Green Thumb sends us a link from NBC entitled “Stray anti-military vibes reverberate as thousands of veterans head to college” which recounts some experiences of some troops as they try to re-enter their communities as college students after a decade of war. For example;
“Why should we pay for these guys to go to college?” [Scott] Hakim said he recalls a female student asking during a discussion on the nation’s responsibility to service members returning from war. “Everybody who goes into the military is stupid – that’s why they joined the military instead of going to college.”
Hakim – a Marine infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan – immediately vowed to out-study every classmate on the midterm exam and said he ultimately posted the highest mark: 98 out of 100. Later, he said, he overheard that same female student reveal her grade: F.
“I guess I proved her wrong,” Hakim said. “It wasn’t a me-versus-her thing, more like: Maybe now she realizes how idiotic her statement was.”
And that’s the proper response. Every member of the military who went to college after their service has had to deal with pinheads, both students and teachers, who think we’re stupid and lazy when we’re not busy killing babies and eating live puppies. But they’re not the reason we went to do our duty (that, by the way, you’d never catch any of those doofuses doing even if we didn’t), and they’re not the reason we’re in college.
Yeah, I can tell you stories about communists who were upset that they’d just lost the Cold War and decided to make me pay by working harder for my grades than the other skulls full of mush. But then I was never quiet about their inability to tell the whole truth, so it was partly my fault, I suppose. But, on the other hand, I found some teachers who were simpatico, and those were the ones who got my repeat business.
The goal of college is to graduate and get that piece of paper in your hand so you can begin your new life, f**k everything else. Let the teenagers go to college for the social experience. You’ve already had the greatest social experience of your life that will last you all your days – and you’ve accomplished more than most of them ever will. Their opinions of you don’t count, because they can’t can’t even imagine what your life has been like.
The biases against veterans won’t end in college, either. I’ve had co-workers and supervisors tell me to my face that all veterans are crazy. But they still think that college was tough. They have no idea. Personally, I have no friends, either at or outside of work who aren’t veterans, because civilians just generally piss me off. I reached that point the first few months I was in college.
Your mileage may vary, but that’s just me.
Hey, ANCCPT, good luck to you. That’s Ivy League you’re talking there.
To bring this back around to the topic at hand, I have to honestly say that I never encountered any anti-military bias, not even at CU-Boulder which I attended from 1998 – 2000. Certainly, if you wanted to find anti-military bias, you could (look for any program with the word ” — Studies” in the title) but you did have to look for it. I never concealed my status as a veteran and it was never an issue.
Of course, that was also when Clinton was president and the military was not subjected to vilification (it was really more or less ignored.) At that time most of our missions were “peacekeeping” in places like Bosnia and Kosovo so there wasn’t much baby killin’ going on for people to get worked up about (actually, there was a lot of baby killin’ but it was being done by the people we were supporting so it was pretty much ignored.)
By the time 9/11 happened I was in law school at the University of Wyoming, which may have one of the most conservative student bodies in the nation. I showed up at the class of 2003’s graduation in my class-A uniform (I had been in the class of ’03 until my deployment to A-stan at the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year, and all my school friends were in the ’03 class) and nobody had a harsh word to say.
I went to a non-traditional college. It was properly accredited, but some 80% of the students were over the age of 30. Most of them had other jobs, family, etc. This was in the early 90’s. I never felt the anti-military crap.
Interesting side-note, my mom, also a Marine, started school at the same time I did at the same place. We had some classes together (though not many, her majors and my majors were very different). She ended up citing one of my papers for her class.
I had a University prof that described herself as a “femi-nazi” on the first day of class. My grades were enough that I was in National Honor Society since my first semester in Community College.
Well, every class I took with her, I got an F. When I filed a complaint, she claimed that I missed too much class and that my assignments were not up to university-level. Mind you, it was a required writing class and I am a published author.
When confronted with that fact, she then made the claim that because of my National Guard service, I was missing too many classes. Yeah, because I always scheduled classes for after 5:PM on Fridays (her class was a Tues/Thurs morning class). The only time I missed school because of duty was during a massive snow storm that actually closed the campus.
The school sided with her regarding the grades (because I was just the student). So, I took the class again with a different instructor and got an A+. However, I still had to answer to G.I.Bill and MilDep about the failing grades. Though, they were much more forgiving regarding my explanations.
I do however agree with John, I have very few civilian friends.
Looking at my own circle of friends, I would have to agree that very few of my friends are non-veterans. Most are older than me, which might explain my crotchety disposition and lack of tolerance for bullshit.
YMMV.
I may be retired, but that does not mean that I am not busy. And I find that I do not hang out with people who are unwillng to work. I’d rather spend time in the company of a food server at a truck stop, or a truck driver who pulls into that truck stop, than the wet-nosed, sloppy, little snots who don’t want to take a trucking job because it’s somehow ‘beneath’ them. They don’t want to be train engineers, power plant workers, power line stringers, cab drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers, or join the military, either.
When I tell them it would get them out into the real world, off the block, out of that comfy cocoon, they always answer “But it’s driving a truck/train/cab, etc.” which means it’s REAL work, where they have to DO something to justify their existence, and the military is WORSE.
@ #50: That is good stuff right there! So glad to hear it, and that you are in the program. All best.
@ #48: Agree completely. However, there are a lot of gatekeepers out there who throw up artificial obsticles. In my case, they required a minimum of an additional 12 hours (perhaps more) in education credits in order to sub. We actually had an abundance of subs in my county, so there really wasn’t much point in doing it. So, I joined a volunteer tutoring program instead. You gotta admit there is a certain sweet irony to my not being qualified to teach the little darlings but it was OK for me to tutor those who the professionals failed to teach. 😉
@57. Don’t even start me there–talking about the teaching profession. You know what they say about a few bad apples? Well, when it comes to teachers, I say that the credit owing to the few good ones cannot be extended to the entire lot of them.
I attend Auburn (which is hardly a bastion of liberalism), and I’ve encountered this sort of thing in almost every class outside of COSAM. I’ve even encountered a few who were surprised to learn we’re still at war. I even got in trouble once for telling most of my Comp 1 class to STFU because they were busy gossiping about rush parties while the instructor was trying to lecture. Apparently it’s against the rules to hurt their precious little feelings. The scary part is this was a course open solely to pre-med freshmen.