<p>this could be thought of as a parallel thread to my post on remembering
Hiroshima/Nagasaki as they were 61 years ago.</p>
<p>I noticed that several people have been pushing the military academies/life fairly hard & I thought there should be some thoughts to balance those out.</p>
<p>*The US militarys recruitment machine has become highly innovative, proving itself in-touch with many aspects of youth culture. The Army uses a slick, multi-player online video game that attracts enthusiasts of all ages from around the world, but most importantly infiltrates popular culture the Army says offers a “virtual experience within which to explore entry level and advanced training.”</p>
<p>The Marine Corps, meanwhile, has set up its own MySpace.com page, attracting more than 13,500 “friends” on the social-networking site popular among young people. And the National Guard gives Internet users “HOOAH” points, named after the militarys own energy bar and drink. The points are redeemable for iTunes songs and “other cool stuff” after they submit a valid name and e-mail address.</p>
<p>Recruitment goals for June 2006 alone were nearly 50,000 for the Army National Guard, about 25,000 for the Army Reserve, and about 6,000 for the Marines.*
<a href=“The NewStandard”>The NewStandard;
<p>I was shocked by the childrens magazines with cover articles about the military.
<a href=“http://www.prwatch.org/node/4986[/url]”>http://www.prwatch.org/node/4986</a> The May 2006 issue of Cobblestone, titled Duty, Honor, Country, is unabashedly pro-military, appearing as if it were the product of military recruiters trying to market enlistment to children. According to the Boston Globe (registration required) Francis Lunney, a sixth-grade English teacher in Hudson, MA, immediately lodged a complaint with Carus Publishing, saying It looked exactly like the [official recruiting] material you get in high school. It didn’t seem to be that different the way it was packaged.</p>
<p>My 15 year old told me yesterday that he’d found a free iTunes link … but it worked only after he gave info to one of the armed services recruiting units. He decided he didn’t want to give his email address to the Marines!</p>
<p>When my older son was still in high school, he signed up on all the military sites to get the free tee shirts, posters, lanyards, etc. Naturally, mailings and phone calls followed. One time, a recruiter actually showed up at the door saying that he “just happened to be in the area” - ya right. When I told him that my son was now in college, he asked me where. I looked at him and smiled and said, “I’m not telling”. Throughout all the phone calls, the recruiters, much to their credit, were always respectful and unfailingly polite.</p>
<p>There has long been a link between Hollywood and the military. I recently watched the movie Annapolis with my younger son. It was essentially a recruiting movie for the naval academy. That the military is now using the internet to target recruits should not come as a surprise to anyone.</p>
<p>My older son still talks about a possible military career. I believe it is my job to help him make an informed decision.</p>
<p>EK4, I usually find you harmless. However, I think your postings today, informed as they apparently are by a maudlin focus on the Hiroshima anniversary, are unhelpful and even insulting. </p>
<p>I’m not sure to whom you refer when you speak of posters “pushing” the military. But there are many here–I hope–who recognize that we are safe as a nation because we have men and women who are willing to serve in our military. It is a highly honorable thing to do. It’s not even a right wing thing to do. James Carville, Mark Shields, and Jim Lehrer are all former Marines. The USMC doesn’t draft people. You have to enlist, and then meet their standards. I’ve never met a Marine, current or former, that didn’t consider the experience to be one of the defining positive aspects of his life.</p>
<p>A very sincere thank-you, EmeraldKity, for your post.
Incidentally, I’m a military veteran, and I am appalled at what our nation is doing in the Middle East. My son was among local people who organized a Hiroshima commemoration yesterday. </p>
<p>I wish that our nation emphasized peace as much as it does war and preparedness for war.</p>
<p>NSM:
Thank you for your service. Notice that you were the person who introduced the proxy issue of current US foreign policy. My comments about the US military, and the fact that it is and has always been an honorable service that has the same rights of recruitment as anti-war groups, stand.</p>
<p>Driver–you usually find EmeraldKity “harmless”, but today you don’t, implying that an internet posting can create actual “harm”. Anyone who is influenced by EK’s remarks does so as freely as anyone who is “influenced” to join the armed forces based on their recruiting strategies, no? So where is the “harm”? Or was that just an easy, gratuitious insult?</p>
<p>Northstarmom–thanks for the link. A very close friend of ours, a career Air Force Intelligence veteran still in the reserves (spent a year in Tajikistan after 9/11) feels the same way.</p>
<p>Thank you for the gimlet eye, Garland. Innocuous would have been a better word. None of us cause real harm with our little postings here. But I think it is gratuitously insulting to suggest that the members of our military are largely a bunch of dupes fooled into enlisting (or attending the service academies) by advertising.</p>
<p>Driver, I support our service men and women and am grateful for the work and sacrifices they make. In some ways, I agree that our military does keep our nation safe. However, I do not believe that all the missions they are sent out on have anything to do with keeping our nation safe. I do not support having the US miliatary in Iraq, even though I support the men and women who were sent there. I do not think they are keeping our country safe by being there. But I don’t blame those who serve as they are following orders from above. I can disagree with the policies and support more peaceful means of international solutions and still support our men and women who serve.</p>
<p>By the way, Army personnel regularly seem to call my house asking for my daughters, in an effort to recruit them. </p>
<p>Northstarmom, thank you for that link. It is a super idea to create a federal Dept. of Peace and Nonviolence. I think I will share that link with my younger D. She is into peace activism. She also sees possibilities for her work in the arts to effect social change. In tenth grade, she created an event in our community that she led that centered on peace. It was called Peace a Pizza. The pizza part is connected to that she had a local wholesale flatbread pizza business whom are a socially conscious business donate LOTS of free flatbread pizzas to serve at her event. She got a local venue to allow her to use the space for free. She did an indepth research project to do with peace and to do with the policies in Iraq with the war, etc. She created a power point presentation about her topic. She also had video clips from a documentary that interviews people and politicians about the Iraq policy. She interspersed parts of the Power Point and video clips with performers (high school aged) who performed songs and poems related to peace. It ended with her singing and accompanying herself on piano to John Lennon’s Imagine. While her college studies and career are in the performing arts, she is still interested in applying her work in the arts to effect change. I think she’d be interested in that website, so thanks.</p>
<p>Wow, I never interpretted Emerald’s post as insinuating that our military personnel are duped into enlisting! I thought she was saying that recruitment has been very active and has found all sorts of ways to get the attention of young people in newer ways than before. I don’t think young people are duped. Recruitment is recruitment. It has a goal. The recruiters are polite. They are not duping kids. But they are actively seeking ways to find them, get their attention and to “sell” what they offer. I think what Emerald reported is just facts. And she thought to counterbalance all that recruiting, she shared a link to balance out another approach to do with objecting. Seems fair to me. Those who wish to serve sign up volunatarily. The service folks need to recruit and they do. Nobody is forced to serve. Those who object in some way, can.</p>
<p>People can be against our wars and policies and put their energy into peace causes and still be patroitic and support those who choose to serve.</p>
<p>I think that driver would characterize me as a liberal, commie peacenick and I would plead guily to 2 of the 3. However I am not anti-military and have long advocated for automatic resumption of a military draft during times of war. War implies the ultimate sacrifice for brave soldiers sent into battle and unless our leaders making these decision are willing to put their own in harms way, the decision way too abstract and easy.</p>
<p>The greatest disrespecter of the military are those people who are chickenhawks. They beat their breasts for war but are unwilling to serve themselves. If one believes that a war is just and worthy, he should be willing to serve in it. And for those remaining out of harms way we should be willing to make the sacrifices to adequately fund it so that those guys and gals on the front line have all the necessary means to complete the mission as safely as possible. On all counts this administration has failed miserably.</p>
<p>As for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki commorations, I do not find them maudlin in the least. I find them hopeful insofar as they were the first and last time that mankind has felt the need to use the ultimate weapon and that the reconciliation post war efforts created ties which still bind the enemies in the great war together.</p>
<p>I have seen the military recruiters take a pretty heavy hand at influencing students, who sometimes otherwise don’t have a lot of guidance. </p>
<p>These young men and women are given a romantic view of life in the military by recruiters and can be promised things that the recruiter has no control over.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that it does the men and women who do join the armed forces fully informed any favors, to trick others into enlisting who are not fully prepared to be there.</p>
<p>A close friend of my daughter, enlisted in the Marines, and was assigned a a job as a recruiter. He hated it so much , that he volunteered to go to Iraq where he was injured severely. Since he can no longer fight, but they wouldnt discharge him, they have him in Washington DC doing desk work.( from #1 of a Quaker newsletter)</p>
<p>I have nothing but respect for the bulk of the men and women of our military- and it is because I do respect them, that I don’t want anyone to join who isn’t aware of all their options & their consequences.</p>
<p>Before enlisting, one should also be aware of the culture in the military, as it now exists. It is a very different place from when I was on active duty a generation ago (yes, driver, a vet speaking).</p>
<p>Back then, folks from all walks of life, from all educational strata, from all corners of our country, were in uniform.</p>
<p>Today, that is by and large no longer true. The military has become increasingly southern and rural. This may be good or bad, depending on your background.</p>
<p>What is bad, IMHO, is the increasing dominance of parts of the military by evangelical christians. One only need look at the Air Force Academy, with its repeated federal court intervention, to see a part of that picture. </p>
<p>Other problems? High rotation rates for the Army. Involuntary extensions of term of service - something different from what was quoted above. In this case, it means one can be kept on active duty beyond one’s service commitment, for the sake of “unit cohesion” before, during and after rotation overseas (=Iraq). This has been for as long as 18 months. Sure wrecks havoc with returning or going to college…</p>
<p>(sure hope the quote in post 12 was not direct. I hope the author knows the difference between “effect” and “affect”…see b.)</p>
<p>It does support the view that the south and rural area are over-represented, but I’m not sure I see the negative associated with that. If it were the inner cities that were over-represented, it would be painted by the Charlie Rangles and the Rev. Sharpton/Jacksons of the world as a conspiracy against the poor African American community. Instead the data shows that after 9/11, when war became a reality, the wealthiest areas of the country have become over-represented and the poor areas under-represented.</p>
<p>Interesting, I just took a call for my 17 yr old son, no more than one hour ago! My son is at work. The caller identified himself as a marine. I was so dumbfounded I didn’t even ask if he was a recruiter. He asked me if he could call my son later when he came home from work (He was asking my permission). I told him sure. No need to be rude, and I think my son can talk to him without being enticed into enlisting.</p>
<p>Driver, my reference point is not the 80s. :)</p>
<p>See ff’s link above for some details. </p>
<p>FF, a southern, rural military is not bad, but could make for a tougher fit for kids from some backgrounds. It’s been discussed at some length in parts of the general press, but bears repeating here: The reasons for this shift to the south and rural areas are not surprising, and not bad in and of themselves. It resulted from the historic patriotism of the south (ironic, given the civil war?) and the relatively poor economic opportunities for rural, less educated youth. Of course, the military (mostly the army), due to Iraq pressures, has been forced to cut standards even more w/r/t education (and waivers for past crime etc.) which some think has directly led to some of the problems in Iraq.</p>
<p>Others, including some nationally known editorial pundits, have decried this trend in the military, bemoaning its loss of the cross section of our society. Personally, I find that bunk. The military has only been a true cross section during unusual times, especially in the WWI to Viet Nam period. Even then, after WWII, our elites, socially, economically and educaitonally, have been underrepresented (just look at the tiny number of vets in congress, for example).</p>
<p>As ff points out, there was a wave of patriotism post 9-11 that led to a bump in enlistments from wealthier and more urban areas. But the time period for the paper cited was January 2003 and September 2003. Since then?</p>
<p>More interestingly, the shift in demo/geographics has also been influenced by a noticable decrease in enlistment rates from both african americans and rural poor. A normal response to (tough) working conditions (Iraq duty is not fun)? The impact of decreasing unemployment? (yoiu be the judge…)</p>