Originally Posted by Chris

But what makes you think any of the 6’5” drill sergeants presently employed in the British Army have any interest in running a borstal for chavs? All of them are professional soldiers who have themselves become skilled at training professional soldiers for a professional army. The drill sergeants want to be there and the young men and women they train want to be there. Conscription is a whole other sort of operation that simply is not part of our national psyche, seeing as nobody here under about 80 years of age has done it. We introduced it at a time when we had no choice and then were able to continue it because the infrastructure for it was in place thanks to the war.

Originally Posted by Chris

Charming and all that, but doesn’t answer my question.

No drill sergeant presently in the British Army signed up, or trained, for the task of beating recalcitrant young adults into *insert approved outcome here*. That is not what the army is for. Why should the army, or its drill sergeants, be expected to pick up a broken society’s crap?