A universal service program creates a new solidarity in a nation divided between the governing elites and the governed people. No one’s education is complete without exposure to the need of others, and the growing hope that each of us can help. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right when he said, “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.” It’s an idea whose time has come – to reweave the social fabric that has been torn ragged by the growth of individualism and consumerism and the parallel hollowing out of social and religious community.

Compulsory national service would support young people and give them and all of us hope for a more communitarian future.