The U.S. military has had the worst recruitment year in decades. The Army has resorted to - expanding a pre-basic training course that allows candidates to enlist who do not meet the weight and aptitude requirements;
- paying bigger bonuses to recruiters;
- producing new advertisements;
- giving promotions to soldiers who refer a friend who enlists (a program akin to Amway With Guns);
- hoping the Supreme Court blocks student debt relief;
- and, of course, JROTC.
According to the Army, the problem is that young people would rather not get killed, don't see the military as a smart career path, and don't yearn for the stress of it. (Chances are some people who don't want to get killed also don't want to kill others.) According to some Republicans in Congress, the problem is simply that the military has become too "woke." According to comedian Sarah Silverman, young people are thinking, "Why would I go get shot in the Middle East when I can get shot in the comfort of my middle school?" But you can't avoid the military by going to school. The JROTC is there, and you may find yourself "enlisted" in it whether you want to be or not. Click here to tell Congress to abolish the JROTC. The U.S. military and public schools have been making a supposedly elective course for children as young as 13 mandatory. They've been doing so very disproportionately in impoverished areas and areas with high populations of racial minorities. While the military claims that JROTC is not a recruitment program, it says privately that it is just that, and admits publicly that 44 percent of Army recruits have come from schools with JROTC. JROTC classes use textbooks that bypass any of the very limited reviews used for all other classes, and that include such whoppers as the disproved Gulf of Tonkin incident lies, or the claim that the U.S. could have won in Vietnam if it had been allowed to use even more horrific tactics. The Trail of Tears' forced expulsion of Native Americans had only tears and no dying, according to JROTC. Fake history is the least of what a JROTC student is taught. Students who did not choose this class, and who have tried to get out of it, and whose parents have tried to get them out of it, are taught obedience, blind acceptance of claims, the total normalization and glorification of war, and the actual use of weapons of war. Click here to tell Congress to abolish the JROTC. |