|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
 Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:31 am Post subject: Recruiting for the US army |
 |
|
This is pretty long, but the Nytimes requires membership to read articles so I'm posting the whole thing. I'm also going to put certain sentences in bold that surprised me and drew my attention. The original article has no bold formatting, of course.
| Quote: |
Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents
Ann Sarrantonio, at a school board meeting in Accord, N.Y., voiced objections to military recruiting at school.
Rachel Rogers, a single mother of four in upstate New York, did not worry about the presence of National Guard recruiters at her son's high school until she learned that they taught students how to throw hand grenades, using baseballs as stand-ins. For the last month she has been insisting that administrators limit recruiters' access to children.
Orlando Terrazas, a former truck driver in Southern California, said he was struck when his son told him that recruiters were promising students jobs as musicians. Mr. Terrazas has been trying since September to hang posters at his son's public school to counter the military's message.
Meanwhile, 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. She also recently took a few hours off work to stand beside recruiters at Garfield High and display pictures of injured American soldiers from Iraq.
"We want to show the military that they are not welcome by the P.T.S.A. in this building," she said. "We hope other P.T.S.A.'s will follow."
Two years into the war in Iraq, as the Army and Marines struggle to refill their ranks, parents have become boulders of opposition that recruiters cannot move.
Mothers and fathers around the country said they were terrified that their children would have to be killed - or kill - in a war that many see as unnecessary and without end.
Around the dinner table, many parents said, they are discouraging their children from serving.
At schools, they are insisting that recruiters be kept away, incensed at the access that they have to adolescents easily dazzled by incentive packages and flashy equipment.
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.
"Parents," said one recruiter in Ohio who insisted on anonymity because the Army ordered all recruiters not to talk to reporters, "are the biggest hurdle we face."
Legally, there is little a parent can do to prevent a child over 18 from enlisting. But in interviews, recruiters said that it was very hard to sign up a young man or woman over the strong objections of a parent.
The Pentagon - faced with using only volunteers during a sustained conflict, an effort rarely tried in American history - is especially vexed by a generation of more activist parents who have no qualms about projecting their own views onto their children.
Lawrence S. Wittner, a military historian at the State University of New York, Albany, said today's parents also had more power.
"With the draft, there were limited opportunities for avoiding the military, and parents were trapped, reduced to draft counseling or taking their children to Canada," he said. "But with the volunteer armed force, what one gets is more vigorous recruitment and more opportunities to resist."
Some of that opportunity was provoked by the very law that was supposed to make it easier for recruiters to reach students more directly. 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. "
Several recruiters said they had even been threatened with violence.
"I had one father say if he saw me on his doorstep I better have some protection on me," said a recruiter in Ohio. "We see a lot of hostility."
Military officials are clearly concerned. In an interview last month, Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, commander of Army recruiting, said parental resistance could put the all-volunteer force in jeopardy. When parents and other influential adults dissuade young people from enlisting, he said, "it begs the question of what our national staying power might be for what certainly appears to be a long fight."
Nicholas Baptiste, 23, uses a megaphone to protest the military's recruiting policies outside a recruiting office in a strip mall in Seattle.
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."
Many of the mothers and fathers most adamant about recruitment do have a history of opposition to Vietnam. Amy Hagopian, 49, a professor of public health at the University of Washington, and her husband, Stephen Ludwig, 57, a carpenter, said that they and many parents who contest recruiting at Garfield High in Seattle have a history of antiwar sentiment and see their efforts as an extension of their pacifism.
But, he added, parents are also reacting to what they see as the military's increased intrusion into the lives of their children.
"The recruiters are in your face, in the library, in the lunchroom," he said. "They're contacting the most vulnerable students and recruiting them to go to war."
The access is legally protected. As recently as 2000, said one former recruiter in California, it was necessary to dig through the trash at high schools and colleges to find students' names and phone numbers. But No Child Left Behind mandates that school districts can receive federal funds only if they grant military recruiters "the same access to secondary school students" as is provided to colleges and employers.
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.
"The parents have chosen to take a stand, but we still have to comply with No Child Left Behind," said Peter Daniels, communications director for the district. In Whittier, a city of 85,000 10 miles southeast of East Los Angeles, about a dozen families last September accused the district of failing to properly advise parents that they had the right to deny recruiters access to their children's personal information.
Mr. Terrazas, 51, the father of a Whittier High School junior, said the notification was buried among other documents in a preregistration packet sent out last summer.
"It didn't say that the military has access to students' information," he said. "It just said to write a letter if you didn't want your kid listed in a public directory."
A few years ago, after Sept. 11, the issue might not have gotten Mr. Terrazas's attention. His father served in World War II, his brother in Vietnam, and he said that he had always supported having a strong military able to defend the country.
But after the war in Iraq yielded no weapons of mass destruction, and as the death toll has mounted, he cannot reconcile the pride he feels at seeing marines deliver aid after the tsunami in Asia with his concern over the effort in Baghdad, he said.
"Because of the situation we're in now, I would not want my son to serve," he said. "It's the policy that I'm against, not the military."
After Mr. Terrazas and several other parents expressed their concern about the school's role in recruitment, the district drafted a new policy. On May 23, it introduced a proposed opt-out form for the district's 14,000 students.
The form, said Ron Carruth, Whittier's assistant superintendent, includes an explanation of the law, and boxes that parents can check to indicate they do not want information on their child released to either the military, colleges, vocational schools or other sources of recruitment. Mr. Carruth said that next year the district would also prohibit all recruiters from appearing in classrooms, and keep the military ones from bringing equipment like Humvees onto school grounds, a commonly used recruitment tool.
He said that some of the information from the 11-by-17-inch poster that Mr. Terrazas sought to post, including how to verify recruiters' claims about financial benefits, will be part of a pamphlet created by the school for students.
And at least a dozen other districts in the area, Mr. Carruth added, up from three in November, are considering similar plans.
Unlike Mr. Terrazas, 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, who works part time as a clerk at the local motor vehicles office and receives public assistance, 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.
First she called the Rondout Valley High School to complain about the "false advertising," she said, then her congressman.
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." |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| So, what's your point? You must not have one unless it's you feeling "surprised" by a school district losing federal funds for not following federal directives. Too bad. The military should have the same access as colleges and universities. Perhaps you don't see a need for a military and the necessity of recruiting for that military. Just remember, there isn't a draft. No one is forced to join the military just as no one is forced to attend college. The problem with liberals in this whole thing is that they hate what is going on in Iraq so they extend that hatred to the military. I would say that if the military is to be denied access to students at school then the district should lose all federal funding. On top of that, any college or university visiting a district that denies access to the military should be denied any federal funds as well. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 2:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
My point should be obvious. New information - wow - must share with Dave's.
I'm not impressed with the bit about 'you can be a musician if you join us' though.
I'd also like to see you respond once without using the word liberal.
I do see a need for a military, though there is a problem when recruiters have to work this hard. I suppose I have the same sense of grim satisfaction as I do when I see public schools in Korea not meeting their unrealistic quota because salaries are so low. In the US I suppose they aren't meeting the quota because they know they could make up just about any story to send people to war if they feel it necessary.
Joo has made the point that the Iraq War was probably for a strategic change in the Middle East, with WMDs as the excuse, and though strategically it might have been a good move, it's not likely to work a second time. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
wannago
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
| mithridates wrote: |
My point should be obvious. New information - wow - must share with Dave's.
I'm not impressed with the bit about 'you can be a musician if you join us' though.
I'd also like to see you respond once without using the word liberal.
I do see a need for a military, though there is a problem when recruiters have to work this hard. I suppose I have the same sense of grim satisfaction as I do when I see public schools in Korea not meeting their unrealistic quota because salaries are so low. In the US I suppose they aren't meeting the quota because they know they could make up just about any story to send people to war if they feel it necessary.
Joo has made the point that the Iraq War was probably for a strategic change in the Middle East, with WMDs as the excuse, and though strategically it might have been a good move, it's not likely to work a second time. |
OK, I promise not to use the L-word this time. 
I've had several students over the years go into the military and be musicians. Now, granted it isn't highly likely, but it does happen.
Also, you and I both know why recruiting during a war as controversial as this is difficult. That doesn't mean recuiters should be denied access to schools. I would rather have a recruiter visit a school than to have a draft implemented, wouldn't you? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 3:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
Yeah, that is preferable to a draft (by a wee bit). It's tough to say what they should do because the atmosphere seems to be so bad, and recruiters still have a quota to meet, which stresses them out too. I know that they would rather be on vacation than going around from school to school looking for recruits.
Actually, one of the reasons I posted this is because I'm not sure what a good solution would be. Besides just pulling out the troops, of course. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
I would rather have a recruiter visit a school than to have a draft implemented, wouldn't you?
_________________
|
I don't object to recruiters going to schools really. However, if the war were truly popular the recruiters could sit in their offices in the malls and be swamped by volunteers. Remember those pics of the volunteers in WWI and WWII? I wonder why there are not lines going around the block this time?
Secondly, if there are not enough volunteers--and these last several months there have not been, then it is time to consider the draft. The administration got us into a war of choice without much of a public debate and and what debate there was was based on distorted information. Nevertheless, we are in a war.
The last time we were in a similar situation the war remained 'popular' as long as middle class kids didn't have to go. Once college deferments were stopped, middle class parents very often re-thought their foreign policy beliefs when their kids were put on the line.
I'm also puzzled that supporters of the war don't rush down and volunteer for the military. Is it that they have 'other priorities'? If they were truly patriotic then they would sign up and a draft would not be necessary. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
Thanks for posting the whole thing Mith.
interesting read, I wonder how many recruiters hit up "upper-class" schools compared to "lower-class" ones. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Good question, CC. Very good. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rok_the-boat
Joined: 24 Jan 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 6:06 am Post subject: |
|
|
can you imagine the jump in numbers of English teachers in Korea if the draft reappears in the US  Not to mention the number of fake degrees |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 6:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| can you imagine the jump in numbers of English teachers in Korea if the draft reappears in the US Not to mention the number of fake degrees |
I for one would vote for a law similar to Korea's law about not being allowed out of the country until you've served your two years.
I think I read that the Army is 78,000 short in enlistments. A couple of thousand ESLers would not make a huge dent in that, but it would be a start. In fact, if the pro-war ESLers all signed up at once it would make a powerful statement about their patriotism. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 6:52 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Captain Corea wrote: |
Thanks for posting the whole thing Mith.
interesting read, I wonder how many recruiters hit up "upper-class" schools compared to "lower-class" ones. |
Actually, I think you would be surprised. Thanks to some slanted reporting in the past, fair or unfair, the perception is that it is only the poor kids that get targeted for recruitment. This is simply not true. The advanced weapons, communications, intelligence and information processing systems in the military today require sharp individuals to operate them effectively. Therefore, the kids at private schools or schools known for turning out some of the brighter students - for whatever reason - get visits looking for people who can learn the new technology just as much or even more so than the other schools.
Now, if all you are looking for is a trigger puller, any ole' grunt prospect will do. However, recruiters are under intense pressure from the higher ups to fill certain job specialties - successfully. The problem is not that they can't find enough trigger pullers to do the job. The problem is that soldiers/airman/marines/sailors receive some of the best high tech related education in the nation and after a couple of years leave for higher paying jobs in the civilian sector. Heck, I would too!
Recruiters are evaluated poorly if they recruit someone who can't do the job/pass the course on how to operate a certain advanced system or perform a certain job. A series of poor evaluations can and will end the recruiters military career. The days of "any warm body will do" are long gone.
If you wanted to see a recruiting problem just look back on whenever the economy was booming. Recruiters for the military were pulling their hair out trying to attract people to the service. Not because of any war or political motivation, but because there were jobs to be had that didn't require family separation, etc.. I would venture that the recruitment rates are similar to any time in history when the economy was booming. I don't have a link - it is just my opinion based on personal experience.
Placing blame for a recruiting problem is much easier for the uninformed when they can point to Iraq and say "See, that's the reason."
Additionally, there were people protesting the military coming on campus in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. Because of Iraq NOW it's a news story.
The issue, as I see it, is NOT recruitment, it's retention. How many are resigning? I read something a while ago (I can't remember where) that retention is actually above average. But, of course, this is just my recollection of something I read a month or so ago.
What is also not explained, as far as I can tell, is that some of these recruiters are looking for officer material also. They are looking for those interested in ROTC scholarships for their college education. It was a military recruiter who was visiting my high school that helped this example of poor white trash get a ROTC scholarship to college. Thus enabling the son of a man with a 6th grade education to be the first member of his family, ever, to graduate from college. If it hadn't been for my high school allowing a military recruiter on campus, I would probably still be laying bricks and mixing cement in California.
In any time of conflict you get the poor versus rich comparisons. I can't wait until some news organization tries the old "Only black and brown Americans are dying in Iraq" crap. Dan Rather tried that on us while we were in Desert Shield/Storm. Wasn't true then - not true now.
Anyways, just my two cents. I have a cold beer waiting for me. Bye. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 6:55 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| can you imagine the jump in numbers of English teachers in Korea if the draft reappears in the US Not to mention the number of fake degrees |
I for one would vote for a law similar to Korea's law about not being allowed out of the country until you've served your two years.
I think I read that the Army is 78,000 short in enlistments. A couple of thousand ESLers would not make a huge dent in that, but it would be a start. In fact, if the pro-war ESLers all signed up at once it would make a powerful statement about their patriotism. |
Most teachers here are CANADIANS. Not sure what it would say about their patriotism. Anyway for those who oppose the war, why don't they go over to Iraq and support the insurgents? That would make a powerful statement about THEIR belief in their values. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 8:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Most teachers here are CANADIANS |
STOP THE PRESSES!!! STOP THE PRESSES!!! News flash: most teachers in Korea are Canadians. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Sleepy in Seoul
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: Going in ever decreasing circles until I eventually disappear up my own fundament - in NZ
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 8:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
| TheUrbanMyth wrote: |
| Anyway for those who oppose the war, why don't they go over to Iraq and support the insurgents? That would make a powerful statement about THEIR belief in their values. |
Yes, and quite a contrary statement to their professed views (those on this board anyway). I can't recall having seen anyone here writiing a post in support of the insurgents, merely in opposition of what the U.S. forces have done, are doing and will continue to do with impunity if they aren't forced to stop.
Opposing U.S. actions does not automatically mean support of the U.S.'s enemy/enemies, whatever you may think. It is simply opposition of something that is perceived (correctly  ) to be morally reprehensible.
And supporting the U.S. actions in Iraq (and elsewhere) does not (should not) automatically mean wholeheated support of any and all U.S. undertakings.
To take the above views is overly simplistic and demonstrates someone who seems barely able to think past poorly thought-out political cliches. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
