Quote:
Originally Posted by BBKing
....snippety snip snip...
foreverwar - believing MOD press releases, are we? For shame! 
Actually, the MOD are using a straw man argument to suggest that the NUT are objecting to the Army coming into schools and recruiting. The NUT are actually objecting to misleading propaganda about army life being aimed at impressionable young people, and I'm right with them there. If people want to join up they ought to know it's hard, dangerous and risky. If they still want to join, good for them. |
Nah, don't believe anything MOD/HMG say (well, not much, anyway).
What I can say is what I saw when my son (16 years old) asked me to take him to an RAF information evening in Bradford recently. It wasn't recruitment, it was awareness (I know the difference), and when asked hard questions about Iraq/Afghanistan postings and the difficulties it caused servicepeople and their families, they were honest about the hardships and the danger - quote "If at sometime in the future, you think a career in the armed forces is for you, bear in mind you can be away from home and family for 6-12 months at a time, and people are trying to kill you - if you can't accept that scenario, don't join up".
Seemed fairly open and honest to me.
btw, seems the NUT are being a little propagandist themselves, with emotive statements (as quoted in the BBC article) such as
" it would be difficult to imagine any material that the MoD could put out to schools that was not be misleading, he said. “Let's just try and imagine what that recruitment material would have to say were it not to be misleading.
“We would have material from the MoD saying, Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people's countries.
“Join the Army and we will send you to bomb, shoot and possibly torture fellow human beings in other countries.
“Join the Army and we will send you probably poorly equipped into situations where people will try to shoot or kill you because you are occupying other people's countries.
“Join the Army, and if you survive and come home, possibly injured or mentally damaged, you and your family will be shabbily treated.” "
Seems equally one-sided, methinks. How would the NUT like it if the recruitment for teachers only focussed on the negative aspects of what is reported about them? (btw, my daughter is at Uni, and wants to be a teacher after graduating, and I support her in this, as I think teachers (on the whole) do a great job and are under-valued).