(C) Common Dreams
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Thousands of Teens Are Being Pushed Into Military’s Junior R.O.T.C. [1]
['Mike Baker', 'Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs', 'Ilana Marcus']
Date: 2022-12-11
“I am the future of the United States of America,” the cadets said in unison.
In a school where every student qualifies for free lunch and the allure of drugs and gangs is a constant concern, South Atlanta’s longtime principal, Patricia Ford, decided several years ago to have all freshmen start in J.R.O.T.C. It was a change inspired by her brother, she said. J.R.O.T.C. had shaped him into a leader and set him on a pathway to a successful career in the U.S. Navy.
The school is less strict about enrollment than others around the country, allowing students to drop the class after they have taken some time to try it. Several cadets said they had initially resisted their placement in the program, wary of the uniforms or the intensity of the instructors, but had grown to love it. One freshman said she attempted to drop the class this year, got yelled at for trying and now says she is glad she stayed.
Several of the cadets spoke about how instructors had helped them mature into better people and pressed them to get better grades in all of their classes. Half of the students gathered on a recent morning indicated that they were considering a future in the military.
Parents, Dr. Ford said, have welcomed the class with little objection.
But in some cases, parents who discovered that their children had been enrolled in military-sponsored training have struggled to pull them out of the classes.
Mr. Mejia, whose daughter was put against her will into a class in Fort Myers, met with a series of school officials while trying to get his daughter out. He said he supported the military — his sister is in the Navy — but was outraged that his daughter was being forced into the program.
The school let his daughter out of the class, he said, only after he complained that an instructor had grabbed her by the shoulders during an exercise, an incident school officials did not dispute when they noted in a response to The Times that they had ultimately allowed the girl to drop the class.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/us/jrotc-schools-mandatory-automatic-enrollment.html
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