Here's the problem: John Kerry's botched joke is a painful and poignant reminder that there is a 300 lb gorilla in the corner that no one wants to address. Kerry hit the nail on the head when he said that smart kids are not going into the military.
I've got about 130-some-odd AP level juniors this year, and about 35 "on-level" kids for a total of 6 classes. The one "on-level" class is a mixture of regular, ESL, and special ed kids. Out of 130 AP kids, two (2) are in JROTC, and one other kid plans to go ROTC in college. Out of 35 regulars, I have four (4) in JROTC. Around my school, ROTC is known as the ESL club; the last white kid in the program graduated last year. Simply put, the bright, college-bound high school kids are not going into the military straight out of school. At best, they're entering ROTC in college, but that's not the same thing as enlisting in military first. If you as a graduating senior are in the position of choosing between low-level manual labor and the military, then odds are college wasn't an option for you anyway. If you are a low socio-economic class kid in the position of working to go to college or joining the military before school, then you still are not, most probably, one of the bright shining stars. That isn't to say that there aren't exceptions to these rules, I'm simply talking about the odds.
I bragged on my former students to the Colonel in charge of my school's JROTC, and I pointed out that I've had at least one kid every year for the last three years enter into a service academy. He told me that he has always had at least one kid try per year until he got to our school, but he just doesn't have the quality or caliber of student in his program to bother. JROTC and ROTC have some attractive economic packages set up for participants, but if you graduate from college through the ROTC program, you are going to start at a level that the average grunt is never going to achieve.
This isn't to defend Kerry's remarks. They were stupid, and he's being called on the carpet for a total lack of campaign prescience. However, nothing the Republicans have shot off in retalliation has begun to address the problems in which our men now find themselves. The people fighting Bush's war in the Middle East are invariably of a low income background, or a low IQ one.
This is a shame. How many more Lt. Calleys do we have to suffer before we learn our lesson?
