I just realized that in all my emotional upset this May, I didn't think to blog about what was bothering me. I'm really upset that one of my former students has decided to join the Marines. He's a really nice person as far a I could tell and he will never be the same again because of this monumental decision he has made to pay for his education by joining perhaps the worst of our armed forces. I know he has always worshipped order and routine in some ways and he used to say that he wanted to be a prince but that was silly kid stuff and also him trying to deal with a hard home life. His mother is depressed and they have tons of money troubles but how awful is that to decide to escape it all by joining our murderous forces. I'm just terrified for him. He will truly never be the same again. So many local kids have already gone and either never come back or returned mentally scarred (the July 4th fireworks isn't helping anyone's PTSD, that's for sure) and physically disabled. The latest to return came back with literally no feet. I just wanted to talk him out of it and I'm sure he would have listened - he basically had had noone to talk to when I wasn't there - but he had already sworn in by the time I showed up for his graduation. I've cried and wanted to cry some more. This is all so unjust. They are truly taking some of our best and brightest and twisting them into their contorted molds. Chris got duped, like so many young people, and now there's nothing I can do about it. I've never felt more like I failed a student. History: He was a student at the first school I taught at (an awful elitist boarding school). Said school has gone only further down the tubes since I left. Everyone said I was lucky to have left after the first year.
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5 comments:
oh, ac--
so sorry about your student.
he is trying to escape an awful past by running into a horrible future.
I want to cry--and I never even met him. but, knowing someone who knows someone who got taken in brings it that much closer home.
Thanks Two Crows. I needed that...someone to understand how completely terrible this is. It only goes to show (though I already knew this) that the people they are sending over are just ordinary kids who, as corporate advertisers well know, are extremely gullible. It further demonstrates that the line in the mud between the good and the bad is not always so clear, despite what we are led to believe by the current rhetoric.
Actually, I could easily have gone the same route myself. When I was a kid, I also loved the facade of discipline/order, power, and a great uniform. My grandfather was in the marines and my aunt paid for her medical school bills by joining the army and rising through the ranks. Thank God I didn't get sucked in though.
hey, again--
the recruitment ads on tv today speak directly to the most vulnerable among us-- the idealists and the children.
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recently, on 60 minutes, such children were interviewed. they still believed they're being asked to go to Iraq to preserve freedom here.
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it's so sad to realize who they'll be when [if] they return home-- after a crash course in cynicism.
True. The official recruitment ads and also the not so official ones like Hollywood movies such as An Officer and a Gentlemen (or that Tom Cruise movie) both make the military look damn good. Like they are the good guys, the strong guys...protecting the weak.
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