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Again, most recruiters are decent people. There are scumbags in every occupation. Two of your articles are duplicates and the last one, EHow to be a military recruiter wasn't written by any affiliation with the US military.
Recruiting is a miserable job that takes servicemen away from their MOS. They do not want to do it and I can guarantee you most of them are not the cream of the crop. Some may be but not the majority. Keep in mind, my experience is limited to the Marine Corps.
Yes, anyone that would have sex with a teenager is wrong. These articles are prior to 2006 and I believe there are rules in place currently to prevent this from happening. Currently, a recruiter is not allowed to be alone with a teenager without a parent or adult present. Nor can the teenager sign anything without a parent's consent.
As wrong as the recruiters were, I have to ask, where were the parents of these teenagers? Never, would I let my 17 year old go off unsupervised with any adult that I did not know or trust, male or female. I strongly believe parents need to be involved when a teenager is interested in enlisting. The military forum is constantly filled with posts from parents seeking info for their teenagers regarding enlisting.
I hope the recruiters that did these despicable things were found guilty and courtmartialed. Not all recruiters are bad. They should certainly be allowed inside high schools.
I hate when people pull up a few articles to tarnish the reputation of those in a profession.
Every once in a while, someone will post an article about a teacher caught with drugs or driving drunk. This does not mean that all teachers behave in this manner. It really steams me up. There are "crazies", drug abusers, and criminals in most positions. However, that does not mean that the majority of people in these professions are doing these things.
Ok, since 'the average sixteen-to-eighteen-year-old non-college-bound student' is 'exactly the kids targeted by military recruiters' (which makes sense, since those are the students who would be in the position to make the choice to join the military (not going to college)), what would be the problem?
The problem is that children who do not have adult reasoning ability nor even legally meet criteria for so much as a beer or a credit card have no business making decisions which have long-lasting repercussions well into adulthood.
Originally Posted by Aconite Stormy, you've played the mom-bashing card in nearly every thread I've seen you in. Let me guess-- non-custodial dad?
Sometimes the truth is a hard pill to swallow. How do you qualify that as mom bashing? Mothers these days coddle and baby their kids, make excuses for them and don't expect them to grow up and become responsible.
Trouble is, there is an inordinate amount of those mothers on these boards. It's just the way I see it.
Because it's not Truth. It's not even the truth. It's but one person's extremely subjective, completely non-quantifiable, and quite sour point of view.
And I'll notice you declined to answer the question.
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Originally Posted by stormy night
Wouldn't it be to the students' advantage to enlist if they are not planning to attend college? They would enter into opportunities that no other group of students would have, not even the college bound.
To go to the Middle East and watch their buddies get wounded and maimed, assuming they don't end up that way themselves. Because the kid who isn't college material isn't going to make it into a medic or linguist or intel program, either-- at best they're going to end up trained to drive trucks in convoys to Fallujah.
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Originally Posted by stormy night
They wouldn't be flipping burgers and living in their childhood bedroom for the next 2 or 4 years, they would not have to answer to mom and dad anymore,
No, just their staff sergeant. And everybody who ranks higher than they do, which at (at best) E3 is going to be pretty much everybody.Yeah, there's a plus. And no, they wouldn't depend on their parents for support anymore-- just for body armor.
As wrong as the recruiters were, I have to ask, where were the parents of these teenagers? Never, would I let my 17 year old go off unsupervised with any adult that I did not know or trust, male or female.
Parents, particularly low income, undereducated parents, tend to trust authority figures. Doctors, teachers, recruiters, priests...the list goes on.
And to suggest that anyone other than the perpetrator is to blame in the case of a sexual assault is every bit as absurd as saying all recruiters are liars or sex fiends.
My daughter's recruiter was a really honorable guy, actually. He's a credit to the uniform.
I hate when people pull up a few articles to tarnish the reputation of those in a profession.
Every once in a while, someone will post an article about a teacher caught with drugs or driving drunk. This does not mean that all teachers behave in this manner. It really steams me up. There are "crazies", drug abusers, and criminals in most positions. However, that does not mean that the majority of people in these professions are doing these things.
In this age of litigation it becomes a major issue for districts wishing to avoid law suits. Sorry if research bothers you. While it is not the norm, to ignore it sets a district/school up for negligence and failure to supervise. The teacher who violates the trust of a student is not the norm but the litigation that follows and resulting settlement are problematic. The NEA is a collection of teachers and not all of their objections to recruiters is based on politics and their feelings about the military. Some of it is based on what they see and what they hear from students. The issue is not just inappropriate behavior by recruiters. It is perhaps more hormone raged teen girls seeing guys in uniform sitting at a table waiting to talk to them.
Yet they go to college and drink themselves into oblivion, but that's ok with you?
It's none of your business what position I hold in my family. And your version of the truth is only your opinion, not authority.
At least they have a chance to grow up, something they may not have holding on to their mother's apron strings.
Perhaps this is the crux of your dislike for recruiting taking place at high schools. Your bitterness has to come from somewhere, and this would be a likely place.
Actually, teachers objecting to recruiters would be a personal issue and should not enter into the decision whether recruiters were in school. It has nothing to do with litigation or negligence and failure to supervise. Besides that, teachers wouldn't be who is actually doing the deciding, admin would be.
http://www.nea.org/home/12895.htm
The current No Child Left Behind provisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act require that to get federal funding, schools must turn over that contact information unless parents opt out. Tucson's more restrictive opt-in approach is the same one that NEA advocates. In 2005, Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) introduced the Student Privacy Protection Act, which would amend NCLB to require an opt-in system.
Participants may want to read the entire link to understand the relationship between the NEA and this issue.
Glad to see you are making decisions for the legal services of the school districts in the country regarding what they need and don't need to worry about. Will you be providing expert testimony when law suits are filed so they are dismissed without consideration? To say it has nothing to do with litigation is to ignore the challenges based on confidentiality of student records and what recruiters should and should not be allowed access to. The right to access is part of NCLB and is thus federal regulation. Boards spend a lot of time on policy regarding parental rights to either have to opt in or opt out of access and notification of contacts with. Don't for a minute think that teacher unions aren't advocating one way or the other on this. What is the title of this thread?
I have mixed feelings about the military being in the schools. I don’t like how they ask in class how many kids they can count on joining if indeed it is free choice. But there is one thing in my mind that stands out above all…At 17, all boys in Sweden are required to take an enlistment assessment and if found fit, are required to join and take 118 days of training at age 20.
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Even before required training begins, young men and women may take optional courses with the Swiss army's M57 assault rifle. They keep that gun at home for three months and receive six half-day training sessions.
Appalling you say? Well Sweden has virtually ZERO gun crime and the only rifles that are registered are automatic. Yes, civilians have automatic rifles.
I think that with 9 guns to every 10 people in the United States might be within reason itself to have everyone go through very serious gun training. I believe that trying to over protect our kids actually makes them less protected.
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Would you have a problem with your local police department/police academy or fire department going to the high schools for career day? Those two jobs are just as dangerous as the military if not more so. They can be just as traumatic (PTSD) as the military as well.
Statistics show that you are more likely to be shot working at a gas station than being a police officer.
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I understand fully that some kids go into the military and serve their country and make their parents and their fellow Americans proud. They do great things. At the same time, MANY young adults who go in come out with lifelong consequences...alcohol problems, drug problems, injuries, PTSD, depression, etc. I would at least like for these potential consequences to be made clear to our young people who are considering serving.
If you spend your life developing into a beautiful butterfly believing that life is going to be as beautiful as the flowers you will feed from, then you might have PTSD if you crawl from the chrysalis to find a bird waiting for you. Its up to the parents and educators to prepare children for life’s realities. I remember parents objecting to us watching Schindler’s List in HS. My daughter has asked to watch it, and she’s 7. If kids aren’t ready for boot camp and the realities of wars by the time they are 18, you can bet that there are a lot of other things that they are not ready for, as seen by our mass of over partying college students who just don’t have a grasp on reality. There are a lot of other contributing factors to the desensitizing of our children toward reality, such as video games, but I'll jump off this train for now.
I object to raising the age to 21. Its raising the age of free thought. Besides, under the logic, the average male moves out of the house at age 26 so we'd have to go up that far. Seems woman can hoof it on their own younger so maybe we'll have to have double standards. Sounds like a bigger problem that would just aid in the making it worse.
Sometimes the truth is a hard pill to swallow. How do you qualify that as mom bashing? Mothers these days coddle and baby their kids, make excuses for them and don't expect them to grow up and become responsible.
Trouble is, there is an inordinate amount of those mothers on these boards. It's just the way I see it.
I just wanted to point out that I am one of the mothers on this board. I agree wholeheartedly that many parents coddle their children, too many. In my experience, I’ve seen dad’s do the same thing. In my more direct experience, I’ve seen dad’s brush their sons off and even yell at them to get off their momma’s t*t for crying when at three years old about running to their mother for comfort after getting a goose egg on their head from a bad fall or getting fingers slammed in the car door. In fact, if you knew me well, you’d wonder why I don’t go about bashing men from the experiences that have in my life. I have more than enough reason to, but nothing puts a smile on my face more than when I see a father being a good dad. But then again, I tend to look for the good in the people I meet. You can judge pretty accurately the character of a parent by those children allowed to run free in stores to do their own free will to parents who tell them to suck it up when they bash their face in the sidewalk to parents who hold their hand to prevent both of these from happening.
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At least they have a chance to grow up, something they may not have holding on to their mother's apron strings.
Children holding onto mom’s apron strings. First…I’m thinking back to my HS education…thinking hard…oh yeah…Our cooking teacher brought out a home economics book from the 50’s where school girls where actually taught to have dinner on the table for their husband when they got home from work and to spruce up to look and smell good for him as well and to wash the dishes with a smile on their faces. There was a picture of a woman wearing an apron. Oh we roared at that one. Who wears aprons anymore? I do recall a woman who said their child learned to walk at 8 months old. She was insecure about letting go of her mothers apron strings so mommy had to get another string for her. One day she just realized mom wasn’t holding on anymore. She was 9 months old then. The mother was in her 80’s when she told me this. But I don’t see anyone I know wearing aprons and no kids hanging on. The closest I get are the mothers with 7 kids from 7 dads and in line with more cheetos and pop for the baby’s bottle with one of their child support checks in her hand but that is RARE. Parents, mothers and fathers, put more emphasis on social life and having a pleasant cushy life that their kids don’t have to go through the hardships of the 20’s to prepare them for the real world. Since those experiences are no longer around to aid parents as they were the first generation of cushy 70‘s love and never had to experience themselves, they have no way of knowing what it is kids really need to be prepared for something like the military so they lack what it takes to teach them. Besides, what parent doesn’t want their child to grow up in a safe nonviolent childhood? (Yes I know the violent games, video games make it even worse because they further disconnects them from reality and are for entertainment so that makes it “ok“ in their book.)
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Stormy, you've played the mom-bashing card in nearly every thread I've seen you in. Let me guess-- non-custodial dad?
Sounds more like me someone who never was able to come to grips with their childhood. The remarks are not…well…current day. Mommy didn’t give their kid what they needed, as far as they are concerned, and they might have sat around listening to dad feed them the lines on a silver spoon while mommy held her tears for her pillow at night. A non-custodial dad is what comes of that child not being able to handle the relationship. However, these days, women have the knowledge, support, strength, and ability to support themselves to get away from those continuing the cycle. It just creats more bitterness.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 04-09-2009 at 07:36 AM..
Sounds more like me someone who never was able to come to grips with their childhood. The remarks are not…well…current day. Mommy didn’t give their kid what they needed, as far as they are concerned, and they might have sat around listening to dad feed them the lines on a silver spoon while mommy held her tears for her pillow at night. A non-custodial dad is what comes of that child not being able to handle the relationship. However, these days, women have the knowledge, support, strength, and ability to support themselves to get away from those continuing the cycle. It just creats more bitterness.
Makes no difference to me what you think.
About your last remarks; they couldn't be further from the truth.
Society is on that "slippery slope" everybody keeps referring to, and it's going down hill fast. Why is that? It's the way children are raised. PEOPLE are who change society, and PEOPLE are primarily raised by mothers. Because mothers don't want to take responsibility for that, it just keeps getting worse.
PLEASE - Speak to the subject at hand without flaming each other. Remember that terms of service stuff? //www.city-data.com/forumtos.html I think this is an interesting subject and I'd rather not close it because everyone is bringing up good points.
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