No Warrior Left Untapped

Stricter Limits Sought on Military's Access to High Schools

The No Child Left Behind Act approved by Congress in 2001 requires school districts to provide military recruiters with the same access to high schools given to college or job recruiters.

Oh, so THAT's what "No Child Left Behind" means. (Without adequate funding, it certainly didn't mean that every child would be properly educated). Apparently, it means that when Busholini marches his army off to war, he wants to make sure that no cannon fodder -- er, "child" -- is left behind, safe and sound at home. No way you can take over the world without throwing every 18 year-old you have at the battle.

Under the current law, parents must tell school officials they don't want their child contacted by the military, at school or home. Otherwise, schools are required to turn over students' names, addresses and phone numbers to Pentagon recruiters. (San Jose Democratic Rep. Mike) Honda wants to turn that around, and allow the military to talk only to those students whose parents approve such contact.

But Thomas Donnelly, military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute (an unabashedly hawkish neo-con think tank), said Honda's proposal is "really stupid. It's going nowhere, and even if it did, it would face a tough constitutional challenge.''

Yes..."really stupid" to protect our children from these vultures. They're worse than the sleaziest used-car salesman. They're not just selling you a rusted old heap which they swear is a gem, they're selling death! And what constitutional challenge would there be? Congress is charged with raising a military, but it has no explicit right to do so in public high schools. Besides, Honda's measure wouldn't block recruiters from access to high school students, it would just block unsolicted recruiting. Think of the proposed legislation this way: telemarketing is merely a nuissance, but we got the "do not call" list enacted. These recruiters are way worse than telemarketers. We're talking about childrens' lives. They should be protected at least as well as our peaceful evenings.

"It's not like the military heavily targets San Francisco,''

(San Francisco school board President) Mar said. "They know we are wary of military recruiters,'' because of widespread anti- war sentiment in the city and because of the military's "don't ask, don't tell'' policy that has led to the dismissal of gays and lesbians from the military.I'll bet there's more to it than even that. I'd wager that the military recruiters more heavily target, areas in which the standard of living is lower than, say, San Fransisco. Economically depressed youth have less incentive to say no to the military. For many poor children, the military is the "only way out".

"Face it, war is a young person's game,'' said Donnelly.

Actually, war is an old man's game. It's just the young people's job to die. Which, I suppose, is why Republicans will be so up-in-arms over their access to potential soldiers being cut off.