Mayor Hamilton Green says the government and civil society should allocate the money, manpower, materials and morality to make serving in the armed forces a career.

Green says this is to ensure that senior officers are never tempted to be wined and dined by businessmen, compromising their integrity and breeding corruption.

“The disciplined forces need to be seen as a career, not just a job because we can do no better,” he said while testifying on Thursday before the Disciplined Forces Commission. He said there was a need for better men and women to serve in the forces, wearing their uniforms as a badge of honour and a source of pride.

Aside from better pay he said the forces were in need of quality leadership and personnel, although he considered that this was only possible with better education “geared to produce young citizens of a high quality and therefore feed our institutions with that resource.”

Until this is done he believes that bringing back the National Service and initiating an Officer Corp Cadet Scheme will bring back better serving men and women and leaders into the forces.

The commission is also examining the ethnic composition of the forces but Green says they should be left alone.

“Any attempts to impose artificial conditions, or to alter the natural flow of our currents will be stressful... it is a total absurdity,” he said.

He disagreed with views that there was any imbalance in the forces based on ethnic bias, saying that there was nothing that had inhibited Indians from enlisting.

“If there is evidence that someone set out to keep Indians out I would like to see it.”

But he said if there were attempts to correct the ethnic imbalance in the forces there should also be attempts to look at the imbalance in other realms like the sugar industry or land allocation and he vowed to ensure that this was done. Also testifying before the Commission yesterday was Fred Parris.

The Commission was set up by the National Assembly to review the disciplined forces and will submit a report of its findings and recommendations.

Justice of Appeal Ian Chang is chairman of the Commission that includes former Attorney-General Charles Ramson, former National Security Advisor Brigadier (rtd) David Granger, attorney Anil Nandlall and Irish human rights activist Maggie Beirne.