Posted on 03/29/2013 3:41:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
IN 12th grade, my friend Ryan and I were finalists for the Silver State Scholars, a competition to identify the “Top 100” seniors in Nevada. The finalists were flown to Lake Tahoe for two days of interviews. On the plane, Ryan and I met a boy from Las Vegas. Looking to size up the competition, we asked what high school he went to. He said a name we didn’t recognize and added, “It’s a magnet school.” Ryan asked what a magnet school was, and spent the remaining hour incredulously demanding a detailed account of the young man’s educational history: his time abroad, his after-school robotics club, his tutors, his college prep courses.
All educations, we realized then, are not created equal. For Ryan and me, of Pahrump, Nev., just an hour from the city, the Vegas boy was a citizen of a planet we would never visit. What we didn’t know was that there were other, more distant planets that we could not even see. And those planets couldn’t see us, either.
A study released last week by researchers at Harvard and Stanford quantified what everyone in my hometown already knew: even the most talented rural poor kids don’t go to the nation’s best colleges. The vast majority, the study found, do not even try....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Any one who had to get up at O-dark 30 to do chores before catching the bus to school (not subway) would not mix well with some urban punk who is destined to be an “activist” or barrista.
Yeah I scored well enough the air force said I could pick what I wanted to do. didn’t help because I had no idea but ended up in an ok area. crypto
I grew up in farm country and a class mate ended up in a school in the north east. He’s now a communist who spends his time in the village in NYC.
They tried to steer me to diddly-bop, but my dad was a 20 year commo chief in the Marine Corps, and I knew I didn’t want to listen to Morse code in Russian for hours on end, so I picked order-of-battle/intelligence analyst.
I skipped college and went right to getting my Mrs. - the entrance exam was much easier.
Lol.
I told my DI’s off on day one off boot camp and received battalion level office hours. Missed my school opening and ended up open contract and was put into logistics.
LOL. Best one of the month.
Too bad, bro. You missed an interesting career.
I was in military intelligence, how was crypto different? I was surrounded by crypto people, squints, CI agents, MPs, etc., etc...
I was an intercept operator, Morse and teletype.
I knew a bunch of your fellows while stationed in San Vito and part of the 6917th ESC (still have a jacket with the logo even though I left in '80). I think it would have driven me nuts, personally, but you guys did collect a LOT of data. I was on the maintenance side of things - chasing errant electrons and fixing slipping clutches and cogs was more my thing.
Dude! I was stationed with the 6917th Sep 62 - Dec 63. Got released early for Christmas. It was a good mission, with experienced ops and leadership - at the flight level; at the top, not so much. Have many good memories of my tour there.
Cool! I loved the tour despite some “leadership” issues we had in out area. I lived in Specchiolla and did my darnedest to extend. Nothing like them mom and pop ristorantes for some good eats.
There were very few married junior airmen and most lived in Spec. Had some good parties out there. Also had a good time taking the train to Napoli for sightseeing.
I started as a SrA and got a 2-1/2 year tour because I was married. left as a SSgt and got to drive the Amalfi highway and take other pleasures in the country. I fell in love with the simplicity of the south and still remember snorkeling in water "so clear you could drop a nickle in 20' and tell if it landed heads or tails". During the Winter, us pazzo Americani could about elect our town mayor - during the Summer, the scenery improved drastically...
I saw some of Italy from San Vito but not much. In 1976, I accepted a three-year tour at the US Embassy in Rome. I was married by this time with three kids. We lived in a spectacular apartment in a posh area of Rome. My kids went to Catholic schools that the Embassy paid for. On vacays we got to see a whole lot of Italy, from the Amalfi Drive to the Italian Tyrol, Genoa to Venezia. I had six PCS tours but Rome was by far the top of the list!
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