Quote:
Originally posted by nononono
Thank you. Despite opinion from certain quarters that the military is comprised of failures or people just too poor and therefore stupid to git any good larnin' in 'em, it's not the case. And for the record, poor people do occasionally make something of themselves and are as capable of growing and developing intellectually as anyone else. Jesus. The military can and has offered exactly what the ads promise - growth, education and other skills - to its recruits. I don't care if Kerry meant it or not with his stupid "joke" (thumbs-up for the vetting process on that one...par for the course for that guy), it's telling that those who tend most to be anti-military-action are those who seem to assume that military are, by and large, poor, dumb idiots.
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I was responding to a comment that most recruits have HS diplomas, with a reference to a three-day rant by Spanky about how bad our schools are. Not saying "all soldiers are dumb," or anything of that nature.
That said -- is it your view that America's best and brightest, people with college degrees and good job prospects, frequently choose to enlist in the military?
Note, also, that my other comments referred to "infantry" in "Iraq." By the first part of that, I meant to exclude those who sign up for West Point, ROTC, etc. The officer-training route is a very different route than the standard enlistee route. By the second part of that, I meant to infer that enlisting in the military becomes a lot less attractive when soldiers are getting killed and wounded daily, and this results in recruiting standards getting lower. This has been well reported in the context of the current war.
I do not believe "that the military is comprised of failures or people just too poor and therefore stupid to git any good larnin' in 'em." I do believe that enlisting in the military (again, not signing up for officer school, but enlisting), especially during wartime, tends to appeal to those who are poorer, less educated, and faced with fewer opportunities than, for example, the people on this board. If you find that offensive, I'm sorry. If you find it false, then I would suggest that you take a walk through a poor public high school and a rich private high school, and compare the number of military recruitment posters that you see.
How many people on this board have served as en enlistee in the US military? How many would have volunteered in wartime (and if so, what's stopping you now?) (Bilmore doesn't count -- they had a draft during the Civil War.)
