a friend of the family has just been released from her commitment to the marines -- she made it through most of boot camp but eventually decided this path was not for her. the letters she and i wrote -- the first time she and i had ever corresponded with one another in all our years of knowing each other -- were the pieces of writing that largely motivated me to start this blog; i had hoped to publish excerpts from our letters as a conversation on the arguments for and against military service in the U.S. that may still happen one day.
in her most recent letter, she answers a question i had asked about access to news media: zero access to media outside of the light fare magazines that recruits receive in care packages and share with one another -- cosmo, people, ok, etc. -- and a tv on which they watch fox news from time to time.
wouldn't it make sense to educate and expose soldiers in training to the world events with which they soon will be directly involved as`instruments of our foreign policy?
i understand it's boot camp and you're isolating recruits as a means of reinforcing their focus on the training alone, but come on. given our armed forces' recent track record of insensitivity to and, often enough, criminal targeting of the cultures and people among whom we're waging war and campaigning for alliances, you'd think a baseline priority would be trying to graduate better educated, more worldly soldiers.
so glad she's getting out.
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