USNA69, I can only fill you in on what was going on with it in the news yesterday. The don't ask, don't tell policy ploy doesn't fit with JROTC in my opinion. A news snippet follows my comments. I was both appauled & saddened. I've heard it many times before: JROTC is geared towards kids in poverty, JROTC is a recruiting tool for the military.... Blah, blah, blah. This program kept a good many high schoolers out of trouble and focused on something bigger than themselves. Community service, leadership, classes on ethics & in our case Naval Science, public speaking, ect. Club groups such as orienteering, rifle & drill had the kids in competition which ain't a bad thing. The instructors were military guys who pushed college, babysat kids who didn't come from the best of family life, helped mold them into responsible young people. Sure there were a handful of troubled kids in the 130 cadet unit but from what I saw, this program turned them around & gave them the self confidence they needed to go out into the world. Most who graduated the class did not go into military life. Almost ALL ended up in colleges. And this with help from the instructors there. I witnessed these guys personally calling colleges on some of the kid's behalf. Recruiters were often kept at bay until the kids were old enough to make choices on their own. I'm just so sad that the kids & this program are being used as a political tool.
San Francisco to Boot JROTC Programs
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO — High schools across the city soon will no longer have Junior Reserve Officers'Training Corps programs after officials decided to eliminate them because of the Pentagon's"don't ask, don't tell"policy regarding gay service members.
The Board of Education voted 4-2 late Tuesday to phase out the JROTC from schools over the next two years, despite protest from hundreds of students who rallied outside the meeting.
The resolution passed says the military's ban on openly gay soldiers violates the school district's equal rights policy for gays.
The school district and the military currently share the $1.6 million annual cost of the program. About 1,600 San Francisco students participate in JROTC at seven high schools across the district.
Cadets and instructors who spoke at the meeting and rallied outside argued that the program teaches leadership, organizational skills, personal responsibility and other important values.
"This is where the kids feel safe, the one place they feel safe,"said Robert Powell, a JROTC instructor."You're going to take that away from them?"
Mayor Gavin Newsom called severing ties with the JROTC"a bad idea"that penalized students without having any practical effect on the Pentagon's policy on gays in the military.
"If people want to participate in it and their families want them to participate, I think they have a right to participate without putting them in the political peril of being in this ideological debate,"he said.
Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, has said he didn't know of any other school district having barred JROTC from its campuses.