I need not repeat the facts surrounding John Kerry' comment, the response, Kerry's defiant speech Tuesday, and Kerry's beleaguered apology on his website. Everyone is more or less familiar with these facts
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Back when the military was a drafted force, that fact cannot be denied or mitigated because enlistment was mandatory and if one were wealthy or in college he could receive a deferment. Today the force is all volunteers. Therefore, by definition no one can be "stuck" anywhere because there was a voluntary enlistment portion to the equation.
More importantly, the military is more educated on the whole than the average civilian population. Over 99% of enlisted personnel have high school diplomas (please forgive me for not having a link to the statistic). This is higher than the average US population. Many enlisted soldiers use the military as a vehicle toward higher education via the GI bill. The officer corps of the US military is very well educated. Many officer class servicemen who spend many years in the military end up getting graduate degrees.
The army has always been a vehicle for social mobility, whether it was for a bastard child of a drunken scottish peddler what was our first secretary of the treasury (Alexander Hamilton) or today. Many people who come from modest backgrounds use the military as method of improving oneself.
We do not send certain people to fight. We, through our representatives, send the armed forces to fight and citizens voluntarily choose to join the armed services. The make up of the armed forces is not something that can be effected by Congress so long as we wish to have all volunteer armed forces.
The poorest and least-privileged of our people, to use your words, do not graduate high school and as such are usually below the standards of the armed forces. I would also like to point out that liberals, in the 70's when the debate was happening, opposed the concept of a standing army because it would somehow be a threat to democracy.
As someone whose best man went to the US Naval Academy and has several friends with college or post-college degrees that chose to enter the armed services, I find the idea that people get "stuck" in the military quite interesting. One friend of mine dropped out of high school shortly before graduating and subsequently spent a decade working various jobs to gett his GED and undergraduate degree/certification as a history teacher... only then to choose to enter the army as an officer.
We can either have a draft, like Charlie Rangel (D-NY) proposes annually, whereby the government forces every person after high school to either join the military or perform civil service, or a volunteer standing force. Pick the better option.
More importantly, the military is more educated on the whole than the average civilian population. Over 99% of enlisted personnel have high school diplomas (please forgive me for not having a link to the statistic). This is higher than the average US population. Many enlisted soldiers use the military as a vehicle toward higher education via the GI bill. The officer corps of the US military is very well educated. Many officer class servicemen who spend many years in the military end up getting graduate degrees.
The army has always been a vehicle for social mobility, whether it was for a bastard child of a drunken scottish peddler what was our first secretary of the treasury (Alexander Hamilton) or today. Many people who come from modest backgrounds use the military as method of improving oneself.
We do not send certain people to fight. We, through our representatives, send the armed forces to fight and citizens voluntarily choose to join the armed services. The make up of the armed forces is not something that can be effected by Congress so long as we wish to have all volunteer armed forces.
The poorest and least-privileged of our people, to use your words, do not graduate high school and as such are usually below the standards of the armed forces. I would also like to point out that liberals, in the 70's when the debate was happening, opposed the concept of a standing army because it would somehow be a threat to democracy.
As someone whose best man went to the US Naval Academy and has several friends with college or post-college degrees that chose to enter the armed services, I find the idea that people get "stuck" in the military quite interesting. One friend of mine dropped out of high school shortly before graduating and subsequently spent a decade working various jobs to gett his GED and undergraduate degree/certification as a history teacher... only then to choose to enter the army as an officer.
We can either have a draft, like Charlie Rangel (D-NY) proposes annually, whereby the government forces every person after high school to either join the military or perform civil service, or a volunteer standing force. Pick the better option.
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