Reply #17: heres the pensacola news journal article on the marines in schools in 99

[Demockery101]

Heres the Pensacola review journal article in its entireity, to bad they don't even archive their own stories, but fortunately places like infowars does, so you can spout whatever bullshit you want about infowars, but at least they archive news articles in their entiriety.

By Jenny LaCoste

News Journal staff writer

The sleepy atmosphere that precedes first period was broken at Hobbs Middle School on Thursday morning by the sound of Marines, Navy and Coast Guard pilots marching through the school's halls.

While sixth-graders in Lynnette Whitfield's geography class were watching CNN reports on NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia, they heard a voice bark over the intercom: "Military personnel, take your classrooms."

The mock "takeover" of Hobbs Middle School by pilots and flight students from Whiting Field was a way to illustrate what martial law is all about, said Lt. Troy Beshears, a Coast Guard pilot assigned to Whiting Field Naval Air Station.

But once the sailors and Marines were in the classrooms, their mission was to teach for a day subjects such as math, science, history, and geography and give teachers a break.

"We're going for shock value initially," said Navy Lt. Dan Deutermann, 29. "but in the classrooms we're showing the students practical applications of what they're learning."

Some students brought up questions about the Kosovo situation.

Seventh-grader Cory Keelan selected Yugoslavia when a Navy ensign teaching geography asked students to name their favorite European country.

"I just like the name of it. It sounds cool," said Cory, 13. "I've been hearing it a lot lately."

Whitfield said her class knows more about Yugoslavia than just the name. Her students have been learning geography of the area, the history of the ethnic groups involved in the fighting that has killed more than 2,000 people in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo and keeping tabs on the current NATO air assault on Yugoslavia.

"Some of my students still don't really have a grasp on the situation, but others do because they talk about it with their parents," she said.

One of Whitfield's students, Julie McCool, said the presence of the military personel in her school made the news she had been watching from Yugoslavia seem a little more real.

"I just don't want it to get much worse," said Julie, 12.

Navy Ensign Kelly Robbins taught a class on geography, charting a Pacific cruise he took on an aircraft carrier and talking about his ports of call.

While an enlisted sailor working in intelligence, Robbins said he had to brief admirals, senators and Secratary of State Madeleine Albright, but middle schoolers made him nervous.

"At least with them, I knew what questions to anticipate," said Robbins, 27. "With kids, you're not sure what they might ask."

Besides giving students insight into places like Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore, Robbins gave the kids an idea of what it's like to be in the military.

He spent his first Christmas as a sailor in Hong Kong.

"You don't get to come home for Christmas?' Cory Keelan asked Robbins.

"No' not when you're on a ship," Robbins said.

"Did you get Christmas dinner?" Corey, 13, pressed.

Besides geography, flight students taught physiology, explaining how night goggles work with the human eye, aerodynamics and geometry.

"Kids don't realize that there are freeways in the sky and we have to use geometry to figure out our couse when we fly," said Beshears. "We're just showing them that the skills they're learning now are applicable in life."

The visit is part of the Whiting Field Adopt-A-School program coordinated by Beshears. Every instructor and flight student paricipating volunteered to take part.

Last year, students from Hobbs and another school communicated via e-mail with a Coast Guard lieutenant on a cruise bound for the South Pole and had a video teleconference with their frind once she got there.



I even when so far as to call the pennsacola news journal 850-435-8500 , just now and ask if jenny lacoste was a staff write, and she was at the time this was written, so put that in your fucking pipe and smoke it, lazy ass mother fucker


forum threads from that time not connected to info wars
Please see :www.infowars.com It seems the Marines are preparing our children for Martial Law.

-- Betty Alice ([e-mail]), April 08, 1999

Answers

This is a story about how several branches of the military were giving Pensacola teachers a break by taking classes for one day in all sorts of subjects--including geography. Sweetie was in the Navy and they've been volunteering for such projects for years. He did a similar thing for the Boy Scouts and the 4-H Club. It's valuable because service people have often been to places the kids are studying. The only thing different here is that the kids were learning about Kosovo. They would have known in advance that the military folks were coming in to teach them and so were not afraid to hear the PA announcing they were taking the classrooms. The military folks marched in to give the kids an idea of what had happened in some schools in Kosovo, not to get them used to martial law here. I'm not saying martial law won't be imposed here if there are civil disorder problems, but let's not stretch an innocent incident so far.

-- Old Git ([e-mail]), April 08, 1999.

Looks like Betty and I posted at the same time - ooops.

OldGit, I respectfully disagree with you on this one. Far from being an "innocent incident", this is part and parcel of the indoctrination and brainwashing that is being force-fed our children who attend public school. The fact that these kids were supposedly being given a new slant on current events is hogwash, as far as I'm concerned. Look at this quote:

"The mock "takeover" of Hobbs Middle School by pilots and flight students from Whiting Field was a way to illustrate what martial law is all about, said Lt. Troy Beshears, a Coast Guard pilot assigned to Whiting Field Naval Air Station

What's left to understand? Seems pretty straightforward to me... "Hey, kids, it's just martial law, we'll have a question and answer period, then have cookies and milk."

Bulls**t.

-- sparks ([e-mail]), April 08, 1999.

This is no more "innocent" than the harmless Red Square May Day parades or Nuremburg rallies: military displays of any kind ALWAYS have an ulterior psych war purpose.

-- Himalayan Blue (hb@k2.y), April 08, 1999.

Sparks & Betty,

I think you've got this one wrong. It was a "psy-op" alright, but not for the reason that you concluded. It was, as the "Coastie" said, to teach the "kids" about martial law.

It seems far more likely to me that the intent was to indocrinate the "kids" with the belief that what the Serbs are supposedly doing is "martial law" and to "scare them a little" so that they come out of the experience with the idea that, "Our President is a good man. He is helping those people that the "bad" military Serbs are "taking over". It might even have been intended to foster that belief in the minds of the military! Egad! What a thought! Could the real "kids" have been the "teachers"?

As you may have noted, I'm of the conclusion that martial law in the U.S. is simply not in the cards, and as such, "prepping" the kiddos for it would be pointless.

In any case, whether you're right or I am (or neither), it was, at best, an ill advised stunt. The kids' own teacher should have made a simple introduction and the reporter should have selected a word other than "bark" and should not have given the impression of marching troops in school hallways. Old Git is right, P'cola has been doing this for a long time and a lot of those kids are most likely "military brats" anyway and know all about "martial law".

If you simply do not trust our armed forces, you are indeed in a bad place.

And, as long as I'm talking about "psy-ops", let me add that the title chosen for this thread was more than a little misleading. It conjures up images of bayonet wielding combat Marines assualting a children's school. The actual fact is that a group of student pilots fomr the Navy and Coast Guard as well as the Marines, taught school some and did a military "show and tell" for the kids of the community that they live in.

You guys watch too much TV!

-- Hardliner ([e-mail]), April 08, 1999.

Hardliner, you can read my response here:

[e-mail]), April 08, 1999.