Political Frenzy

The recent fad in student ‘activism’ is to kick military recruiters out of schools, sometimes leading to hostility, shouting matches, and occasionally physical violence which this blogger has actually been privy to. While accusing the right wing of reducing everything to a sound byte, they themselves have become just as guilty - Books Not Bombs my Persian butt. Indeed.

One student in a recent walk-out at Seattle Central had the nerve and gall to claim that recruiters at the community college were racially profiling students from lower class backgrounds simply by showing up to campus. This is obscenely absurd and the result of fanciful extrapolations from their expectations of the right wing, not reality. People from lower class backgrounds rarely attend the community college, it costs a damn arm and a leg. And the majority of the student population is white! Besides, the army and marines booth is often passed over. Soldiers come back from action to learn at the college, but those already there rarely have incentive to leave.

Besides, no one is forcing anyone to recruit ever! It is a cognitive choice. Like any organization, our armed forces have the right to be there. And for many, service in the military is a great option, giving them free room and board, free education, and a fine paycheck. My mother served in the Navy as a communications officer in Guam and later in Alaska, providing her with the money to later become an alumnus of the University of Washington. Before her both my maternal Grandfather and Grandmother served during World War II, the former as a machinery operator for the Army Corps of Engineers and the latter as a secretary in the Marines.

If I didn’t have the financial backing of my parents to afford to go to college now, I would gladly sign up for the Coast Guard because I feel strongly about stopping the importation of drugs and defending the US border at sea. But no recruiter will convince me to, they simply provide information on the armed services, and a resource for joining if that’s right for you.

What really needs to be done is provide better funding for military hospitals, ensure the contractual rights of National Guardsmen and Soldiers so that they can come home safely and quickly without further delay, and have our great country provide as much to our men and women in uniform as they provide to us.

People on the far left confused our troops for the war, and while I feel we need to allow the Iraqi nation to evolve into whatever it will become without further assistance from us, the armed forces are this nation’s best possible way to train and employ our population as possible. Kicking out recruiters isn’t the answer, people. Focus on what’s important instead of blindly attacking whatever is closest.

books not bombs, liberalism, sound byte, student activism