What is the hostility towards Military recruiters on campus? I'm young, maybe you can educate me?

[MadBadger]

I mean I imagine if I were still at school, I could just say no...

[Better Believe It]

1. One word. Vietnam. We remember.

[ceile]

12. +1 n/t

[DBoon]

15. yes, a definite generational split

Nothing like being in high school and dreading the day you turned 18 and became draft bait

The war in Vietnam was very unpopular among those in the age group who had to fight it

Something like 50,000 Americans died in that war - about 7 or 8 time the number that have died in Iraq/Afghanistan

The draft effectively made service compulsory - it wasn't a "career choice"

[cottonseed]

29. Oh. So was this responsible for only the poor being asked to fight our wars?

Would hate that military service be compulsory.

[WinkyDink]

34. It once was.

[DBoon]

42. I have a draft card from the vietnam era

Do you?

Do you know what compulsory military service feels like?

Is imperialism just fine as long as everyone has to die for it?

Over 50,000 of my peers came home from that war in a casket, yet you categorize opposition to that slaughter as some sort of elitist trick.

[sasha031]

2. just don't want to see you have to fight in needless wars

[udbcrzy2]

3. They keep calling my daughter even though she isn't interested

They won't take no for an answer It's like harassment. They call her on the phone.

[OhioChick]

7. Yep...they hound you n/t

[udbcrzy2]

31. My child is only 17-years old and they have been houndng her

since she was 16-years-old. They come to the high school to recruit when the kids are beginning to learn about their career goals.

[OhioChick]

45. They started hounding mine at 14 or 15 years....

If they haven't already, they'll start calling your kids at home. It got to the point when my caller ID said "US GOVT" I had to start answering the calls.

:eyes:

[Doremus]

48. The recruiters would even come to our house.

It got to the point where I had to be quite blunt with them and tell them to quit calling and coming to the house.

This was at the height of Bush's war, when recruiters were having trouble meeting their quotas.

[Lifelong Protester]

4. I think for some of us old boomers (you know, the ones who

are to blame for everything that's now going wrong in this country? :sarcasm: ) it is just a flash back to the unfortunate debacle of the Vietnam war era... there were some ugly campus scenes...

[RKP5637]

19. Yep, Kent State! n/t

[sharesunited]

5. Think spider and fly.

[enlightenment]

32. Spider and Fly is exactly right - and it has always been that way.

This picture illustrates a recruiter for the 33rd Regiment of Foot, during the Napoleonic Wars (1798-1815). The recruiter and his drummer are dressed in the finest regimental uniform - and even though the recruiter is not an officer, he is wearing an officer's red sash and carrying a sword. On the tip of the sword are ribbons (aren't they pretty?!) to suggest that Army life is heavy on ceremony. Impaled on the sword is a large havercake - a cake made from oats and fried; rather like a pancake. Havercakes were very popular in Yorkshire, where the regiment recruited . . . and the size of this havercake, combined with the practiced patter of the recruiter, served to convince many men that the Army was the perfect way to escape poverty, unemployment, living with their parents, etc.

The recruiter would also promise the men that they would be paid a fair and decent wage - and offer them 'the King's shilling' for enlisting. A shilling was more than a lot of them would see in a month's wages.

All the downsides - starting with the fact that the shilling would be taken to pay for their uniform and kit - were left unsaid.

College students are ripe picking; promises of OCS, of people saluting, of respect, a career, a future. It's a different set of ribbons and sweet treat being offered, but those who take this 'shilling' often discover that all that glitters isn't gold.

[rufus dog]

6. You are just being ignorant

It is all part of the plan to warp your educated mind

Others know what is best and that is to eliminate choice!;-)

[Bluebear]

10. 'that is to eliminate choice!' - agenda much? nt

[rufus dog]

17. no friggen agenda

But I have a whole lot of faith in educated young people making proper decisions.

Call me fucking crazy but an Army recruiter on campus wouldn't have changed my mind in the 80's and I think the young Badger can make good decisions too.

[Bluebear]

21. You're fucking crazy,

Just obliging :)

[RKP5637]

8. A lot of it started during the Viet Nam war. When I was at the univ. ROTC was

compulsory - 2 yrs.

[FreeState]

9. The schools that do so do it because of their anti-desrimination policies

They discriminated against gay students and staff so they were not let on campus. These schools also cover Transgendered students in their anti-descrimination rules, transgendered Americans can not serve in the military still. So Obama is asking these institutions to discriminate agains trans students and staff.

[mucifer]

11. I went to UW Madison graduated in '88. A few of us protested the recruiters

because of the illegal wars that the USA tends to get tangled up in. Our piddly little protests did not do much. Actually, we were protesting the CIA recruitment and not so much the general military recruitment.

Go Bucky!!

[notadmblnd]

13. We don't want our kids being talked into dying for corporations

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bluestate10]

16. Agree. nt.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

18. Because Military recruiters flat out lie to kids..... n/t

[seabeyond]

20. earlier 2000's there was totally aggressive recruiting going on. it has tamed

now schools give parents ability to keep recuiters from going after the kids. in past, massive calls to house ect.

turned a lot of people off

[Raine]

22. The long hard struggle to get them off of campus

this is nothing but a big Fuck You to all the baby boomers who fought for so long to get them off. I'm outraged! :grr: What is the reason for having them there except to recruit young people to fight in crap wars!

[Bluebear]

23. Spot on. See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=274185&mesg_id=274287

[Forkboy]

24. Were you really that sure of yourself at 16?

Be honest, no posing for the crowd here.

[MadBadger]

25. I went to college when I was 18

[Forkboy]

27. Which doesn't answer my question at all.

:shrug:

[MadBadger]

30. I dont know how to answer that question. I was somewhere in the middle

[Forkboy]

36. Then imagine what a 16 year old is feeling in their senior year of high school.

Worrying about their future, their country, their beliefs that they've been taught. I'll be blunt. I feel that even now I could convince you to kill someone, and I'm not even a recruiter, and I'm not targeting impressionable kids just out of high school.

At age 16, how much did you really know about the things you know about today? I knew nothing. I was like a machine that could be pointed in the direction of your choosing. So were way too many of my friends. For whatever reason I was able to step outside of this and see it for what it was. 99% of the people facing this kind of pressure for "Country", if not "God", don't get the second chance to look at what they're doing until they've done it.

[MadBadger]

38. But again, we arent talking about high school and when I was a Junior at 16

We are talking about college.

[Forkboy]

40. How much did you know in college then?

Were you immune to outside pressures? I have to doubt that your defenses were much more than the next average Joe.

[MadBadger]

26. And no, I dont think military recruiters should be at high schools (they were at mine)

But I think College is different with everybody adults

[w8liftinglady]

28. I volunteer with a lot of people the nation has turned their backs on

people who enlisted and thought they were doing the right thing.

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/12/27/invisible_soldiers_iraq_war_veterans_go
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21678030/ns/us_news-military/
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0208/p02s01-ussc.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700103712/Veteran-crisis-Newest-war-vets-become-homeless-at-alarming-rate.html
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-09-25/living/homeless.veterans_1_ptsd-homeless-people-department-of-veterans-affairs?_s=PM:LIVING
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/us/08vets.html
http://iava.org/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/20/new-generation-of-homeles_n_82360.html
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,96237,00.html
http://homepost.kpbs.org/tag/homeless-veterans/

[WinkyDink]

33. VietNam.

[TheKentuckian]

35. Because recruiters are pied pipers tasked with rounding up cannon fodder

and bright young minds to serve, protect, and advance multi-national corporate interests.

[Rex]

37. Well it has to do with the perception of older more experienced adults

taking advantage of younger men and women, mostly still teenagers by pumping their heads full of bullshit and lies. There is enough of that in the world, but if you really want to see it join the Army.

[JI7]

39. no, they should just stick to being in poor neighborhoods

and go to people who don't have many options.

[Riftaxe]

41. "Only the uneducated...."

an ignorant attitude that is prevalent about those who join the military.

[niyad]

43. watch "private benjamin" sometime. contains one of my favourite lines of all times: "but, but, I

joined the OTHER army--the one with the sailboats and the condos"

[EFerrari]

44. Yep. Military recruiters lie. n/t

[Withywindle]

46. Because they are aggressive and use hard-sell tactics

Because we are in wartime, and the risk of violent death is downplayed in the propaganda.

Because the military DOES still discriminate in some ways against women (and gays still for a little while).

Most progressive colleges and universities do NOT cater to any institution that closes some jobs off to some groups. If the military is still going to keep women out of front-line combat jobs, then that is a form of discrimination--universities committed to equality are not obligated to put up with that shit.

[ohheckyeah]

47. Recruiters

like to fire kids up with the glory of God, Country and American pie. They tell them about the free education and the great jobs they can get when they get out. They tell them about being part of a team, making a difference and traveling the world. What they don't tell them is about the likelihood of having to fight some trumped up war; of wearing your buddies brains all over you or him wearing yours; or about the kid who lays on the battlefield crying for his mother as he tries to hold his guts in place with his bloody hands; or the kid who wakes up and finds he's lost his legs; and they damn sure don't tell you about PTSD that can fuck you up for life even if you are lucky enough to keep all of your body parts.

Teenagers are notoriously impressionable and subject to pressure. They aren't, for the most part, aware of the realities of war and the consequences of joining the military. Some of them don't have parents who will guide them and explain what they are truly getting into. They are easy pickings and that's why the government wants recruiters on high school and college campuses.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. Another thing is that a lot of young people don't really believe that they can die

As one of my own college professors said, "I'm looking at a roomful of 20-year-old immortals."

That's why I witnessed college students doing so many stupid things that could have gotten them killed.

At the same time, it's an idealistic age group. If you get some kid who doesn't know history (probably the vast majority of kids today), and you tell him he can learn a trade, earn money for college, and have great adventures while "serving his country," you've got him hooked.

I had several students who dropped out to join the military. In all cases, they said, "I want to serve my country."

I didn't say anything, but I thought, "You poor naive kid. Don't you know that NONE of our military ventures since World War II have actually 'defended American freedom'?"

[ohheckyeah]

51. Exactly.

When the recruiters started calling my nephew my sister opted him out at school and told the recruiters straight up not to contact her son.

My brother is a Vietnam vet. I lost friends in high school to Vietnam and know even more that it screwed up for life. Let the politician's kids fight the wars they start and screw the recruiters.

[Richard Steele]

50. COLLEGE is supposed to be a place to sample many TRUTHS, not a single LIE.

That's why military recruiters are not a good fit there.


Edditted fer spellin.

[cynatnite]

52. Kids are easily influenced...

There is a bit of a power trip that comes from being a recruiter...well, for a lot of them. Some are actually okay.

I'm a vet and I do not support recruiters on any campus except for career days.

[robdogbucky]

53. Hey Hey, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?

Some folks are born
made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, whit and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
they point the cannon right at you.

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no senator's son.
It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no fortunate one.

Some folks are born
silver spoon in hand,
Lord don't they help themselves.
But when the tax man comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale.

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no millionaire's son.
It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no fortunate one.

Some folks inherit
star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war.
And when you ask them,
"How much should we give?"
They only answer "More! More! More!"

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no military son.
It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no fortunate one.

It ain't me,
it ain't me.
I ain't no Fortunate Son.

John Fogerty





Dear SOS Clinton and President Obama:


Your democracy is killing us

The People of Afghanistan