Yesterday, Chapter 165 of Double Twist posted ending Part XIII of "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins." In it, we see that Marvel and Hopkins and their entire pod are being groomed for the National Service by promoting Service Reform. When I started this massive story, I made a list of things that could have branched the timelines of the old man Jacob and his new 14-year-old self. One of the pieces that stood out to me most was the effect of having a mandatory National Service period of two years for everyone between the ages of 18 and 21.
Last week, May 6, 2020, the Pandemic Response and Opportunity Through National Service Act was introduced in Congress. This isn't new. In 2017, the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, was created and charged by Congress to provide a blueprint for how to expand all forms of service. The new legislation is the result.
"After two-and-a-half years of intensive research, public hearings, and conversations with Americans across the country, the Commission released its final report, Inspired to Serve. The report contains 164 recommendations for promoting and empowering Americans to serve their country.
"Taken together, the recommendations offer a comprehensive blueprint to service for Americans, beginning with civic education and service learning, starting in kindergarten; national service opportunities so accessible and incentivized that service becomes a rite of passage for millions of young adults; and new and revitalized service options for adults of any age, background, or experience." (The Brookings Institute in an article on Friday, May 15 titled "COVID-19 has made expanded national service more important than ever" by Isabel V. Sawhill and Larry Checco)
There are important differences between what has been proposed in Congress and my meagre foretelling of a National Service in Jacob's story. Jacob's story mandated every person between the ages of 18 and 21 to serve for two years, by Amendment to the Constitution. The laws supporting the amendment were hashed together and basically gave the Service over to the Military to manage. That would have resulted in 4 million new service members each year! The new bill proposes to grow AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 750,000 service opportunities over a three year period.
But they cite many of the same benefits I used in Double Twist.
"Many others in both the public and private sectors, both Democrats and Republicans, support using national service not only to help mitigate the coronavirus, but also to enhance disaster relief, provide assistance to hard-pressed first responders, supplement the staffing of many nonprofits serving the poor or unemployed as well as provide high schoolers an option to serve after graduation, at a time when colleges may not be fully open and entry-level jobs may be scarce."
Well, knowing Congress, the whole concept of an expanded National Service will ultimately be amended so many times that we'll scarcely recognize it behind the billions of dollars in relief, defense, corporate subsidies, Wall Street bailouts, and congressional salaries that will get tacked onto it. And if there aren't a bunch of major corporations along the lines of Haliburton or GEO Group, CoreCivic, or Ahtna Technical Services who can see how to make a profit off the National Service, it will never become a reality.
You heard it in my fiction first. Let's hope most of what I wrote was wrong.
There are 30 more chapters of Double Twist queued up to post over the next three months on SOL before we switch over to the last volume in the story, Double Team. My Patreon supporters will begin Double Team next Sunday, May 25.