Very interesting! I kept wondering what happened to the role of the US military in helping poor kids get educated/job ready. I know joining the military is basically signing up for indenture, but the armed forces seem pretty good at figuring out an individual’s skill set and developing lots of transferable skills, including discipline and effective communication. It seems like that would be a better path than prison, which Robert Cherry seemed to see the job training benefits of. It makes me feel so sad that as a society, prison is the best we can do for our young men. I hope that isn’t actually true.
Too many young men aren’t fit even for the military by the time they are of age. Discipline and integrity need to be trained much earlier. But, yes it is a great option for many young people. I wouldn’t characterize it as being indentured; it is an opportunity to serve.
I was just acknowledging that joining the military means giving up (temporarily) a lot of freedom. You don’t choose what you do, where you live, how you dress, if you take vaccines, etc. in the grand scheme of things, this loss of liberty seems to help young men grow up. My father and one of my cousins paid for college with ROTC and made their current comfort possible. On the other hand, a cousin’s husband was assigned to the burn pits in the Middle East and that didn’t work out so well for him.
Very interesting! I kept wondering what happened to the role of the US military in helping poor kids get educated/job ready. I know joining the military is basically signing up for indenture, but the armed forces seem pretty good at figuring out an individual’s skill set and developing lots of transferable skills, including discipline and effective communication. It seems like that would be a better path than prison, which Robert Cherry seemed to see the job training benefits of. It makes me feel so sad that as a society, prison is the best we can do for our young men. I hope that isn’t actually true.
Too many young men aren’t fit even for the military by the time they are of age. Discipline and integrity need to be trained much earlier. But, yes it is a great option for many young people. I wouldn’t characterize it as being indentured; it is an opportunity to serve.
I was just acknowledging that joining the military means giving up (temporarily) a lot of freedom. You don’t choose what you do, where you live, how you dress, if you take vaccines, etc. in the grand scheme of things, this loss of liberty seems to help young men grow up. My father and one of my cousins paid for college with ROTC and made their current comfort possible. On the other hand, a cousin’s husband was assigned to the burn pits in the Middle East and that didn’t work out so well for him.