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Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (4148)	11/4/2006 2:41:05 PM
From: Jim S	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10087

"But you do stand corrected don't you?....We aren't looking for our rocket scientists in the trenches...." I hate to equivocate, but yes and no on the "stand corrected" part. I was surprised to find the apparently low level of "some college" among the Marine enlisted corps. Even so, their 90+% statistic of HS grads is nothing to sneeze at. Neither is the fact that 3-5% of enlisted marines (including the Reserve forces) have education levels beyond just high school. And looking at the chart more closely and reading the rest of the PDF explains it a bit better. The youth of the Marine Corps and their mission would make furthering one's education more difficult than in the other services. Most Marines enlist right out of high school, judging from their average age. Other services may draw their enlistees from those who have been out of high school for a year or more. The Marine mission requires the troops to be posted at forward posts for shorter periods of time than other services, and they certainly have an extremely demanding duty schedule, allowing them much less ability to enroll in on-base extension courses. I tried to find some info from the VA about how many former Marines avail themselves of their VA educational benefits, but couldn't find anything. If the percentage of former Marines using their Mongomery GI benefits is similar to those used by other service members, it would explain a lot and prove my point. But the lack of information doesn't detract from my contention that GIs are a better class of people than their civilian counterparts. As for the "rocket scientists in the trenches," that was never a part of my argument. I said, and I still contend, that GIs are a better class of people than their civilian counterparts. As a group, they're smarter, braver, stronger, and more moral than their civilian peers.