I responded to this article last week, and an edited version of it has now appeared on their website, and I would assume in the latest issue of the magazine. My apologies if I made any mistakes in the response:
FAST TIMES AT MACHINE GUN HIGH
STRETCHED ARMED FORCES QUIETLY LURE HIGH-SCHOOLERS WITH PROMISE OF CREDITS AND CASH
The first of many fallacies in this article. Our recruiting drive is hardly a secret, and with the increasing number of TV and radio commercials there is nothing “quiet” about it. Beyond that, I would think that our newest soldiers are joining for more than simply high school credits and money.
After MPs narrowly voted last week to extend our military mission in Afghanistan for another two years, most Canadians are still wondering how we morphed from UN-supporting peacekeepers into counter-insurgency killers of "scumbags" to borrow General Rick Hillier's delicate phrase.
The UN supports the Afghan mission, as does NATO. Peacekeeping is well and good when there is actual peace to keep. For the moment, we must first stabilise the region, which in this case means hunting the Taliban and killing them.
Just before the debate and vote in the House, we learned, sadly, of the death of Captain Nichola Goddard. Watching the news, I was jarred by a small biographical detail: she had joined the army right out of high school. That made me think of the large military recruitment poster I'd seen recently in the guidance office at my son's high school.
It bothered me, that poster. It seemed so terribly out of sync with the confusion Canadians are experiencing over this sudden redefinition of our mission in the world. Do we really all agree that the Toronto District School Board should be allowing the military to freshen its far from robust ranks by infiltrating our places of learning?
I would certainly hope that we all agree that the military should be allowed to recruit in schools. The military needs young people who are willing to do something to help those who cannot help themselves. Believe it or not, there are still young people who want an exciting job that allows them to serve their country as well. But perhaps Mr. Cash would suggest a few years of burger-flipping and drug experimentation for high school graduates?
But it isn't just a few posters on guidance office walls. In a drive to expand the forces to fulfill its new, and unexplained, mandate, the Canadian military has partnered with the board to offer a military co-op program.
In both Toronto's public and Catho-lic boards, the plan pays kids to join the reserves, gives them four high school credits and trains them in, among other soldiering arts, machine gun shooting and grenade throwing. For bored and impressionable teenagers, how cool is that? For the 18 kids in the Toronto program, I came to realize dishearteningly, the answer is very cool.
Firing machine guns and throwing grenades are necessary skills for a soldier. Surely this is not a shock to Mr. Cash? I suppose he would prefer we were armed with food stamps and positive reinforcement.
Whether a military career is like any other is certainly open for debate. The problem is that there hasn't been one and some trustees want to know why.
Why does this warrant a debate? The experience can only be positive, especially considering going overseas for reservists is completely voluntary.
***
The atmosphere in the classroom at Moss Park Armoury, which, on the day I attend features a review of the C6 General Purpose Machine gun, is certainly not what you'd find walking into your local high school. Sitting erect in army fatigues and polished boots, each student/soldier has a beret neatly folded at the top left corner of their desk and a water canteen at the top right. All eyes are on the similarly clad and erect instructor at the front. There is a focus in the room a high school math teacher could only dream of. As I watch from the back, I find I'm sitting up straighter myself and writing my notes neater.
After the class goes through a long list of what to check for if your C6 malfunctions on the battlefield, the real guns are toted in and eagerly set up on the floor. This is complex equipment. I've never been this close to a machine gun, never seen how one comes apart, where the bullets go, and I realize my heart is pounding. This is exciting stuff.
Four students at a time lie belly down at their guns while four others time them on specific load, shoot and unload drills using dummy shells as ammunition. "Careful," yells the instructor as one kid gets up on his hands and knees to fix a jammed gun. "You do that on the battlefield and you're dead." There are a few chuckles. After all, the gleaming floor they're lying on is pretty far from a firefight with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"I'd recommend this in a heartbeat," Private Daniel McLean tells me at lunch break. I can understand why. Instead of wasting away in a tedious classroom learning how to chart graphs, these kids are actually doing physically and mentally challenging grown-up work.
The camaraderie for which military culture is famous is also on display. McLean is a grade 12 student at Mon-arch Park Collegiate, and while he talks to me, others hold two of the heavy C6s aloft at once, posing Rambo-style while their buddies snap photos with their cellphone cameras.
"This program is the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life, both emotionally and physically," he says. "I was going to go through the carpentry co-op program, but my co-op teacher at school suggested I check this out. I didn't join up for the money."
But the money isn't insignificant for a high school student: $77 a day for four days a week from mid-February to mid-June. A dental and health plan is also thrown in, and if the students decide to stay on at the end of the course they can sign on for a paid summer training program that starts conveniently soon after the co-op ends.
The military will also kick in up to 2 grand a year for post-secondary education. This beats part-time at Burger King. While both Toronto school boards have a few other paid co-op programs, the military co-op offers the best inducements.
Someone who is doing a 4-month co-op does not receive these benefits. You must have more than 4 months of service to receive dental and health benefits, and the post-secondary reimbursement is a tad more complex than Mr. Cash makes it appear.
"There is a lot of competition in To-ronto, so we have fewer kids in the program here than in other jurisdictions," says Sergeant Matthew Charlesworth, reserve recruiter for the 32 Brigade Battle School, the unit that runs the Toronto co-op program. "Military co-op is really good for us, since it adds another entry program."
The military says Canadian reservists cannot be ordered into battle zones, as the U.S. is doing with its reservists in Iraq, but Private Jose Perez, a student at St. Patrick's Catholic Secondary School, is itching to go. "When I turn 18 I want to do a tour of Afghanistan," he says. "This is a really good career opportunity, and I plan to join the regular army."
The school board seems to think it's not a bad plan either. "We look at this program from the perspective of giving students the information they need to make informed decisions about their future. And for some this is an excellent future," says TDSB co-op program coordinator Jackie Drew.
But many trustees don't even know about the program, and when they are informed they express great surprise. That's the case with Toronto-Danforth trustee Rick Telfer. "I don't think there should be a military presence of any kind in our schools," he tells me. "It isn't only this co-op program. I am hearing anecdotally that there's a stepped-up presence by the military generally in schools, and I think this is alarming."
Where does Mr. Telfer think the military is going to recruit? What is so “alarming” about this? We need soldiers, and people entering the work force are the natural place to look. He sounds like a typical anti-military left-winger however, so I will refrain from further comment.
Catholic board trustee Angela Kennedy from East York was equally in the dark. "There was nothing ever mentioned that I know about," she says.
TDSB brass say a mention of the military co-op was tucked into a report about at-risk youth presented to the trustees last June. By then, the decision to go forward with the program had already been made by staff. Telfer has served a motion to the TDSB requesting that staff provide a report on the nature of the program so trustees have a chance to scrutinize it.
This would certainly be a good start. The crisp military brochures most guidance offices make available to students talk up the career aspects of the military while conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room: the fact that a soldier is trained to kill and die on command. Do we really want a merging of public education and military objectives when it appears we have no national consensus on our new U.S.-inspired war aims.
Our soldiers are trained to kill those who are a danger to civilians or other soldiers. They are trained to kill the enemy, who in this case are terrorists and members of an oppressive government. No soldier is trained to die on command; rather the soldier recognizes and accepts death as a possibility. Our soldiers are not Samurai or Spartans.
"What are recruiters telling students?" asks Michael Byers, international politics prof at the University of British Columbia, who remembers teaching at Duke University in the U.S. in the 90s when no military presence was allowed on campus.
"Are they being sold a benevolent Captain Canada only to find that they are being shot at and shooting people? Is our military for humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping or is it an adjunct force to the [U.S.] 82nd Airborne?" he asks.
Canada made a name for itself in the world because of its superb soldiers, not its peacekeeping abilities. Canada wasn’t even recognized as a nation until Vimy Ridge. From World War I through to Korea, Canadians fought and died for freedom. Canada had a reputation for having some of the best fighting men in the world. This appearance of blue-hat wearing humanitarians, passing out food stamps and walking old women across the street is an image contrived by the Liberals. They are not peacekeepers, they are soldiers. Peacekeeping is a tasking. The 82nd Airborne is also one of the most celebrated units in modern military history. If not for them, among others, we could very well be speaking German. Show some respect for those who bleed for you.
Non-violence trainer and writer Len Desroches says all the talk about school boards merely offering career options just doesn't wash, because young people aren't being allowed to make fully informed choices.
Schools, he points out, don't teach the history and practice of non-violence and don't partner with organizations dedicated to non-military solutions.
"By presenting kids with other options, like Peaceforce Canada, Peace Brigades International or Christian Peacemaker Teams, educators would move us toward a healthier learning system."
How anyone can be so disillusioned is beyond me. Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists don’t want a hug and a pat on the back, they want the destruction of western civilization. Violence is sometimes necessary, as Peaceforce and others fail to understand. We have to stop them before they fly any more planes into our buildings. Unfortunately, I suspect people won’t understand this until Parliament Hill is a smoking ruin.
While the military presence in Toronto high schools flies under the radar, teachers, parents and trustees in Windsor have pushed for a debate on the issue. Students and teachers at Robert F. Hall Catholic Secondary School in Caledon are waging a campaign to rid their school of its military presence altogether.
"The military operates through secrecy, power and domination, and students are asking why we've got them recruiting in a Catholic high school," says religion teacher Gary Connolly. "The military isn't the solution, yet we try to pawn it off on youth who are susceptible and economically vulnerable. Besides, the kids are too young. Let them be 19 or 20 before you start going after them."
Secrecy? Domination? Who is he trying to kid? The military is very open about its intentions, and merely informs students about their options. No one is being forced to join, so where is the problem? I also fail to understand what the school in question being Catholic has to do with anything. Catholicism is not a pacifist religion and does indeed recognize that war is sometimes necessary. It would appear that Mr. Connolly is teaching his students heresy.
Military service instils in people good character, self-discipline, and a moral centre. Surely no one can object to this. Those who believe soldiers are brainwashed killers have no idea what they are talking about, and need to get informed before shooting their mouths off.
This is what they have put in their Letters section:
Flip burgers or go to war
Fast times at machine gun high (NOW, May 25-31) is full of fallacies. The armed forces recruiting drive uses TV and radio commercials and is hardly "quiet." Our newest soldiers are joining for more than simply high school credits and money. The military should be allowed to recruit in schools. It needs young people who are willing to do something to help those who cannot help themselves. Believe it or not, there are still young people who want an exciting job that allows them to serve their country as well.
Perhaps Andrew Cash would suggest a few years of burger-flipping and drug experimentation? I suppose he'd prefer we were armed with food stamps and positive reinforcement.
Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists don't want a hug and a pat on the back. They want to destroy Western civilization. Violence is sometimes necessary. We have to stop them before they fly any more planes into our buildings. Unfortunately, I suspect people won't understand this until Parliament Hill is a smoking ruin
) Just places that groom pets, grow flowers, teach yoga, cut hair, make pottery and other similar occupations. Gee, I thought I had "volunteered" for the military in 1989. 
