Donald Eberly

Description of SERVICE WITHOUT GUNS The road to peace requires more than UN resolutions and toppling dictators and military might. It requires the development of institutions that will help move the world toward peace and to sustain it once war is abolished. SERVICE WITHOUT GUNS, by Donald J. Eberly and Reuven Gal with a guest chapter by Michael Sherraden, points the way to one such developing institution, generally referred to as National Youth Service. It begins with an examination of trends in military service and National Youth Service (NYS) since World War II. As the Cold War ended and armed forces came to rely more on technically-trained professionals and less on foot soldiers, the number of young people in military service declined in many countries. Over a somewhat longer period, countries in all parts of the world have created NYS organizations that encourage young men and women to serve people in need as well as the environment, and to support them in their service activities as well as their personal development. This book examines the linkages between military service and National Youth Service (NYS) in the 20th Century, describes their common characteristics, notes the similarities in impact on those who serve, goes into some detail on the essential elements of good NYS programs, and concludes that NYS can and should become at least as big and important in the 21st Century as military service was in the 20th. The outcomes of the NYS experience for young people are remarkably similar to those of military service. The NYS experience can be a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. NYS participants emerge with more awareness of the needs of others, greater employability, and a much clearer sense of career options and interests. While the origins of NYS programs differ, the authors of SERVICE WITHOUT GUNS point to the high degree of commonality in the characteristics of NYS programs and in the impacts on those who serve. Young people have a degree of choice in their service assignments and the duration of service is between nine months and two years. In well-run programs, the value of services given to persons in need and to the environment exceeds program costs. Also, NYS programs contribute to nation-building and increase social capital. Reuven Gal is the chairman of the Carmel Institute for Social Studies in Israel and the former Deputy Head of the National Security Council; Donald Eberly is the Honorary President of the International Association for National Youth Service, based in New Zealand; and Michael Sherraden is George Warren Brown Professor of Social Work and head of the Global Service Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, USA. Among their books are "A Portrait of the Israeli Soldier" (1986) by Reuven Gal; "Legitimacy and Commitment in the Military" (1990) by Reuven Gal and Thomas C. Wyatt; "National Service: Social, Economic and Military Impacts" (1982) by Michael Sherraden and Donald Eberly; and "The Moral Equivalent of War? A Study of Non-Military Service in Nine Nations" (1990) by Donald Eberly and Michael Sherraden.