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To: bogeybob
"We are reluctant to give out specific schools and the individuals involved in the interest of giving the education community a chance to address the problem itself."

There's a big problem with this report, because it's claiming 30 complaints w/o specifics. There's no legitimate reason to withold info unless the complaint itself is fabricated. This is not between the schools and some little group. It is between the country and those demeaning it's military.

121 posted on 02/23/2003 1:18:20 PM PST by spunkets
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To: spunkets
Here is my guess at to the reason to withhold names:

A kid's dad or mom is overseas and away from home. He/she (the kid) is already having to deal with his gone-from-home parent being called "unethical" at best and probably a whole lot of other things. What the kid doesn't need is the glare of publicity and teachers, prinicipals, and reporters in his/her face.

The military brass isn't going to get specific unless the stateside parent wants to raise a ruckus. If they do, the news gets to the soldier overseas and distracts/demoralizes him/her.




I disagree with the reasoning, but understand it. IMHO, if the stateside parent fights the good fight it will make the serving parent more determined to do well. The downside is that if only couple agree to come out with specifics, they'll be harrassed and maybe worse by terrorist sympathizers and sleepers.

So if there is going to be exposure, it's got to be large numbers, to spread the risk and pain. Maybe the brass is working in the background to do just that (one can hope), or perhaps is sharing specifics in private discussions.
125 posted on 02/23/2003 1:50:20 PM PST by litany_of_lies
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To: spunkets
There's no legitimate reason to withold info unless the complaint itself is fabricated.

Of course there is, depending on one's definition of "legitimate". The people at the Maine National Guard dealing with the issue are not activated, some are probably even not guardsmen, but rather civil servant support staff. Full time Guardsmen are civil servents during the normal workweek, even though they wear the military uniform. Weekends they are inactive duty reserve military members, just like the "true" reservists/guardsmen, and if activated are the same as the regular military and only then come under direct federal control. In both inactive duty status and civil service status, they report to the governor through the state staff, in this case they probably are part of the state staff. It wouldn't do to alienate one of the Guv's biggest support groups, unless one is completely happy with one's current pay grade, and plans to retire as soon as eligible, which might mean tomorrow in many cases as guardmen often stay "on board" well past the minimum retirement age/years of service, and it's especially true of the full timers.

488 posted on 02/25/2003 5:35:44 PM PST by El Gato
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