Sir Michael Caine: Bring back national service

Sir Michael Caine wants to bring back national service because he believes it would teach young people a lot.

Sir Michael Caine wants to bring back national service.

The 91-year-old actor – who saw active service in the Korean War as part of his mandatory stint in the British Army between 1952 and 1994 – believes that young people should serve their country for a while because it will teach them a lot and help them to “grow up”.

In an extract from his memoir ‘Don’t Look Back, You’ll Trip Over’, obtained by the Sunday Times magazine, he stated: “I would bring back national service. I don’t mean that young people should go to war – there is nothing above I would rather make that six months than two years, like before. But when you are 18 years old and serving your country, you learn a lot.’

The ‘Italian Job’ star insisted that his time in the Royal Fusiliers taught him some “invaluable” lessons and made him become a man.

He wrote: ‘It is quite difficult to exaggerate the impact that military service had on me. Look, I’m 91 and, 70 years later, I still remember it. I was 18 and was sent to Germany as part of the occupying forces in Berlin. first and then it went to Korea. It changed me from a boy to a man.

“I learned that you have to be self-reliant, but also trust your friends. You learn how to be an individual and be part of a group with a shared purpose; that is invaluable.”

And Michael recalled being “damn scared” while on active duty during the war.

He continued, “I was just an ordinary private soldier, one of five hundred others. We had to get up every night and fight the Chinese army – the Chinese government had sent half a million troops to help North Korea. It was a bastard.

‘I remember one evening I was on patrol with six other boys in the Samichon Valley, right on the border between North and South Korea. And we knew the enemy was close. Of course we were all terrified.

“But we got past it and then turned back. We were all bitten by the bleeding mosquitoes, but that was better than being shot by the Chinese.”