Telling Uncle Sam no....

Kind of ironic after yesterday's post about Walter, but in a way it ties in. Today's New York Times has a three page article about Parents being one of the main stepping blocks to military recruitment.

A few of the main points for those who don't get the Times online:

Amy Hagopian, co-chairwoman of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Garfield High School in Seattle, has been fighting against a four-year-old federal law that requires public schools to give military recruiters the same access to students as college recruiters get, or lose federal funding.

A Department of Defense survey last November, the latest, shows that only 25 percent of parents would recommend military service to their children, down from 42 percent in August 2003.

No Child Left Behind, which was passed by Congress in 2001, requires schools to turn over students' home phone numbers and addresses unless parents opt out. That is often the spark that ignites parental resistance.

Recruiters, in interviews over the past six months, said that opposition can be fierce. Three years ago, perhaps 1 or 2 of 10 parents would hang up immediately on a cold call to a potential recruit's home, said a recruiter in New York who, like most others interviewed, insisted on anonymity to protect his career. "Now," he said, "in the past year or two, people hang up all the time. "

In response, the Army has rolled out a campaign aimed at parents, with television ads and a Web site that includes videos of parents talking about why they supported their children's decision to enlist. General Rochelle said that it was still too early to tell if it is making a difference.

But Col. David Slotwinski, a former chief of staff for Army recruiting, said that the Army faced an uphill battle because many baby boomer parents are inclined to view military service negatively, especially during a controversial war."They don't realize that they have a role in helping make the all-volunteer force successful," said Colonel Slotwinski, who retired in 2004. "If you don't, you're faced with the alternative, and the alternative is what they were opposed to the most, mandatory service."

So although the Garfield P.T.S.A. voted last month to ban military recruiters from the school and its 1,600 students, the Seattle school district could not sign on to the idea without losing at least $15 million in federal education funds.

Ms. Rogers, 37, of High Falls in the upper Hudson Valley, had not thought much about the war before she began speaking out in her school district. She had been "politically apathetic," she said. She did not know about No Child Left Behind's reporting requirements, nor did she opt out.

When her son, Jonah, said he was thinking of sitting out a gym class that was to be led by National Guard recruiters, Ms. Rogers, said she told him not to be "a rebel without a cause."

"In this world," she recalled telling him, "we need a strong military."

But then she heard from her son that the class was mandatory, and that recruiters were handing out free T-shirts and key chains - "Like, 'Hey, let's join the military. It's fun,' " she said.

On May 24, at the first school board meeting since the gym class, she read aloud from a recruiting handbook that advised recruiters on ways to gain maximum access to schools, including offering doughnuts. A high school senior, Katie Coalla, 18, stood up at one point and tearfully defended the recruiters, receiving applause from the crowd of about 70, but Ms. Rogers persisted.

"Pulling in this need for heartstrings patriotic support is clouding the issue," she said. "The point is not whether I support the troops. It's about whether a well-organized propaganda machine should be targeted at children and enforced by the schools."

Some of my personal experience with recruiters has been good, some of it not so good. In Walter's case the Air Force Recruiter was not only honest, but told him he better get his grades up or he would not be able to get into his desired field in the Air Force. In my experience with my oldest daughter, she had no desire to go into any branch of the military. The phone calls and to be blunt some of the down right lies she was told was disturbing. At one point she was assured if she joined she'd never be placed anywhere near a combat situation; her patriotism was also questioned by one recruiter. I have taken issue with the way these recruiters have access to our children without permission. With my son it was a different issue as both he and Walter were in JROTC, so I knew they were going to be exposed to the different branches of the military and I understood there would naturally be some effort to recruit them either into the military at the end of high school or into ROTC in College.

However, none of my daughters selected to participate in JROTC, and the "selling" of the military starts about the time the College brochures start coming. However, not many Colleges have direct access to your children during the school day. This last school year I opted to not have the remaining three children's names published. The school secretary called me thinking I made a mistake, obviously not many of us did this because she was surprised I didn't want my children to receive all of the "College" info. I told her I was not interested because of the deluge of mail my older two had received and that it was more sensible for my children to request information from colleges they wanted to attend rather than waste time, paper and postage from colleges they would never even think of attending. This of course doesn't stop the military from making recruiting attempts at the high school, just stops getting all the junk mail. I'm sitting here drinking coffee from a cup Erin got this year from the Navy. (it's a very nice cup btw)

That said....My family has a long history of enlisting in the various military branches, all the way back to the Revoluntary War. If one of my children wanted to enlist we would to the same as we do when it comes to Colleges or College Majors, discuss the pros and cons of it and in the end support them no matter what choice they made. Would the war come up as one of the reasons not to enlist? Of course it would, but the reality is even if the war ended tomorrow, there is always a chance when you enlist even in peace time that you could be killed or injured as part of some Peacekeeping mission. Should we be honest in making sure that with all of the glitz there is also truth? Of course.....so I understand and support those parents who are trying to do what parents are supposed to do....protect their children and make sure they have the best future possible whether it be civilian or military.