REGARDING Harvey Moran's letter (LET, October 21) re national service, this man voices an opinion which we all endorse wholeheartedly.

I myself was conscripted in 1946 at the age of 18 into the RAF, under the DOPE and I served two-and-a-half years -- some of the best times of my life. At the tender age of 78, I still do the things I was taught to do in those far-off days of my youth. It's called discipline.

I never met anyone who was conscripted (until it was mistakenly abolished) who regretted the time they served in the army, navy or air force, for the simple reason that they discovered a way of life that was worth while -- namely dependence on themselves, on other comrades, the meaning of community spirit.

Some time ago I watched a programme on TV which showed the young miscreants in Strangeways Prison, serving time for robbery, assault, drug misbehaviour and other allied crimes against society, and I reflected then that these young men were of the age when I had been called up.

If the authorities had had a little more foresight they might have been in uniform instead of being in prison, learning, as we vets did, how to behave properly. I would go a little further than the estimate of R Harvey Moran and say that crime could be reduced by 85 per cent had this policy been pursued.

Incidentally, I never met anyone who had been conscripted who ever forgot his National Service number. My late father was awarded the BEM by the Queen's father just after Dunkirk.

JOHN BURNS, Parklands Way, Blackburn.