From Video War Games to Signing Up for Military?

[Rose Siding]

snip>
They were among about 2,000 teenage cadets from 40 local and national high schools who gathered in El Segundo on Saturday to show off their skills in the seventh annual West Coast National JROTC Drill Competition.
.....
Across the country, about 3,000 JROTC units such as these teach self-discipline and leadership skills. They are not geared explicitly to recruiting students into the military, officials said. But amid recent military recruiting shortfalls, finding new ways to attract teenagers has become a priority, and recruiters from all branches of the military were out in force.
....
Events like this one, held by Raytheon, one of the nation's largest defense contractors, help the effort, recruiters say.

On display for the hundreds of teenagers, parents, children and veterans who turned out were the tools of war. "Can I pull the plug," a small boy asked his father, clutching a "baseball" grenade from the Vietnam era.
Across the lot, a teenager peered into the steel belly of an M1A1 Abrams tank and said to his friends: "That thing makes me want to join the Army."

"I want my son to go into the military," said Marie Calleja, watching closely as her 9-year-old, Charles, struggled to bring the telescopic sight of an AR-15 assault rifle to his eye. "We don't want him to go over there and get killed, but the percentages are pretty small.".....

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jrotc3apr03,1,7632047.story?coll=la-headlines-california

[NMDemDist2]

1. "but percentages are pretty small????"

what planet is she on?

[dkofos]

2. I bet

She will be 100% devastated if her son comes home in box.

[w4rma]

11. They are pretty small for getting killed, but not for getting maimed.

The percentages are pretty high for getting maimed.

[Jackpine Radical]

12. What % of Gulf 1 vets are disabled? 50%?

It ain't the bombs. It's the depleted uranium shell casings & armor, various toxins, etc. The real human cost of the war isn't gonna show up for a number of years. And I mean both for the Iraqis & for the foreign troops.

[Coventina]

3. The military is still an attractive option to some

Some parents think it is more of a danger that their young men will get involved in crime/drugs/gangs. At least if they die in the military, it has some "honor".

I've talked to some of these mothers. It's very sad.

[gratuitous]

4. Ooooh, an Abrams tank!

That teenager should probably get some information on how successful IEDs and roadside bombs have been in disabling and incapacitating those impressive-looking pieces of transport, and the unfortunate effects those devices have on the transportees.

Nice to see my tax dollars spent so assiduously to convince young people and their parents that they should sign up to die for corporate interests all over the world. See this, kids? It's a Purple Heart! Pretty, isn't it? And look at the cool way this flag is folded into a tight triangle.

[Frederik]

5. Sickening

Raytheon, the maker of the Tomahawk missiles, holds these events to attract kids to the military? And people giggle if you mention the "military-industrial complex". Old Ike didn't know to what extent his fears would come true. I remember seeing photos of similar events held in Germany, in the late 30s, where the purpose was to create a positive image of weapons and the military among children and teenagers.

"These events are often done in areas where students feel like they have no other options," said Andy Griggs, a member of the Coalition Against Militarism In Our Schools, a Los Angeles group opposed to the recruitment efforts. Griggs said in a phone interview that military recruiters often outnumber college recruiters at poorer schools in Los Angeles."

[lostnfound]

6. Disgusting reality. The machine that eats your kids

and spits out destruction onto someone else's kids.

"The Iraqis are trying to threaten us"??

[wakeme2008]

7. But the percentages of him coming home

with one less arm or leg are very good.

[meganmonkey]

8. Good point!

And welcome to DU, wakeme2008 (love the username ;) )

:toast:

[wakeme2008]

9. sorry but true username

:(

[Solly Mack]

10. My sister, in Georgia , told me ads and posters were popping

up in town proclaiming "Tell your child it's their patriotic duty to enlist" and "Be a Patriot:Enlist!"

This is Gainesville, Georgia.

from the above article:

"We don't want him to go over there and get killed, but the percentages are pretty small.".....

.........well, with "reality"-based thinking like that, America is just full of promise , no?

I need a wubbie. Where's my wubbie?

[PA Democrat]

13. I think a "Bush Twins First!" sticker placed across those ads would be

most appropriate. Let the first daughters lead by example!

[Solly Mack]

14. Great point! I'll tell her to do just that

she'll enjoy it...

[0rganism]

15. Problem is, those games aren't realistic enough

All they do is stimulate agressive behavior. We need them to come with a solid dose of gut-wrenching fear and serious pain, as well.

If there were a way to hook the game consequences directly into the nervous system to cause a few minutes of sheer debilitating, crippling agony upon injury, and perhaps completely lock down the motor and sensory brain centers for an hour after receiving any battle wound scored as adequate to cause death, it'd be a different scene entirely.

I wonder how many of these console jockeys have ever seen footage of a person ripped in two by a bomb or missile as it happens. For every 10 minutes of military propaganda forced on schoolkids, if they were shown one minute of actual uncensored war footage of real "tactical operations" at the receiving end... well, never mind. It'll never happen. War is glorious and good, and anyone who says otherwise is obviously a traitor.

[Voltaire99]

16. The Ludovico Treatment, eh?

Not a bad idea.

But alas, nothing impresses like the real thing. A draft will soon disabuse idiots of the war-is-cool myth.

Unfortunately, as the post-Vietnam era has shown, such effects are short-lived...