Is it moral to require young people to kill for a college degree?

[SoCalDem]

It seems to me that the BIG CARROT at the end of the sharp stick is the college education.

Our military recruiters are relentless when they are "selling" a military enlistment to a young person.

What they are really doing is telling a young person who was born into a family without the means to send him or her to college, that if they will kill for Uncle Sam, he will pay for their degree later..

Do young people wiegh the options, or are they really that desperate ?? The options for lots are few.. $7 an hr and holed up in Mom's basement well into their twenties, or sharing a crappy apartment with people who will probably steal their stuff...or marrying/moving in together and having a few kids they will barely be able to support.. Kind of a bleak future for the high school-and-no-college graduate.

Rich kids never have to make the choice.. From about age 8, they "know" they will be going to the college of their choice...whether they study hard or not...


Our own young soldiers have become mercenaries, though circumstance of birth..

As evil as it was, the draft was better..the ones who weaseled out of service were almost always "outed", and felt the shame..and the ones who went , did so under penalty of law enforcement...or they did it because it was their shared duty..

The "volunteer" military, is discrimitory, in that the ones who are nudged into it, are doing so because they are financially overburdened, and undereducated..

[Deja Q]

1. Given that there are no good jobs, with more being shipped out every day,

our country is not even a service industry anymore.

It's being morphed into a military industry.

:think: :tinfoilhat:

[Union Thug]

2. Poverty Draft is never moral...

A much more logical approach to 'the draft' would be to force rich kids to fight because they and their families have a far greater interest in maintaining the status quo than we working class stiffs.

But my favorite answer is simply this... higher education should be universally accessible to all americans, regardless of age, class, etc. College and vocational training should be publically funded for EVERYONE.

[SoCalDem]

3. Educational Marshall Plan.. I said it here last night.:)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1694151&mesg_id=1694151

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Free public education pre-k through college means no G.I.Bill, and

the drop-off in military enlistments would show that we have indeed had a draft all these years.

[lastknowngood]

5. There's nothing moral about war or anything that promotes it

n/t

[x-g.o.p.er]

6. Sorry, your question is bogus...

No one is forced to enlist just to get money for college. There are many options available to those with limited incomes that want to go to school--student loans, grants, academic or athletic scholarships, or working a job while going to school part time, and those are only the tip of the iceberg. It isn't easy, but it can be done.

The reasons for entering military service are many. Some go in for the GI Bill, some go in because they can get paid while learning a job skill they can apply to the civilian world, many serve because they feel it's their patriotic duty.

[LondonAmerican]

7. I agree entirely

Nobody is forced to join the Army or any other branch of the armed services.