Of course “education” isn’t the same thing as “intelligence” (if it were grad school be a much nicer place to be in). My experience has involved knowing some really really really, no, really, DUMB military people and some really really, yes, really SMART military people. So my guess would be that the mean’s about the same but the variance is higher, relative to the civilian pop. One oughta control for rank and rank-mobility in this, but as a snap shot in time I believe it’s essentially correct. Let’s face it (I feel like I’m in a seance invoking abb1 here) an effective military needs BOTH thougthless automatons and some really street and (as the War Nerd will tell you) book smart platoon, battalion, company, etc. leaders.

What a country, eh?

A decorated war hero makes a crap joke about the limited career options available to students who don’t study, and the main beneficiary is a deserter turned failed president who killed 2000 troops to save his career?

Sweet.

To clarify, I wasn’t talking about draft vs. enlistment in the 60s, but about 60s draft vs. enlistment today – when there is no draft.

Now I’ll try to shut up.

Uh, yeah, guilty as charged, brucer…I didn’t get your point, but I get it now: John Kerry is “obtuse” for not taking the opportunity presented by his botched joke to initiate a serious national conversation about military recruitment.

As if a serious national conversation about anything were possible in this 3-ring circus of manufactured outrage. As if any of the folks spitting with rage at Kerry would take him seriously. I may be thick, brucer, but I’m not that naive.

Maybe this will be enough to convince abb1 to shut the heck up about irrelevant and distracting trivia and start focusing on the issues at hand.

Jeez, can we just stop talking about the military and focus on more important issues like those goddamn Diebold machines?

Well, Gene, you find my remarks repugnant, uninformed and provincial, yet you seem to acknowledge that to a rational person the draft is something to be feared and to be avoided. So, then, I take it, my conditioning wasn’t entirely unreasonable. If so, why would volunteering (which is really just a slicker form of the same thing) be a rational choice? Don’t confuse me, help me re-educate myself.

Wiki article on counter-recruitment.

“I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended.”

Let it be shown that those people who continue to demand an apology are being unreasonable, and care not about the troops but only about themselves.

And does Michael Ledeen really believe that uttering a stupid remark is a bigger crime than bribing people? Or that purposely delaying a piece of bad news counts as “journalistic ethics”? What? What? What?

Get thee to ethics, you raw meat preclear.

By the time I was at risk, the lottery had been instituted and troop levels were being drawn down. Before that, a diploma was effectively accompanied by a draft notice.

At my (somewhat dubious) high school the typical form was “I send you to Fort Ord” directed at some of the more obvious cutups and space cadets.

As for Derb, he’s a refugee from the Telegraph letters page. And even those crusty old brigadiers tend to dislike cant.