Corps works to boost image among teachers

[unhappycamper]

Corps works to boost image among teachers
By Lauren Gregory - Chattanooga Times Free Press
Posted : Saturday Feb 14, 2009 13:50:58 EST

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Wilder Lee always advised his students against joining the Marine Corps.

“They’re just moving targets,” the Memphis high school teacher said as he waited to board an airplane that would take him to see the “targets” up close at Parris Island, S.C., the Corps’ East Coast training facility.

Lee was among about 80 people invited on an all-expenses-paid, four-day trip to Parris Island in January as part of the Marine Corps’ Educators’ Workshop program. The program runs weekly from January through May, rotating through educators from different geographic districts across the country. Lee’s group represented schools under the Nashville and Montgomery, Ala., recruiting stations.

Recruiters specifically chose Lee and others with similar opinions about the Marine Corps in an effort to show them some stereotypes about Marines aren’t accurate.

In a culture where knowledge of the Marine Corps is encapsulated in the 1987 film “Full Metal Jacket” — with boot camp scenes framed by profanity and violence — the Marines hope to get the message across that they don’t brutalize recruits.


Rest of article at: http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/02/ap_marines_selling_teachers_021409/%2e