In talking with kids, does the aggressive recruiting effort come up?
Yeah. One kid said that a recruiter went to meet him at his job. A girl at another school got very shy during the question/answer period. It was clear that a recruiter was very heavily on her and she said that he goes to her athletic meets. It’s much more intense than we imagine. They talk about friends who signed up. Most of them don’t necessarily want to go, but ask what is my alternative? And that is the saddest part. There is very little alternative you can offer a poor kid that has no money for school, living in a family that isn’t very supportive. What do you say to comments like that? It’s the hardest part of what I’m trying to do. I’ve talked to lots of veterans, lots of activists and people about this. There is no simple answer. There are scholarship programs. There is City Year out of AmeriCorps. But the bottom line is this country has become very militarized and the only place that money is being spent is in military programs. It’s really hard to say to a kid, think about th
