September 18, 2013Dear SirBeing a BIG fan of the Sage Commission and taking the advice of intelligent people generally, I made a submission to them recently. My submission, in a nutshell, was to get rid of the concept and, in fact, the structure of the military-style group we know as The Regiment. Recent articles in the RG extolling the many benefits of The Regiment are really not in dispute but what I am suggesting is to restructure the concept into a programme that achieves the same benefits but also pays it’s own way.Whenever I hear people telling us of the benefits of The Regiment, they are generally limited to team-building, discipline and a resource in times of disaster (that latter point is probably true but our disasters, thankfully, are few and far between). My suggestion, again, in a nutshell, is to replace the military structure with a community service structure ... call it The Service. Everybody serves; people don’t lose their jobs — it has to be run professionally; and the recruits provide all sorts of community service including marine search and rescue, trimming the grass and hedges along the roadside, painting and repairing public buildings and essentially there is no limit to what these people could do.The end result is that we have a meaningful group, providing a meaningful service which will SAVE the Government money and we don’t lose any of the benefits including team building and discipline. Is this a great idea or what?SincerelySky Larkin