In ‘sleeping on it,’ I find myself increasingly bugged by the goarmy.com page whose ending is /hslda. I address my concerns at my own blog.
I would say that the homeschoolers I’ve met are patriotic people. My sample is skewed because most homeschoolers I’ve met ’in real life’ were of the military persuasion. But still, in my online dealings with homeschoolers I find that they invariably care about our country. Online, I’ve met no political anarchists who are out to destroy the government, nor any anti-American people who have hate on their minds. Whether Democrat or Republican, but more usually Independent, the people I’ve emailed have been deeply concerned about how our country works.
I can’t say, though, that the majority of the people I’ve ‘e-met’ have, as a group, been of the ‘military persuasion,’ but then again, few of the people that I’ve met since my husband’s retirement from both active duty with the Army, and as an Army civilian followed by our subsequent return to America (leaving aside the Greatest Generation at my mom’s retirement village), have been of the ‘military persuasion.’ The ‘homeschoolers’ I’ve met online seem to be of similar political makeup as the local ’civilians.’
So where does this close affiliation between the goarmy website and HSLDA come in? Why is HSLDA pushing homeschooled kids towards military service? (see:  The Military-HSLDA Complex and our Freedoms, Mar/Apr 2000; blog entry of the same name at hr3753.blogspot.com) I don’t think my own parents, a 30-year Army/Air Force enlisted & officer servicemember, and a WWII WAC, were as enthusiastic about military service as are HSLDA, and my folks are ’3 for 3′ as far as recruiting efforts go because my brother, sister and I all enlisted.
In all my years ‘with the military’ (birth to age 49) I’ve not seen an organization specifically work with a service to encourage the young people associated with that organization to join up.  I know there were never any organized recruiting efforts at any installation where I lived.  But maybe I’ve been on the ‘wrong side’ of the fence all along for seeing this sort of thing? Maybe a view from within the military is the wrong place to be looking for specific associations? Has anyone else seen this kind of partnership?  Do American social, political or educational civilian groups embark on recruiting campaigns for one of the military services? If so, the comments section of this message is available. I’d like to hear about it, and what those campaigns looked like.
HEM
Helen
Tracy
mark
marynix
ann-lahrson-fisher
valerie
sandi
david
I went to public highschool, and we were required to attend military recruitment assemblies in which the military recruitment officer would try to scare us into joining. His reasoning was this (1993 or so): If the draft is reinstated, you’ll be eligible until you’re 35. The odds are that the U.S. will be involved in a major war before you turn 35 and reinstate the draft. If you don’t join now, you’ll be drafted and stuck on the front line in that war and probably die. Isn’t it better to join now so when that war comes you won’t be on the front line?
Seems to me that what the HSLDA is proposing is in no way worse than what happens at public schools. I was called by recruiters relentlessly for 3 years of high school, yet I never enlisted and I wasn’t a free-thinking homeschool student.
That’s funny. Other than taking the ASVAB, I don’t recall ever seeing any kind of military enlistment materials (and I even went as far as filling out an application to the Air Force Academy). Â
[...] Last October I was very surprised to find that the Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) had put up an information page for homeschooled graduates who were interested in enlisting in the Army. My surprise was because of the page’s URL: http://www.goarmy.com/hslda [...]