Hmm, maybe it was just coinsidence that it became a headline today. You have won this round.

Sure, joining the military is an easy way out of the getto for a kid who wants to start an honest living considering college is not an easy option. Especially if that kid didnt get much of an education to begin with. (see american education system) OOoooor he could just get to slingin'dope for easy money.

Yes, it's a volunteer army, in the sense there are no legal repercussions for not joining. However, if this country had socialized college, do you really expect the numbers to stay the same?

The reason these kids don't want to enlist, truly, is because they, on some level, think they're better than the army's soldiers. They think they have no reason to go because of their money and education. For a little fun, drive around a gated community and ask families if their kids are going off to war. Or ask anyone with a really big and nice brand new SUV with a yellow magnet on the back if they have any of their kids in the army.

You guys bring up a few points here that I think deserve some attention and clarification. I’ll get to your point, f2k, regarding the nature of our volunteer military. But first, I want to speak to the rather offensive notion that every soldier, sailor, marine, and airman is some sort of a refugee from poverty and social neglect. It’s certainly an elitist notion, and possibly a racist one, depending on what definition of “getto” [sic] you had in mind, meat. My point is that I grew up in a great neighborhood, and was raised by a family that wouldn’t have had too much trouble paying for college, and yet I was not any sort of rarity in the Army when I enlisted back in ‘99. What’s more, after 9/11, even more young men and women poured into the military not because they needed to, but because they simply wanted to feel like they were doing their part. We called them “9/11 recruits,” and were astonished at how their intrinsic motivation drove them harder than any promise of college money ever could. And that’s where I want to get to your point, f2k; what it means to volunteer. Yes, every one of us volunteered to serve. However, if you signed up with some glamorous image in your head of battle when you enlisted, but got disillusioned the first time you saw white phosphorus burning a hole in some local kid’s arm, you can’t exactly just get on a plane that evening and head home. Recruiters don’t just sell some idea called ‘service;’ they sell commitment time, measured in years. But what about those of us who stayed past their initial enlistments? Like the 9/11 recruits, we want to feel like we are doing our part. Having been out of the Army for only a few months now, I still feel uneasy knowing men and women I know and respect are over there—or are even just training to go over there—and I’m not. The point here is that the military is full dedicated men and women who will go where they’re told, this is true. But that kind of commitment and discipline demands that we as citizens won’t stand to see their dedication, not to mention their very lives, ever wasted on an unjust or senseless war. The fact that they volunteered doesn’t absolve us from any responsibility to check, limit, and question how our leaders employ them; it makes our burden as citizens even greater.

Everyone please quiet down! Poonhound is going to speak!

While I have a poor opinion of most of the college republicans that I have met, I agree. You can support the war even if you don't agree to participate in it. This is reminiscent of Fahrenheit 9/11, where Michael Moore harasses congressmen about whether or not they would send their children to fight.

I wouldn't be surprised if the intelligent responses were edited out of the final cut, as well. I don't really get the interpretive dance bit, either.

What ever happened to standing up for your country? Fighting for the land that raised you? Oh, well, it seems the only way the army can get folks to "stand up for the country" is to offer college funding.

and

whats telling you the same thing would happen at a democrat convention? Take your camera and go to town. see if you can get the same results.

PIE.

Sheep will be sheep, regardless what pen they are found in.

Perfectly Valid Question...the responses on the other hand: spoken like true politicians, Rep or Dem...he asks a question and they avoid the answer by making excuses about their physical limitations as if its all out of their control and thus absolves them of responsibility and just plain old Giving A Straight Answer- unforseen line of questioning or not... no unforseen events in WAR? no unforseen events in POLITICS? u kidding me? If you dont want to serve just effing say it! dont try to save face cause you end up looking like a chickenhawk in incubation and more than a little insincere to boot...(course you cant wear a nice suit and drive a mercedes and stuff your face in hotels in Iraq)...

"That question was unfair!" BULLSHIT...deal with it...life isnt fair...the Reps in power have had a free ride (from a good portion of the media) these past few years not to mention this administration had the audacity to question the validity of the media and disclosure to its citizens in a so called time of war... as if doubt and questioning grow hand in hand with failure...and these kids are learning no valuable lessons by avoiding opposition and doubt becasue its deemed unfair or unexpected, I mean think about what you are saying there! they are actively involved in this issue...to advocate, to support, to sustain, does this not make you complicit?...take off the kid gloves...



I think we need intelligent open minded ethical quick/fluid thinking individuals at the reins of power, not dull pampered entiltled "opinionated (i use that term loosely)" misfits in suits...

Ask any and all questions within reason...a little more disclosure from those in power and those who desire power would be a good thing...unless they have something hide...(we hear a similar argument about cameras and surveillance in public spaces all the time...)

In the students defense they didnt have Tony Snow there to play defence and obsfucation...

and I didnt hear many opinions there, just republican talking points, and the dem students probly mouth the dem talking points just as awkwardly (tell us something we didnt know!)- so I fail to see your point and how it absolves these blinkered war supporters from anwering on that one...and if a democrat was in office this video might be a little irrelevant but we all know where Bush is coming from and who/what these children seem inspired by and towards...and dont get me started on the shining example Mr Bushs military and scholastic record is for these students...and I use that last term loosely...cause they seem more concerned with Belief before Knowledge...

(and that crack about Rep students being akin to special forces in Iraq! I nearly lost my beverage on the keyboard...)

(can you explain your last paragraph to me? cause I dont get the reasoning...)