The CBC is reporting that “Cadet leaders are heading into Charlottetown’s junior high school classrooms on a recruitment drive that coincides with one underway for the Canadian Armed Forces in Atlantic Canada.”
It’s one thing to make me pay for your senseless wars, another thing entirely to try to recruit my child into your war machine behind my back (their next stop is kindergarten, presumably).
The mind boggles reading quotes like this, from Capt. Hope Carr:
“Are they made aware of the Canadian Forces? Absolutely. Do we utilize some of the same things that the Canadian Forces do — such as uniforms, the rank structure? Absolutely. What our goal is is to teach young people to be good citizens, to be good members of the community, contributing members of their community, and to take with them skills such as leadership, teamwork, learning to deal with difficult situations and making the right choices.”
Sheesh.
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Interestingly, this month’s
Interestingly, this month’s Harper’s Index quotes a study that says that US soldiers who were under 25 and veterens of Afghanisatn or Iraq experience a jobless rate 3 times the national average.
What the forces needs is soldiers who can go to Afghanistan and fight an offensive war against people there. As long as we continue to dedicate ourselves to the NATO war there, the CAF will be recruiting and sending men and women there to kill. It is a real war, with really death and real dying. Hard to sugar coat it much.
You will be paid very little for this effort, and you will not have much to return to when you come home. And if the stats froim the US are even close to what it’s like for vets here, either you will depend on the CAF for (meagre) employment for the rest of your life, or you will exit the forces to be sent into the world, where it will not be easy for you. It is likely that you will suffer from post-traumatic stress, exposure to dabgerous and toxic chemicals, you may well return from your tour injured or permanently disabled, and you won’t return with the overwhelming love and respect of the general population except on Rememberance Day, when they will celebrate the ideal of you and not you yourself.
Regardless of what one thinks about this war, the truth of soldiering is a serious thing, and this isn’t a three year committment to learn computer engineering while supporting peacekeeping logistics. Sign up and you’ll go to nasty places to be doing nasty things, killing people and being targetted to be killed yourself.
I wouldn’t want the job of soft selling that product.
I was surprised when I read
I was surprised when I read the CBC story online this morning at this quotation from a school principal about the recruiters:
“ ‘We’ve notified the staff and it’s up to them to make the choice whether or not they have time or the desire to have them come into the classroom,’ she said.”
Autonomy is often a good way to go but I certainly wondered whether there is any kind of school policy to guide individual staff members on such a decision?
Cadets have been in schools
Cadets have been in schools for years. I don’t understand what the “story” is; it’s not new.
As for cadets themselves, I would much rather be surrounded by a pack of cadets than the long-faced wanderers that inhabit many of our neighbourhoods. Cadets does indeed make better citizens — if with a military bias — keep in mind that the vast majority of kids will never recieve the character training that is Oliver’s inheritance. (That’s the VAST majority.)
Cadets is a Good Thing.
I say that as a person who has a profound distaste for anything military with a single exception: I have an undying respect and loyalty for anyone who is willing to die for his or her country and it burns my ass when they’re sent to places to die for causes not of worthy of their sacrifice.
The primo choice for making good citizens is excellent parenting AND elite sport; unfortunately it’s uncommon for a child to receive both in a lifetime.
My Post#2 (Im a little slow
My Post#2 (Im a little slow)
Hi again. I posted a while back on CFCY and death annoucements.
I am also an Air Cadet Instructors Cadre (CIC) Officer. Our primay duty is the Administation of the Canadian Cadet Movement and we are a non-combatant part of the Canadian Forces. We do, however hold Commisions and our officer rank (Most CIC officers range from Officer Cadet to Captain) are equal in standing to any other officer in the CF.
The Cadet Movement has 3 Aims
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