No Child Left Behind,Section 9528/military recruiters

[vivalostwages]

I will preface this by saying that I’m not all that thrilled by campus recruiters, but at least on a college campus, the students can choose to walk past the booth if they are not interested.
This is not the case with No Child Left Behind, Section 9258, which requires public secondary schools to provide every student’s contact info unless they or their parents choose to opt out:

Link to relevant section from US Dept of Educ.

But even if they opt out, they still might be bugged to join up:
link to CTA article

Several troubling things here:

1. The schools must comply or they will not receive some $;
2. Some recruiters are reportedly telling students that their ticket out of the inner city or ghetto is through the military;
3. Opting out doesn’t necessarily save the students from the recruiters’ repeated phone calls.

Isn’t registering with Selective Service enough?

[aruvqan]

@vivalostwages

Several troubling things here:

1. The schools must comply or they will not receive some $;
2. Some recruiters are reportedly telling students that their ticket out of the inner city or ghetto is through the military;
3. Opting out doesn’t necessarily save the students from the recruiters’ repeated phone calls.

Isn’t registering with Selective Service enough?

In essence I agree, schools shouldnt be forced to give out information, or be forced to aprticipate, but to be blunt about it, the military is about the best way to get out of either the ghetto or the deep sticks [you know, tiny little town in nowhere nebraska] when you have a relatively clean police history, decent physical health and no money for school/no ability to get a loan. 3 hots and a cot, a regular paycheck and a job have helped more people bootstrap out of a no-future situation. Oddly enough, the vast majority of people in the military will never see a combat zone or even a forward staging area, and be making a living, and having the ability to save money for the future and get an education.

[BrainGlutton]

@aruvqan

In essence I agree, schools shouldnt be forced to give out information, or be forced to aprticipate, but to be blunt about it, the military is about the best way to get out of either the ghetto or the deep sticks [you know, tiny little town in nowhere nebraska] when you have a relatively clean police history, decent physical health and no money for school/no ability to get a loan. 3 hots and a cot, a regular paycheck and a job have helped more people bootstrap out of a no-future situation. Oddly enough, the vast majority of people in the military will never see a combat zone or even a forward staging area, and be making a living, and having the ability to save money for the future and get an education.

You seem to think all that speaks well of military service. In fact, it speaks poorly of our society. Why can’t we find some other way to offer a young person all those opportunities? One that doesn’t involve war?

[asterion]

@BrainGlutton

You seem to think all that speaks well of military service. In fact, it speaks poorly of our society. Why can’t we find some other way to offer a young person all those opportunities? One that doesn’t involve war?

You want to basically restart the WPA? Fine, if you can think of enough jobs that need to be done that aren’t already being taken care of by the private sector. For that matter, what about the Peace Corps and Americorps we already have?

[BrainGlutton]

@asterion

You want to basically restart the WPA? Fine, if you can think of enough jobs that need to be done that aren’t already being taken care of by the private sector. For that matter, what about the Peace Corps and Americorps we already have?

Maybe we should be putting a little more funding into those and a little less into the Defense Department.

[aruvqan]

@BrainGlutton

You seem to think all that speaks well of military service. In fact, it speaks poorly of our society. Why can’t we find some other way to offer a young person all those opportunities? One that doesn’t involve war?

What our society? It is a world wide and timeless occurance, all the way back to the first republican armies of Rome. After it changed from a seasonal thang, ‘professional’ soldiers [men deliberately joining the legions and putting in 30 years] deliberately chose the career path as a way to upgrade thier status ranging from membership in the legions ‘death benefits plan’ [provided the costs of the ceremony and a pension for dependants] to the ability to gain land grants and save money in a legion ‘bank’ to actual class advancement from plebe to equestrian class.

In the middle ages, often when the senior son retained the lands and title, one son went to the church, and the rest frequently opted for life as a soldier as there were not the options other than inherit lands, join the clergy, join a nobles retinue and possibly earn a fief of land. The peasantry weren’t really given an option as the ‘draft’ or military levy was part and parcel of your ‘contract’ with the lord you owed fealty to. He determined frequently what services you owed to him as payments in kind for his protection of you and providing of home and land use.

In the renaissance, Ireland provided the famous Galloglass, mercenary regiments who fought in Italy in the skirmishes between city states, providing a living for the younger sons with no prospects in Ireland itself.

Later, commissions in the military were purchased for younger sons of the well to do [or those who could scrape together the money needed…] and the young men either were taken as apprentices in trade, found an agricultural position, joined the church or went into military service. The Hessians that fought for the British in America were an excellent example of this - the youth would either buy a comission and be an officer, or enlist in a regiment, and earn money as they had no future of inherited lands, no ability to buy into an apprenticeship/taste to spend their life as a tradesman or desire to be clergy.

In America, the military in the Revolutionary war were paid in land, and the less advantaged immigrants and residents of the cities would go into the army or navy as a career option, though there were draft riots in the Civil war in several cities those were mostly attributable to the ability of the rich to buy their sons out of the service for some $300 or so. Commoners frequently joined the military through the rest of the 1800s and aided in settling the west, and frequently in addition to sending monies home to parents, siblings, wives and children often bought land near their last duty station and settled after retirement.

In the 1900s, military service provided jobs again for people who had a wanderlust, no prospects in business, no money for education and no interest in joining the clergy - or in my families case a tradition for joining the military and serving to protect our country.

The military is an industry, providing jobs and services [army corps of engineers, anybody? bridges, dams, emergency works … same with the seebees. ] in addition to running drug interdiction through the Dept of Transportations Coast Guard and US Navy on the seas, and the army on land as an adjunct to the DEA. The Airforce even gets into interdiction in the air. Frequently the military provides disaster relief [refugee camps in Florida for hurricanes, floods in the mississippi river basin] search and rescue on land, sea and air, frequently they provide evacuation helicopters for large scale disasters aiding the local medevac systems.

People in the military can get trained in emergency medical proceedures, mrAru ran with Virginia Beach 2 as an EMT. He is qualified to be a volunteer fireman as he had the trainign, thanks to the military. Every person on his submarine took fire school, and a large percentage of the surface fleet get training in fire school. Military police and combat troops frequently elave the military and become police of varying types, my ex husband John is a Virginia state trooper, and I can think of 4 more offhand that I know went into different police departments and got preferential entry because they already had experience.

I know several independant duty corpsmen who have gone on to become doctors, physicians aids and nurses, thanks to training and adult extended education classes from the military - one of whom grew up in lovely downtown detroit and has the gang war scars to prove it. If it wasnt for the military, he wouldnt be working at Johns Hopkins right now [or at least last I heard from him last year that is where he was working as a trauma nurse.]

What would you recommend, McDonalds?

[aruvqan]

@asterion

You want to basically restart the WPA? Fine, if you can think of enough jobs that need to be done that aren’t already being taken care of by the private sector. For that matter, what about the Peace Corps and Americorps we already have?

Actually, in a previous thread I suggested that we have universal service, and those who had conscientious objector status or certain physical disabilities could do CCC/WPA type projects. There are plenty of federal reservations, state parks and other venues that could use the labor, and lord knows the kids can use the money. I had a childhood friend who opted to work CCC in the year after high school - would have been 77 or 78. They had her and the rest of her crew rebuilding stone fences in Letchworth State Park in New York [shameless plug for the park, fantasticly fun and peaceful place to visit, several large waterfalls, nice forests towalk in, couple historical sites inside, one is the Mary Jamison cabin - girl kidnapped by indians in the early 1800s, fascinating=)]