An Alum responds to fellowearlimites "counter-recruitment " in our Highschools.

edit: Earlier when I posted this I forgot to take out a bit involving my suspicion about why the article I responded too was not in the online version of The Word specifically I called it Orwellian. I apologize as I did talk to the editor of the paper and we worked out why that was. It was a misunderstanding on my part. Again I apologize for not deleting that portion when I orginally posted the artcle earlier this morning.
I am told that the article that I am responding to will eventually be up at link above.
Recently in the Earlham Word I foud an article on Counter-recruitment (military recruiters) that was just badly written and clearly biased and in no way interested in helping students get solid info on joining the military. It seems to me as if the article is against the idea. Anyway here is my response.

An Alum takes issue with
“Counter-recruitment” and its heroes
It was with great disappointment (if not great surprise) that the lead story in the February 15th edition of The Earlham Word should be a negative one about the military. Specifically that it should be about that most mythical and evil beast, the military recruiter, is even less surprising.

The maligning of military recruiters is one of the older maneuvers of the anti-war movement. It is such a stand-by I suppose that the heroes of Bennett Murray’s article, Stephanie Scheurich and Mica Whitney, are permitted to present the most negative opinions as if they are facts. “Recruiters are allowed to say anything,” for instance slides by Murray with nary even “an according to.” While it is certainly true that recruiters are salespersons for the military one might look deeper into their biases toward the institution than the Michael Moore style of analysis adopted by Murray Bennett, Stephanie Scheurcih and Mica Whitney. In any event recruiters are not “paid to lie” and, as anyone who has visited MEPS (Military Enlistment and Processing Service) will tell you recruiters can find themselves in quite a lot of trouble for having done so. It isn’t that recruiting isn’t high pressure, or that recruiters aren’t salesmen. It is and they are. It’s a tough business and they sell a product that requires serious commitments of time, and effort attached to a concomitant ration of risk. The problem with the Murray article and the analysis of Scheurich and Whitney is that it is shallow and at least as biased as they claim recruiters are.
Adding to their credibility woes is the fact that this the article rather disingenuously represents the motivations of the Scheurich and Whitney and as such has them talking out of both sides of their mouths. At times “they want to represent the other side” (of what I wonder), and “provide them [recruits] with information about other scholarship programs, programs…so they can get money for things other than killing people.” In the next paragraph they accuse recruiters of exaggerating and misrepresenting the educational and vocational benefits of the military, while in almost the breath they engage in the very same thing with AmeriCorps and these “other scholarships.” Later in the article Murray thinks he is providing balance by noting that Scheurich “never actually took a stance against enlistment. ‘It’s OK for people to go into the military. We just want them to go into the military knowing exactly what they’re expecting, and knowing more than military recruiters tell them.” Never mind, I guess, that this is categorically not what the counter-recruiting organizations claim to be about. The AFSC’s Youth and Militarism (www.afsc.org/youthmil/counter-recruitment/default.htm) and the Washington D.C. based Counter-Recruitment (www.counter-recruitment.org) are both openly and simply anti-war. It will not be lost on you that being “OK” with people joining the military and being part of the established anti-war movement (“Stop War Where It Starts!” was one slogan I found on the D.C. based site) is either an example of extra-ordinary cognitive dissonance or a calculated obfuscation of the truth. It could be that Whitney and Scheurich are creating their own counter-recruitment movement but it would be hard to tell since they seem to spout the same bromides.
What is really infuriating about the piece is the level of condescension and hypocrisy exhibited toward the poor not just Whitney and Scheurich but with the entirety of counter-recruitment movement. They accuse the military of disproportionately targeting the poor while they themselves cravenly use the wretched poor to garner sympathy for their case and their cause. They cite various statistics on what tax brackets get the most representation without any analysis as to why this might be the case. It is impossible to miss their unstated implication that poor people are obviously too stupid to figure out what a scam it all is. Their worry about Wayne County and its contingent of poor people could not possibly contain more condescension or shallowness. Why poorer families, and poor people might join military just isn’t a question counter-recruitment is interested in asking. The benefits of military employment are not reviewed, I would guess because neither the author, nor the proponents of counter-recruitment have a clue what those consolations might be.
They toss around ideas like AmeriCorp, or college scholarships as if that will solve the problems of people who may have squandered high school, have no skills or need health insurance right now. The military appeals to poor people because it will train you and pay you modestly well while providing a host of benefits. Honorable discharge is a strong reward, or twenty years followed by a decent retirement package. Recruiters have more success with poor people because the military-risks and all- is a good deal for poor people. It isn’t that poor people don’t know the risks; most of those people accept those risks as part of the deal. The hollow pretense of the anti-war movement’s concern for poor people is itself a deeply depressing joke. The movement is itself biased enough to force continued poverty on the poor to further its own morally bankrupt pacifism.
Scheurich and Whitney are of course correct that the military has lower representation in the upper middle and wealthier classes. The reasons for this are plentiful but also unexplored. It is easier for the wealthier of our societies to pay for college, health care and all the other little perks that come from proximity to wealth. Certainly many parents in such homes actively discourage enlistment. Such people have less to gain, or at least perceive fewer gains from military enlistment. It is easier to sit on the fence about the military when you sit from the comfortable vantage point of security. It is easier to see its faults. It is easier still to find fault when looking through the myopic lens of a wooly-headed ideology.
I am always struck by this poverty deflection when it is offered by my rabidly anti-war/anti-military friends. It is one of the default talking points designed to show how evil, callous, cruel, and let me not forget racist the military, in fact, is. The military doesn’t use poor people because it regards them as expendable cannon fodder. They use them because the wealthier members of our society won’t enlist. I suspect this is terrible for the military and terrible for the defense of our country. My challenge to my fellow liberals when they complain about the rotten way the military hires the poor and the “disenfranchised” is to go take their place. The military is in desperate need of people with formal education. You would be welcome. On the following point I do agree with Whitney and Scheurich go into the recruiter informed and knowing what it is you want to do. And if you can’t get what you want walk away. It isn’t for everyone, and you want to give it more thought than any other job you may want to consider. For advice and information on the military visit: http://military.com .
Earlham’s stance against allowing recruiters on campus is at odds with its mission to provide exchanges of ideas and opportunities to its students. This is especially so if it is going to allow organizing and speaking against the military. Earlham’s stance represents a tacit admission that its own mores are not up to the task of dealing with the arguments that disagree. It proves itself insular, incapable, and frightened of change. In so doing it deprives the military, and the country of valuable leadership, knowledge and experience in an institution that is constantly in need of fresh insight, and ideas. I understand that Earlham’s history is deeply steeped in Quaker religious tradition. But tradition especially religiously derived, is in no way a guarantor of right, or just action. It is simply a recipe for unthinking, reflexive stances and sanctimony. But not only is it depriving students a chance to hear ideas that might make them think more thoroughly about their own position, it is depriving military institutions highly qualified leaders, leaders that might make a crucial difference between a bad policy and a just one. The military benefits, like most institutions do, from a diversity of backgrounds, educations and perspectives. Earlham in particular and the liberal arts program in general offers a wide and comprehensively deep education to any potential officer a designation for which all college grads are eligible.
The military needs smart, worldly officers that know, or can quickly come to understand the conflcts now flaring across the globe.

edit: Earlier when I posted this I forgot to take out a bit involving my suspicion about why the article I responded too was not in the online version of The Word specifically I called it Orwellian. I apologize as I did talk to the editor of the paper and we worked out why that was. It was a misunderstanding on my part. Again I apologize for not deleting that portion when I orginally posted the artcle earlier this morning.