10.02.2002

 

HOLY FREAKIN' SHIT. I am a featured link on my blogging hero's busblog. When I first learned that my blog had come to the attention of one Mr. Tony Pierce, I felt excited and privileged. That I am getting a little extra recognition from him directly on his site is a honor larger than I could have ever expected. So wow. I'm pleasantly stunned. And if for some reason you read this page but you don't read the busblog, change your ways. Tony is a great artist and has his finger on the pulse of a very modern and young audience who is going to bring out some stunning ideas in the next few years, and he manages to express what a lot of us are thinking in ways a hundred times better than the methods any of us ever could ever muster.

InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds started talking about a theme I brought up a few weeks ago involving military recruitment on college campuses. He directs us to an article in the Yale newspaper. This issue has become especially polarized at many law schools, which have specifically banned military recruiters from using law school facilities. Law schools tend to be very concerned with ethics, and based on that and widely spread policies of non-discrimination, they've claimed that the military's don't ask don't tell policy is discriminatory, and have used this claim to justify their barring recruiters from using law school facilities.

As I said earlier, I think the don't ask don't tell policy sucks ass, and I think the military needs to change it. But I believe that the military should have the opportunity to use all the recruitment tools it can. Thankfully, with the increase in interest in military service over the last year, the services (and especially the JAG corps) are starting to receive interest from extremely bright students. But I've said this before, so I'll just leave it at that.

One of the reasons this issue is salient for me is that I am planning (and hoping they'll take me) to join JAG when I finish law school in a few years. Most of my friends think I'm nuts, that I'm throwing my intelligence and talents away on a career that will not maximize my money-making potential, etc. Yeah, I have the ability and the charisma to find a job that would pay me in the six figures right out of school. And that ability to go diving whenever I wanted, at least financially, does sound pretty appealing. But money is not everything, obviously.

At times the idea of being in uniform scares the bejeesus out of me. I don't think a lot of people could see me as an officer. And I have moments when I share the opinion. It would be a large commitment, and I have well-documented commitment issues. These are issues I have to work out with myself.

The larger issue that troubles me though is the stigma a lot of people attach to military service, like it's for people who do not do well in school or have very distinct goals like aviation or something like that. Remember those friends of yours who had fatigues when they were seven and played war games on their computers all the time? These are the people who are supposed to make up the armed forces, not the highly educated and articulate. And if these people do go into the service, some of their peers think, "what a waste" or something else of the like. Then they remember to nod their heads in agreement when the Jon Miller and Joe Morgan thank all those serving and making sacrifices in the middle of a baseball telecast and forget about it ten seconds later.

I don't want to try and pass too much judgment on this opinion, because I held it for a long time, even at times when I wanted to join the armed services in the past. Regardless, while no one wants to think of terrorism and all its results on our nation as a good thing, I think a new-found respect for those who do want to take the time and the effort to serve is a silver lining underlying the dust that billowed up when the Twin Towers came down.

Anyway, I'm proud of my plan and I'm very eager to get to the point where I can begin the application process. And I'm glad I've met a number of people in the last few months who share my opinion, even if they'd never think about serving themselves.

Now if Rummy and W would just figure out that they're not playing a game of Risk and come back to reality, things would be good. And there's that pesky don't ask don't tell thing too. That needs work.