Date:    Tue, 7 Nov 2006 12:57:15 -0800
On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 12:57:15 -0800, Art Bahrs <[log in to unmask] wrote:
Subject:

> Kerry's implication that only stupids, idiots and dumbs go into the
> service was blatantly wrong...   Your assumption is further wrong in that
> we do not  have lots of degreed folk in just the NCO Corp... let alone the
> Officer Corp (most General Officers have graduate degrees (yes plural))

That is one (albeit simplistic) interpretation of Kerry's remarks. Another
is that the economically disadvantaged, which in western European society
today is invariably stigmatized by lower formal education levels, are the
primary prey of the military recruiter, as they have been for millennia. 
Reference to education posited in moral terms such as Kerry used is thus
really no more than a socially acceptable way of stating that the poor are
disproportionately represented in the military when compared to the upper
or middle classes.  This is of course true, and always is, for the young
of these classes have greater, and far more comfortable and safe, choices
in how they make a living.

What doesn't come out from these kinds of observations is that within the
military the poor are further grossly over-represented in the combat MOS
and chronically under-represented in the technical and support MOS trades.
So even inside the military the discrimination along the fiction of merit
(read as education and certification rather than potential ability) works
against those whose backgrounds are filled with privation rather than
opportunity.

One does not need to be stupid, lazy, dumb or an idiot to be denied the
opportunity to attain a higher education.  One need only be unfortunate
enough to be born into a single parent family, or one in which a serious
accident or illness has destroyed the family's ability to provide the
means for higher education, or be the victim of any number of other random
events or economic circumstances that act to prevent a person from making
the best possible use of their talents.

The real point of Kerry's comment is that unless compelled by economic
circumstances most U.S. citizens of service age will not join their
nation's military.  This is demonstatably so given the present abysmal
recruiting and retention rates of the U.S. Military and the
social-economic backrounds of those presently in service.  That it is
considered at all controversial is a measure of the degree that some in
society are removed from the reality of their existance.

I do not deny that there are many that serve in the military for
altruistic reasons, but there are always far more that serve for want of
anything better to do.  And there are many, many more that never serve at
all and yet declaim their "patriotism" at every turn and will fight to the
last drop of someone else's blood.


--
James B. Byrne                mailto:[log in to unmask]
Harte & Lyne Limited          http://www.harte-lyne.ca
9 Brockley Drive              vox: +1 905 561 1241
Hamilton, Ontario             fax: +1 905 561 0757
Canada  L8E 3C3

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