad4fa-6b6a-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html
style='href: "http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mcchrystal-americans-face-a-gap-of-shared-experience-and-common-purpose/2014/11/14/a51ad4fa-6b6a-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html"'
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mcchrystal-americans-face-a-gap-of-shared-experience-and-common-purpose/2014/11/14/a51ad4fa-6b6a-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mcchrystal-americans-face-a-gap-of-shared-experience-and-common-purpose/2014/11/14/a51ad4fa-6b6a-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html</A></DIV>
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