Replies

LIBERAL SCHOOL BANS MILITARY RECRUITERS

Only the best soldiers become recruiters.

It's the Army way. And I suspect it's the same for the Navy, Air Force and Marines.

Only the best become recruiters.

Because when a member of the armed forces walks down an American street, or into a family home, and speaks to young people about the service, that person has to be an example. Not just of the military, but of the best of this country. That person has to be worthy of the uniform.

And all the ones I've ever known have been.

They've been good people. Good enough to fight for our freedom, but not, apparently, good enough for the Rochester City School District. Last week, on the night before Flag Day, the Rochester school board scuttled a plan that would have allowed, after more than a decade, armed forces recruiters to come to the school. For more than a decade, military recruiters have been banned from the many campuses of the Rochester City School District.

They couldn't speak to students, they couldn't address assemblies, they could not participate in career days. They simply weren't welcome.

And the district last week turned down a chance to change that. It's supposed to be out of solidarity with the gay community. Homosexuals protested forever ago to the school district that the armed forces violated its anti-discrimination policy. Gay people weren't welcome in the military, and so the military wasn't welcom in the schools.

That's a pretty good example of how screwed up America has become.

But that was mostly lip service anyway. Just an excuse. Because, on a deeper level, the ultra liberals who have dominated the district for a generation hate the military. They hate what it stands for. Mostly, they hate America.

And that's unfortuate. Because their prejudice has kept class after class of Rochester graduates from learning about an option that could offer hope and opportunity to lives which seem to lack either. For untold young people -- in inner cities and rural towns -- the military has been a way up and out, a chance at life which might otherwise be lost.

Many young people come through high school with everything against them. No way to afford college, economies that don't offer work, communities laced with drugs and troubles. Everything seems designed to keep them in poverty or worse, and many slip into difficulties which will forever scar their lives.

The despair and hopelessness are palpable.

And the service is an escape.

It was for me.

It was work when I needed it. It was direction, job training, responsibility, insurance benefits, pride and a future. It taught me lessons that still benefit my life every day. The importance of hard work, of being on time, of paying attention to details, of taking direction, of taking charge. Of being confident. Of believing in myself and knowing that I'm going to come out on top.

The service taught me that, and it can teach anyone that.

I also learned in the Army that the very best soldiers were often the ones who came from situations like those in the worst neighborhoods served by the Rochester schools. Time after time, the most squared away sergeants and captains were just a few years away from crime-riddled, drug-plagued streets. Each of them said their salvation was getting away from those streets, and from learning about their own abilities and potential. Each of them, in one generation, went from abject poverty to the successful middle class.

And the Rochester City School District denies its students the chance to learn about that opportunity.

The district is in crisis, in the main office and in the classroom. The number of B-average graduating "Black Scholars" is falling to alarming rates, a recent audit shows the district has chronically under-reported its dropout rate, and the city has the 11th-highest child-poverty rate in the nation.

And these freaks won't let recruiters on campus. They won't let the armed forces offer young Rochesterians an escape.

Which is not only unpatriotic.

It's immoral.

- by Bob Lonsberry © 2002

It was work when I needed it. It was direction, job training, responsibility, insurance benefits, pride and a future. It taught me lessons that still benefit my life every day. The importance of hard work, of being on time, of paying attention to details, of taking direction, of taking charge. Of being confident. Of believing in myself and knowing that I'm going to come out on top.

The service taught me that, and it can teach anyone that.

Big bump!!!