Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixAzul
What happens to our universities if we keep putting kids into the military or into forced service? Ok, some might go on to university, but there's a 2 year gap in classroom learning/application. How many will go back into academia for that?Basically, I don't want ANYONE telling me what to do, nor do
I want anyone to take my brother, boyfriend and friends away against their will. Patriotic speaches are just that, speaches. The guys who make them will rarely have their kids on the firing line.
"Don't wave your rights with your flags."
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A comment on your last one first. Your government tells you what to do all the time. Pay your taxes, wear your seatbelts, get a drivers license, obey traffic signals. It's called the law. There is ample precedent for forced service, too -- just look at the draft. The mechanism for that is still in place, by the way. I hope it is never reinstated because I saw personally how badly it was handled in the past. As I said somewhere before, thank goodness for ROTC in my case.
Your first point quoted above brings back the thoughts of one of my favorite professors (A fairly young, newly minted PhD in English Lit). His feeling was that it would be much better to send people off for a couple of years of military or community service before college. His reasoning was that people coming out of high school, for the most part, have no real skills at living on their own, don't understand time management, and in many cases have no idea what they want to do in the future. He felt that the added skills and maturity forced by two years of service before college would not only make for better students, but also serve as a way to weed out in advance those who may not really belong in higher education. The flunk out and drop out rates were fairly high. Most "big" schools had "flunk out" courses in the freshman year that they used to clear out the not ready for college students.
Clearly, his thoughts were not shared by a lot of us who were faced with the draft in the middle of the Vietnam war, but in looking back after not only years of volunteering in Delt chapters but also serving as an adjunct faculty member -- I can see his point in many cases. I'd love to get Carnation's perspective on this as a college professor.
The large number of WWII and Vietnam veterans who went directly to college (generally on the GI Bill) immediately upon their discharge would seem to allay your fears about a huge impact on schools and even the Greek System. There was a pretty fair number of post military fraternity men when I was in school. In many cases, it was their maturity and leadership that helped build strong chapters.
Finally, regarding mandatory community service in high school, it was the case in our school system. I think I'm for it. Mrs. DA used to run a very poor not-for-profit organization which relied heavily on volunteer help. The high school students who did their service with her were great kids, and did learn something -- if nothing else, some people skills. The few hours they put in were certainly life-savers for a very small and highly stretched professional staff. So, to me, it's a win-win -- providing the student has any kind of motivation at all.
Rambling thoughts for a Thursday morning.