Citing the revolutionary war tradition of "citizen soldiers" and his own military service in Vietnam, presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) made a major policy speech on national service yesterday in Manchester, New Hampshire. Addressing a theme central to the New Democrat movement, Kerry called for a "new era of national service open to everyone in the nation," including a big expansion of the AmeriCorps' ranks and a universal community service obligation for high school graduates, among other initiatives.

Kerry described his initiative as a continuation of a long Democratic tradition. "Sixty years ago, [FDR's] Civilian Conservation Corps sent millions of the young out to rebuild the nation even as they built a better life for themselves. John Kennedy called my generation to the Peace Corps -- and Lyndon Johnson's VISTA opened up the chance to serve in the most forgotten places in our own land, valleys of deprivation and despair so often unseen and unheard. And then, ten years ago this month [at a DLC event in New Orleans], President Clinton introduced AmeriCorps and inaugurated a new season of service. Today, I propose not only to build on this tradition, but to go beyond it."

Calling for "a seamless web of service" aimed at all citizens, Kerry said his proposal "will engage more than one million Americans a year in national service, with millions more volunteering some portion of their time and talents."

He also rapped the president for having "turned aside proposal after proposal to tap into the new spirit" after September 11, when "volunteerism soared all over this land." Specifically, said Kerry, "When Republican John McCain and Democrat Evan Bayh offered a bipartisan initiative to expand national service, the president rejected it. He did not even follow through on his own modest pledge to expand AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps."

Kerry's proposal would expand service programs for young adults -- most notably AmeriCorps, but also the Police Corps (an early New Democrat experiment that provides college assistance in exchange for an agreement to serve as a police officer). Kerry would ultimately enlist 500,000 young people -- more than one of seven -- in some form of full-time service. He would also enhance AmeriCorps' post-service educational benefit to offer four years of public college tuition in exchange for two years of service.

This greatly expanded national service corps would be put to work on a full array of domestic challenges: "reducing illiteracy, preserving our environment, providing after-school care, helping our seniors live in dignity, building new homes for those who need them," and, in the case of the Police Corps, protecting our streets. And like Sens. Bayh and McCain, Kerry would also give AmeriCorps volunteers a significant role in beefing up homeland security, complemented by a voluntary Community Defense Service that AmeriCorps members would organize to provide neighborhoods with reliable information about terrorist threats.

For high school students, Kerry proposes a national requirement that states design a "service and civics" requirement for every graduate, with federal funding made available to offset the costs. The general goal is leveraging between fifty and one hundred hours of service by every high school student in the country.

For thirteen to seventeen year olds, who as Kerry says are "too old for child care and too young for many summer jobs," the proposal would include "Summers of Service" where teens supervised by AmeriCorps volunteers would earn a small college scholarship by visiting nursing homes, cleaning up neighborhoods, teaching seniors computer skills and other tasks.

At the other end of the age spectrum, Kerry calls for an expansion of service opportunities for seniors -- again, endorsing an element of the Bayh-McCain proposal.

For those serving in the best known and most important form of national service, the armed forces, Kerry would "modernize our GI Bill benefits." And to help recruit new officers to their ranks, he argues that we should no longer allow universities receiving federal funds to ban ROTC from their campuses. "It hurts our students; it hurts our colleges; it hurts our country. It is wrong, and under a Kerry Administration, it will be illegal," he pledged.

Finally, Kerry calls for expanding the Peace Corps from 6,700 to 25,000 members to help in "new areas of challenge -- from the Middle East to communities in Africa ravaged by AIDS."

All in all, the Kerry proposal sets a new high standard for expansion of national service opportunities. His speech also helps make it clear that a willingness to give something back to the country is and should be recognized as an important distinction in American politics.

As Kerry says, Americans "think elected officials no longer ask them to serve a cause greater than themselves. They think their leaders have given up on balancing rights with responsibilities. They think that our political debates too often descend into combat between entitlement and abandonment, between 'something for nothing' and 'every man for himself.' And they're right. Americans deserve a government that has as much faith in the ideals of America as they do."