Obama's Proposal for a Homeland Security Corps

In a speech earlier in July and at his website, Obama is proposing an expanded national civilian service, parallel to the military services. He has not really thought much about this proposal and its name and functions appear to shift and change. Nonetheless, conservatives should not immediately dismiss the proposal. At his website, he proposes a homeland security corps to assist communities prepare for national emergencies. I think this is an excellent idea--I have been advocating such a proposal, a civil defense program, for several years. If we take seriously the threat of nuclear terrorism or biochemical WMD terrorism in American cities, and all experts say we should, we must, simply must, prepare our local communities. Civilians, not simply first responders, must be prepared for sheltering in place, for evacuation, to give first aid, to fight fires when no fire departments are available, re-route traffic as conditions require, and so on. California has programs to train civilian volunteers for such tasks (CERT: Community Emergency Response Team, or Civilian Emergency Response Team), but the programs are not heavily funded and only an extremely tiny portion of civilians have taken the training. If Obama becomes president, we should try to shape his homeland security corps proposal into something serious and useful.