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Originally posted by 33girl
And the part where he got into how the lower income kids who enlist give us the gift of protecting our country - geez, get a clue - I would be surprised if 20%, hell, if 10% of the people who sign up for the armed forces nowadays give 2 craps about defending our country. They want the steady paycheck and school paid for, and half the time are just SHOCKED when they actually get called into service. It's horrible to lose your life in war, any war, but if you sign up and don't know what you're getting into (or willfully delude yourself) I question if it isn't natural selection. Of course there are slimeball recruiters out there - and I think the whole GI Bill system should be revamped so that you don't get $$ for school unless you have been drafted. I think there would be far fewer people signing up for the wrong reasons because of this.
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Uno momento, por favor. Just wanna take a moment and point out that I don't find it surprising in the least that kids these days who enlist are surprised by what they find in boot camp and when they are called into service.
After all, the military has won major advertising and marketing awards for the "image overhaul" that it's performed on itself in the media that it uses. There's absolutely no way that you can say they aren't targeting a particular audience with the whole "it's a super-cool adventure" thing going on, that you don't necessarily have to be "book smart" or what not to be a part of it. And they most definitely play on the whole financed education part of it.
If you've grown up in a time where there hasn't been a major war that has been hugely publicized in the media until now, then yes, the reality of what the military is really about could easily get overlooked if you're not from a certain background that perhaps has family in the military, etc.
There's a reason the Army and Navy are case studies in advertising and marketing classes these days, so really, whose fault is it if some eighteen year old kid that doesn't have that background is "deluded" or doesn't know what they are getting into? They certainly aren't showing glossy pictures of what's really going on in the nitty gritty business of the military at the recruitment center...