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To The Editor:
Have you ever stopped to wonder how our military can take young people right out of high school, from every ethnic group, every walk of life, every diverse area in the country, boys and girls, and turn them into the most efficient, effective, most powerful fighting force in the world?
Having experienced this, I think it can be summed up in a few words. First, the military sets very high standards. Secondly, they insist on a great deal of discipline. Thirdly, they prepare you for situations much more stringent than most people will endure in a lifetime.
Now a lot of people wrongly equate discipline with punishment. The discipline the military uses fits the definition in the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as: Training that corrects, molds or perfects the mental faculties or moral character. It is true that if you don’t want to be corrected, molded or perfected, you probably would be punished. Surely some of you experienced some form of punishment before you graduated, didn’t you?
In all my time in the service I never witnessed any brutal discipline. I survived and I was a runt at 17. At 5-feet-21⁄2-inches and 95 pounds, I was able to survive, so it couldn’t have been too bad.
Now my whole point is this: If the military is this effective in their training and teaching techniques, why can’t our schools produce the same results? The federal government is pouring nearly a half a billion dollars into this state to improve our educational system. We rank 41st in the nation in student achievement. Don’t you think it is about time to get serious?
Gary Spence
Troy
Published in The Messenger 4.28.10

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