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I think its more complicated than that. There is certainly a lingering, and I don't think unjustified, perception that recruiters prefer the desperate and the

I think its more complicated than that. There is certainly a lingering, and I don't think unjustified, perception that recruiters prefer the desperate and the easily swayed, even if the leadership does not. This dates back to the Vietnam era, and Project 100,000. Part of it is that middle-class as defined on that page is specifically those who are poor enough to not be able to afford college from their family's preexisting wealth, but not so poor that they qualify for need-based full-rides at most schools. So you get a lot of kids joining up for the GI bill, and not necessarily out of a surplus of innate patriotism or sense of civic duty. Not all, I'd say about 1/3 of the people I've known who served signed up specifically for the GI bill, but those that did joined the Navy or the Air Force, or they signed up prior to September 11 (one friend signed up in August of 2001, just before the start of his senior year of high school). There's also the issue that as family income drops, the odds of meeting the entry requirements also drops. As family income drops, the odds of a having a criminal record rises (this is true for a lot of different reasons, only some of them the would-be applicant's fault). For all of their recruiting issues, the military still has baseline occupational standards. You have to be able to place high enough on the ASVAB to be admitted to your preferred branch of service, and as a standardized test, it still correlates to socioeconomic background. That is, if you're poor, you're probably going to do worse on the ASVAB, regardless of your actual aptitude. I am sympathetic to the desire to keep recruiters out of high schools and colleges, but that's mainly because it seems perverse to me to let kids sign up to kill and die (and risk prison for trying to weasel out of it) before they're old enough to buy alcohol or rent cars. I think we should keep recruiters out of high schools and colleges for the same reason we should ban student loans: most 18 year-olds simply lack the experience and discernment to understand what they're signing up for.

psunavy03 2y ago
I hope you understand the reasons I strongly resent your condescension in that last paragraph. If you're not old enough to sign up for the service, you're not old enough to live on your own or hold down any other job. Colleges in particular are a peculiar place to scoff at people's decision-making skills, considering the end product of that particular environment is a commissioned officer who in just 3-4 years will be responsible for flying a fighter into combat, commanding an infantry company, or standing Tactical Action Officer watch in charge of employing the full weapons loadout of a guided missile destroyer. Junior military officers hold responsibilities and accountabilities at a young age that their civilian counterparts couldn't dream of holding. Go look at what those 25-year-olds were doing off the coast of Yemen recently in the most intense sustained combat ops the US Navy has seen since World War II.
- petsfed 2y ago
  I get that. There are two distinctions between "any other job" and military service, which I think matter, and I'll get to. But, you're also not wrong. If I say you're not old enough to sign up for the service, I'm also saying you're also not old enough to say get a loan for $40,000 of tuition without so much as a credit check. I'm less appalled at military recruiters on high school campuses, and more appalled at the weird magic we all believe happens at 12am on everyone's 18th birthday. Like, yesterday, you were too immature to sign a lease, or buy a rifle, or vote, and you should 100% listen to people in authority, because they know what's best, but today, you're more than mature enough to take on every shred of responsibility for all the things you are legally entitled to, and if any of those people in authority take advantage of you for their own selfish ends, it's at least 50% your fault for what happens to you. I do draw a distinction between serving in the military and any other job for 2 reasons. First is the obvious. There are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where you may be asked to take a life. Most police departments require that police be over 21, even. Second, there are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where if you just up and decide one day that the job is not for you and quit, no-call-no-show, you go to jail, and permanently damage your ability to get any other job and certain kinds of government assistance, for the rest of your life. Its weird to me that we're just a-ok with (again) 18 year olds making that decision, given that we don't let them buy handguns or alcohol, or rent cars. We obviously, as a society, decided they lack the good judgement to make those kinds of decisions, and accept those kinds of responsibilities on their own. What I'm saying is that buck privates getting ludicrous financing terms on a Dodge Charger from the dealer nearest the barracks is such a meme for a reason.
  - psunavy03 2y ago
    There's an argument that jobs which can take a life require more maturity, and there's been talk of specifically limiting jobs like infantry to older, more mature, and more physically-trained people. That said, the vast majority of military jobs are not combat-coded. They involve mundane things like fixing aircraft, crewing ships, doing admin paperwork, moving boxes, and so on.
    - 2y ago

psunavy03 2y ago

I hope you understand the reasons I strongly resent your condescension in that last paragraph. If you're not old enough to sign up for the service, you're not old enough to live on your own or hold down any other job. Colleges in particular are a peculiar place to scoff at people's decision-making skills, considering the end product of that particular environment is a commissioned officer who in just 3-4 years will be responsible for flying a fighter into combat, commanding an infantry company, or standing Tactical Action Officer watch in charge of employing the full weapons loadout of a guided missile destroyer. Junior military officers hold responsibilities and accountabilities at a young age that their civilian counterparts couldn't dream of holding. Go look at what those 25-year-olds were doing off the coast of Yemen recently in the most intense sustained combat ops the US Navy has seen since World War II.

petsfed 2y ago
I get that. There are two distinctions between "any other job" and military service, which I think matter, and I'll get to. But, you're also not wrong. If I say you're not old enough to sign up for the service, I'm also saying you're also not old enough to say get a loan for $40,000 of tuition without so much as a credit check. I'm less appalled at military recruiters on high school campuses, and more appalled at the weird magic we all believe happens at 12am on everyone's 18th birthday. Like, yesterday, you were too immature to sign a lease, or buy a rifle, or vote, and you should 100% listen to people in authority, because they know what's best, but today, you're more than mature enough to take on every shred of responsibility for all the things you are legally entitled to, and if any of those people in authority take advantage of you for their own selfish ends, it's at least 50% your fault for what happens to you. I do draw a distinction between serving in the military and any other job for 2 reasons. First is the obvious. There are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where you may be asked to take a life. Most police departments require that police be over 21, even. Second, there are very few, vanishingly few, civilian jobs where if you just up and decide one day that the job is not for you and quit, no-call-no-show, you go to jail, and permanently damage your ability to get any other job and certain kinds of government assistance, for the rest of your life. Its weird to me that we're just a-ok with (again) 18 year olds making that decision, given that we don't let them buy handguns or alcohol, or rent cars. We obviously, as a society, decided they lack the good judgement to make those kinds of decisions, and accept those kinds of responsibilities on their own. What I'm saying is that buck privates getting ludicrous financing terms on a Dodge Charger from the dealer nearest the barracks is such a meme for a reason.
- psunavy03 2y ago
  There's an argument that jobs which can take a life require more maturity, and there's been talk of specifically limiting jobs like infantry to older, more mature, and more physically-trained people. That said, the vast majority of military jobs are not combat-coded. They involve mundane things like fixing aircraft, crewing ships, doing admin paperwork, moving boxes, and so on.
  - 2y ago