Ellen Cameron
Staff Writer

As far as life choices go, serving in the armed forces is a far cry above flipping patties.

It’s an honorable career, and by no means a death sentence. Moreover, it is a valid and traditional path to take after high school for financial or personal reasons, and military recruiters have every night to come into our schools.

Other colleges come to schools, and all the propaganda basically blazons the same essential messages: our school will make you a better leader, smarter, stronger, more experienced. The same glossy tripe can be applied to armed services; it’s not like the Army has some slightly dubious recruiting hook. The pull-up bar may be the biggest draw to the armed services booth, and even that is less about the armed services itself and more about a battle for male ego supremacy.

Moreover, information about both colleges and armed services is taken voluntarily; no one is forced to learn about the armed services if they don’t want to. It’s not filling out a draft card, nor is it making a pact with the devil to sign away one’s soul.

Is it a matter of not wanting to be associated with the Army and the current controversial war in the Middle East at all that makes us squeamish to accept their recruiters into our school? If it is, that’s silly, because the armed services aren’t a death sentence. Yes, there is a risk of death, but it’s no surprise; people who enlist do so knowing full well the dangers, and typically their families are also involved in the decision-making process.

It all comes down to a matter of personal choice; someone who is unwilling to join the armed services will not be so swayed by a small presentation in the high school commons that they will sign up right away and discard all previous dreams. However, presenting information in the high school makes students more comfortable investigating armed services as a career option.

And yes, students could get this information from other places, from their counselor, from the Internet, from government flyers sent to high school students. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you, just like nearly every other college booth is also not for you, but that doesn’t mean, though, that it’s not for someone else.

Students wanting information about these kinds of programs have the same right to access as students who plan to spend the next four years holed up in libraries. In fact, it could be argued that joining the armed services would actually afford more opportunities and experience than attending some of the more provincial schools.

Object to armed services being in schools? That’s fine. That’s also a personal choice, just like it’s the personal choice of other students to decide whether or not the armed services are worth pursuing. You may have a duty to protect others. Sure, step in if someone is about to jump off a cliff, but the armed services is not a cliff.

For the alternative point of view, click here.