The 2016 campaign is a daily example of our divided nation. We have become less the United States of America and more a state of distrust, frustration, and anger.

It is time for radical social and cultural change, time to design and execute a national campaign to pass federal legislation requiring all 18- through 25-year-olds to serve their country.

Congressman John Larson has called for enhancing current efforts in national service for which he deserves credit. We need to go further.

This service need not be military. It can be any number of services in support of America — health care, conservation, law enforcement, construction or education, for example.

Unlike past attempts, this program would not be a “quasi-public private” volunteer effort. The government would operate the program, requiring discipline, expectations, and accountability commensurate with military service.

We are a country Balkanized into cultural, economic, ethnic and geographic silos. What was a melting pot, E Pluribus Unum, has become, “Unum.” Instead of one pot made up of many ingredients, we are individualized meals, pre-packaged, sanitized and made to order.

Let me be clear, this is not a call for the “good old days.” In reality, the “good old days” were, for many, not good. Over the last 30 years, we have drifted apart as a nation and culture.

It is well past time for us to have mandatory national service.

In a 2014 Politico article, Retired Four Star Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal stated, “Citizenship no longer demands a common experience — and so we no longer believe in a common future.”

Sebastian Junger’s book, “Tribe,” highlights why the need for national service is ever more urgent. Junger points out that much of the PTSD facing our troops is not so much “them” as it is “us”. Junger states, “This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.”

Troops return home to a society with little unity. Absent the bond they found in their platoons and in the common purpose in the military, their PTSD can grow in severity. The PTSD rate for troops in America is 20 percent.

By contrast, in Israel, where there is mandatory military service, and they remain on a war footing 24/7, the PTSD rate is 1 percent.

Much of this is directly related to our culture’s lack of shared experiences. Junger points out that the suicide rate in New York went down after 9-11. (A shared experience we could do without).

We should not need 19 Islamic extremists to hijack four commercial airliners and kill almost 4,000 Americans before we put aside parochial interests and put America and Americans first.

As a country and culture, we have benefited through the experiences and shared sacrifice of the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, and two world wars.

A national campaign to pass legislation requiring every citizen between 18 and 25 to serve will begin, through the debate, to highlight the need to break down silos. It will be very expensive.

So here is my call for George Soros, the Koch Brothers, Michael Bloomberg, the Bernie Sander’s $27 donors, and others, to agree to put their money to a cause rather than a candidate.

The founding document of the United States of America, the Declaration of Independence, begins with, “We the people.” The time is now for America to recapture what it means to be an American. We must become a society more in tune with the “we.”

Ben Davol, an unaffiliated voter and occasional contributor to The Day, has served as a political consultant to a variety of political campaigns for both parties. He lives in Stonington.