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Federal Panel Considering Recommendations For Mandatory National Service

VPM | By David Welna
Published January 23, 2019 at 11:01 PM EST
Updated November 30, 2023

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

For more than a year, a bipartisan congressional committee has been trying to answer this question – should women be required to register with the Selective Service? That’s the agency that registers all men at 18 years old in case of a military draft. It’s also looking at whether non-military service should be required of young people to recapture a spirit of national unity. NPR’s David Welna reports on the commission’s early findings.

DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Every seat was filled today in the auditorium at the privately owned Newseum, where the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service was rolling out its progress report. Former Republican Congressman Joe Heck chairs that commission. He reminded the crowd how unprecedented the 24 public hearings it’s held have been.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOE HECK: For the first time in our nation’s history, a commission was tasked to holistically and comprehensively review the Selective Service system along with Military, National and Public Service. It is truly an historic opportunity.

WELNA: Many in that crowd were public servants themselves, from the military, from volunteer organizations and from government agencies, something Heck seemed keenly aware of.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HECK: The irony of releasing a report that speaks in part to encouraging more people to seek a career in public service during the midst of a shutdown is not lost on us.

WELNA: Finding ways to attract more people to public service, military or otherwise, is indeed one of the commission’s main goals. Janine Davidson is a former undersecretary of the Navy and the first woman ever to fly the military’s Hercules C-130 transport plane.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JANINE DAVIDSON: De Tocqueville said we were a nation of joiners, and that’s what made our civil society so strong – that we jump in and we do stuff. And even in this shutdown in the airport the other day, you know, we always talk about people getting out to help veterans, there’s a veterans group there helping the TSA people.

WELNA: And yet, as the interim report notes, military veterans comprise less than 10 percent of the population. And 4 out of 10 young Americans say they never considered military service. Still, all males between ages 18 and 25 are required by law to register for the Selective Service in case a military draft is revived. Women are not, even though they’re now allowed in combat units. Commission member Debra Wada says requiring women to register is an issue Congress took up three years ago but never resolved.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DEBRA WADA: It was the impetus, actually, for the creation of this commission. And it’s a large question that was given to us. And we’re looking to the American public’s input. And we’ve heard a lot from individuals, and we continue to seek input from others.

WELNA: Again, Chairman Heck.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HECK: I know you’re all waiting eagerly on the edge of your seat. All right. Will women have to register? I can’t tell you because the commission hasn’t come to a decision.

WELNA: Heck said, after a year of public hearings, it’s clear this sharply divides those who’ve weighed in on it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HECK: People have very definitive opinions on this issue. It’s not like when you ask the question, they have to take a moment to think about it. It’s a visceral response. It’s either, yes, they should have to register, it’s a matter of equality – or no, they should not have to register because women hold a special role in American society. I mean, that’s what it basically comes down to. I don’t think there are many people that are on the fence when it comes to deciding whether or not women should have to register.

WELNA: Heck says the commission has a broader concern – the decline of public service.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HECK: Our goal is that there should be a universal expectation of service, that instead of the person serving being the odd person, it’s the person who doesn’t serve is the odd person. So that within a generation or two, every American is inspired and eager to serve.

WELNA: Fourteen more public hearings are planned in the coming months, with a final report and recommendations due early next year. David Welna, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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David Welna

David Welna is NPR's national security correspondent.

Having previously covered Congress over a 13-year period starting in 2001, Welna reported extensively on matters related to national security. He covered the debates on Capitol Hill over authorizing the use of military force prior to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the expansion of government surveillance practices arising from Congress' approval of the USA PATRIOT Act. Welna reported on congressional probes into the use of torture by U.S. officials interrogating terrorism suspects. He also traveled with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to Afghanistan on the Pentagon chief's first overseas trip in that post.

As a national security correspondent, Welna has continued covering the overseas travel of Pentagon chiefs who've succeeded Hagel. He has also made regular trips to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to provide ongoing coverage of the detention there of alleged "foreign enemy combatants" and the slow-moving prosecution of some of them in an episodically-convened war court. In Washington, he continues to cover national security-related issues being considered by Congress.

In mid-1998, after 16 years of reporting from abroad for NPR, Welna joined NPR's Chicago bureau. During that posting, he reported on a wide range of issues: changes in Midwestern agriculture that threaten the survival of small farms, the personal impact of foreign conflicts and economic crises in the heartland, and efforts to improve public education. His background in Latin America informed his coverage of the saga of Elian Gonzalez both in Miami and in Cuba.

Welna first filed stories for NPR as a freelancer in 1982, based in Buenos Aires. From there, and subsequently from Rio de Janeiro, he covered events throughout South America. In 1995, Welna became the chief of NPR's Mexico bureau.

Additionally, he has reported for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Financial Times, and The Times of London. Welna's photography has appeared in Esquire, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Covering a wide range of stories in Latin America, Welna chronicled the wrenching 1985 trial of Argentina's former military leaders who presided over the disappearance of tens of thousands of suspected dissidents. In Brazil, he visited a town in Sao Paulo state called Americana where former slaveholders from America relocated after the Civil War. Welna covered the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, the mass exodus of Cubans who fled the island on rafts in 1994, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, and the U.S. intervention in Haiti to restore Jean Bertrand Aristide to Haiti's presidency.

Welna was honored with the 2011 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress, given by the National Press Foundation. In 1995, he was awarded an Overseas Press Club award for his coverage of Haiti. During that same year he was chosen by the Latin American Studies Association to receive their annual award for distinguished coverage of Latin America. Welna was awarded a 1997 Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. In 2002, Welna was elected by his colleagues to a two-year term as a member of the Executive Committee of the Congressional Radio-Television Correspondents' Galleries.

A native of Minnesota, Welna graduated magna cum laude from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, with a Bachelor of Arts degree and distinction in Latin American Studies. He was subsequently a Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellow. He speaks fluent Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

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