Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed into Military’s Junior R.O.T.C(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed into Military’s Junior R.O.T.C
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/us/jrotc-schools-mandatory-automatic-enrollment.html
5 comments
The military is always complaining about not being able to recruit, now they're trying to strongarm kids? Especially the seeming policy of targeting racial minorities in poor districts is disgusting. Heads should roll for this, but of course they won't.
From the military's spokesperson:
'But she expressed concern about The Times’s findings on enrollment policies, saying that the military does not ask high schools to make J.R.O.T.C. mandatory and that schools should not be requiring students to take it.
“Just like we are an all-volunteer military, this should be a volunteer program,” she said.'
It is local school districts trying to strongarm kids and not the military.
'But she expressed concern about The Times’s findings on enrollment policies, saying that the military does not ask high schools to make J.R.O.T.C. mandatory and that schools should not be requiring students to take it.
“Just like we are an all-volunteer military, this should be a volunteer program,” she said.'
It is local school districts trying to strongarm kids and not the military.
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I participated in JROTC in high school decades ago, and although I didn’t go into the military, it was overall a positive experience. I learned skills (organization, discipline, project management, public speaking, planning) that helped me make the transition to college and adulthood.
That being said, the program definitely pushes young people toward military service. It wasn’t until I got into “real” ROTC in college that I learned I would be miserable in a military career. JROTC is unrealistically warm and fuzzy, and thus it does a poor job of preparing cadets, particularly women like me, for the realities of service. As an adult I’ve frequently heard accounts of female recruits being sexually harassed and assaulted. I also learned about the psychological toll of warfare and how many wars are profoundly unjust. None of these topics were so much as glanced at in JROTC. Later, as a freshman, I saw that the culture of college ROTC was arrogant and bro-ish, and thankfully that was enough to turn me away from the military and toward a rewarding career in the private sector.
JROTC was an optional program at my high school. Automatic enrollment of kids amounts to coercion and is a terrible idea. Even given the benefits I received as a teenager, I’m not sure I’d want a kid of my own to join that program. Character can be built without getting sucked into the military pipeline. But like many kids in poor areas, I signed up because my home environment sucked and I didn’t have money for other school activities.
I don’t despise JROTC, but it is (as the kids say) problematic.
That being said, the program definitely pushes young people toward military service. It wasn’t until I got into “real” ROTC in college that I learned I would be miserable in a military career. JROTC is unrealistically warm and fuzzy, and thus it does a poor job of preparing cadets, particularly women like me, for the realities of service. As an adult I’ve frequently heard accounts of female recruits being sexually harassed and assaulted. I also learned about the psychological toll of warfare and how many wars are profoundly unjust. None of these topics were so much as glanced at in JROTC. Later, as a freshman, I saw that the culture of college ROTC was arrogant and bro-ish, and thankfully that was enough to turn me away from the military and toward a rewarding career in the private sector.
JROTC was an optional program at my high school. Automatic enrollment of kids amounts to coercion and is a terrible idea. Even given the benefits I received as a teenager, I’m not sure I’d want a kid of my own to join that program. Character can be built without getting sucked into the military pipeline. But like many kids in poor areas, I signed up because my home environment sucked and I didn’t have money for other school activities.
I don’t despise JROTC, but it is (as the kids say) problematic.
whenever a new hire starts, and they have any kind of military training (enlisted, officer, drop out from service academy, JROTC, ROTC, or CAP) there are a couple of things that are never problems.
#1. They show up on time. Properly dressed.
#2. When given a task they do not understand, they ask for clarification.
#3. Given a directive from above, they express themselves, and then do what they are told.
I am sure these are not universal positives for every situation, but almost so.