A Jarhead Loses His Rose Colored Glasses

[jclay]

I've been trying to come up with a pithy intro but its not happening so I'll just say that this is worth reading, from stem to stern.

Base Culture | Issue 33 | n+1

[Too Tall]

It is a very personal and honest portrayal of the author's struggle. I'm going to appreciate it for exactly what that is and nothing more.

[bigbill]

This is a good read as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...=.ee524475c277

[thollandpe]

This is a good read as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...=.ee524475c277

That is a good read. And I can't agree more that we need veterans in our schools (and our offices, hospitals, town halls, etc.) but not because of some Safety Report that imagines using them as undercover security agents or sleeper cells that spring to life in a terrorist attack or active shooter situation. It's because they'll make damn good teachers (and engineers, administrators, town managers, etc.). A teacher's job is already hard enough and important enough.

Veterans working inside schools is not about safety and security.

"It’s about creating informed citizens who can sustain a free society. Such citizens need to be familiar with the military and those who serve and sacrifice in it." -- Brian M. Thompson

Yes we do.

TH

[Too Tall]

In the between talking about chainrings and planning bike frames we are pretty OK.

[bigbill]

In the between talking about chainrings and planning bike frames we are pretty OK.

And while I was posting the above, I was going back and forth with Garro about my new bike. I had to make a decision on rear dropouts, it wasn't tough. Low mounts with boost spacing.

[jclay]

That is a good read. And I can't agree more that we need veterans in our schools (and our offices, hospitals, town halls, etc.) but not because of some Safety Report that imagines using them as undercover security agents or sleeper cells that spring to life in a terrorist attack or active shooter situation. It's because they'll make damn good teachers (and engineers, administrators, town managers, etc.). A teacher's job is already hard enough and important enough. Veterans working inside schools is not about safety and security.

"It’s about creating informed citizens who can sustain a free society. Such citizens need to be familiar with the military and those who serve and sacrifice in it." -- Brian M. Thompson
TH

I am puzzled by that paragraph. Lots of the male teachers I had were vets. It wasn't even a thought; I mean it didn't move the needle to know that Misters Ballard, Howard, Bradford and numerous others were combat vets. Lota workers, across the spectrum of work, were combat vets. And going back to school? When we left Cherry Point both of my parents went back to university. Lots of their friends did as well. My father was resident manager of Mabry Heights, the on-campus housing for married with kids, while he went to FSU. When teaching in grad school I doubt that many of his students were very sympathetic wrt his experiences flying against the Japanese & N Koreans. He went back to flying for a living after a Masters in Anthropology (big surprise). My carrier skipper maternal GF, later a two star, went to work at a bank in Pensacola after retiring as Chief, Naval Basic Training there.

So who says that vets aren't represented as teachers, students and work/biz people at concentrations that are, MOL, proportional to their percentage of the whole?

We also need people in the military that aren't exactly enamoured with what the US has been doing to the rest of the world....kinda like we had in Viet Nam. The worst root-change to the military, from the point of view of having it's members fail to represent our broad range of socio/political perspectives, was the change to an all volunteer force. It's great for war fighting effectiveness and attenuating political opposition to wars but it's terrible socially and globally.

[choke]

That was an interesting read. While I agree with some of his views, I'll just say that as a graduate of MCRD I'm glad that he was never my Platoon Commander.

As regards the draft in your last post....I agree with you that its end meant that the societal cross-section isn't as wide. But I think ending the draft was the correct thing to do; many years ago a gent on another forum made a good argument that it was little more than indentured servitude and I've come to agree with him. I know that I'd much rather have someone in the next foxhole who wanted to be there rather than someone who was forced.

[thollandpe]

I am puzzled by that paragraph.

I’m in agreement with the author of the washpost article that the demographics of military service are changing, being distributed over a smaller and more focused segment of the population. And that’s not good.

I suspect we grew up in similar times, but I was more-or-less unaware of the veterans around me, or what differentiated them. They were in my family and certainly among my teachers, and one was my most important mentor. But the benefit from their service was more abstract, I certainly never saw their combat training or experience in action. That Safety Report imagines that we employ vets in schools as if they’d be on a security detail.

Dawn Hochtsprung, the principal at Sandy Hook, died in her attempt to engage the shooter. She was not a Marine, nor a ninja, she had no body armor, nor a weapon. You cannot write what she did into a job description for a school administrator.

Antoinette Tuff, a bookkeeper, in another incident, engaged a school shooter who had an AK-47 and 500 rounds of ammunition, talked to him for a half hour and convinced him to surrender. This after he had already fired his weapon. At the police. She had training, but not police or military training. She told the shooter she loved him. She is a hero.

That “Safety Report” was a farce, and used veterans as a prop.