Are You A Minority?

[Wholley]

This is for those of you at School/College/University.

As you have shown interest in the Military do you feel that the main student body either shuns you or marginalises your opinions and considers you to be a little strange?

One of the reasons I ask is that my Significant Other(A Teacher)Told me she would rather dress her two boys up as girls rather than have them join the Services.
My answer,"They both act like girls so I'd not notice the difference"Went down like a lead balloon

Your thoughts?

[Illustrious]

Ive gotta say no. While I was at school, a meager 2 years ago or so, everyone knew I wanted to be in the Royal Marines & no one treated me any different, most admired my goals but that's it. They didnt really have a problem with any of my views, because were in support of the armed forces. Guess Im lucky.

On another note, you're not very good on the communications front arent ya wholley.

Didnt your mother ever tell you, women run the world. You should NEVER, under any circumstance, attempt to cause them displeasure. It only ends badly for men.

[jabcrosshook]

When I was at school a couple of months back now people didn't shun you, they'd treat you exactley the same but they would question why you want to join because of the pay, hard work, possibility of death and what your going to do afterwards.

Oh, here's a video for you Wholley http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=R6OaRcsfnY4 you could learn from it.

[Illustrious]

Jab, you just reminded me there lol. The boys were generally fine about it, saying good on ya but the girls were always saying "noooo, dont go, you'll die!" (they loved me you see)

[jabcrosshook]

Jab, you just reminded me there lol. The boys were generally fine about it, saying good on ya but the girls were always saying "noooo, dont go, you'll die!" (they loved me you see)

You must be a whore.

[davidemmerson]

My tutors pretty supportive which is good, he was even talking to me about the Commando programme. Most of my friends are ok with it, but some of my mates who are girls are like "But you couldn't you die?". But I don't think there're in love with me, unlike Illustrious.

But I can only sigh inwardly when I get asked: "So, are you applying for UCAS this year?"

"Errrr no I'm not"

"Oh. So what are you planning on doing next year?"

Don't get me wrong, I feel really good when I say I want to be in the Royal Marines but I hate the assumption that because I'm in 6 Form, everyone thinks you should go to University.

[Wholley]

On another note, you're not very good on the communications front arent ya wholley.

Didnt your mother ever tell you, women run the world. You should NEVER, under any circumstance, attempt to cause them displeasure. It only ends badly for men.

I never met my mother.
She took one look at me and I was put out for for adoption

Jab,
Funny,but I think Richard Pryor did it better.
So you two can march away smartly in threes.

Next time I feel the urge to get married(Done it twice already)
I'm just going to find a woman I don't like and buy her a house.

Anyway,to drag this kicking and screaming back to the point,
In the US there is an increasing number of teachers/lecturers etc.Who want to see the Military banned from recruiting in schools and colleges.
I think it is just their lefty agenda.
Does that happen here?

[xcj]

But I can only sigh inwardly when I get asked: "So, are you applying for UCAS this year?"

"Errrr no I'm not"

"Oh. So what are you planning on doing next year?"

Yeh that's not uncommon in a school where the vast majority go to uni - i was the same. Prime example was on my last day of school. Me and a mate were hauled into the head teachers office having been caught red handed with a half bottle of jack daniels and some coke. Pondering whether to expell us or just wrap our knuckles he asked us what we were doing next year. Mate says hes going to uni to do such and such and i'm thinking sh*t what am I going to say (it wasn't long after i'd found out i couldnt join the forces - eyesight problem - so i literally didnt know what i was going to be doing). "eeeer dunno, electrician maybe" He looked at me funny, took a breath and said "hmmm" whilst nodding.


Anyway we were in luck as said head teacher was previously the captain of a ship in the Royal Navy until he was forced out due to an alcohol problem of all things. That was a couple of years ago now and only last year he lost his job as head teacher because he turned to the drink again. Safe to say i know what he did with the remainder of the jack daniels the fly bast*ard.

[tom163]

I haven't told my course tutor at college and I'm not going to either, just in case they start to loose interest with me on the course. I'm just going to keep it quite until next year then I'm going to just drop out. But all my mates are cool with it.

Spelling corrected by Wholley.Again!!

[davidemmerson]

xcj, are your eyes pretty bad not to get you in the forces? I don't need glasses but just wondered what the policy is like on eyesight.

Great story! What a way to finish your schooling career.....

[eroo]

Well,first off I live in Ireland.today the army is seen as a job for wasters by most people I know.I dont plan on joining Irish defence forces.My first choice is joining the Gardai(police) but army would be my second choice.I understand why people are so narrow minded when it comes to the army,they see it as a job for someone who couldn't get a job anywhere else. Used to be the case but not anymore!sure there are wasters in every army but people look down on defence forces personnel....unless they are in the Air Corps..

eroo

[jabcrosshook]

They certainly ram UCAS down your throat at Sixth Form. I was shocked when studying WWI the teacher asked "Who would volunteer if there was a war today." And I was the only one.
Most of my peers wouldn't join the military because it's too much like hard work.
I can spot the people who I think would join the military as I walk around my Uni (I wasn't planning on going until I failed POC YIKES!) because they like me tend to look a bit smarter in their dress sense and walk standing upright and seem to have some purpose about them where as most of them sort of stagger around with long scruffy hair and a good three or four days growth.

Everything you have said there sounds like my old sixthform, if you don't want anything to do with UCAS then they make you feel your not wanted or there's no point in being there, but maybe that's just me because I disliked sixthform.
What I've found is that at the end of year 11 is 4 lads who left went to join the military, one lad decided after selection that he wasn't going to carry on because he didn't want to get shouted at, the other 3 left the army during training because they couldn't hack it. But these were lads who had "attitude" problems in school.
Most people don't want to join the military because as you say it's too much hard work for sh!t pay, which is all they care about, people don't have any sense of the 4 elements of the Commando spirit (only way I can think of how to describe it) courage, determination, unselfishness, and cheerfulness in the face of adversity.
Well that's what I think.

[Dangermouse]

Not at university. Of course, thier are pacifists and the like who wouldn't want anyone to join the army, but nothing hostile. I go to uni in aberystwyth, a small town where you are unlikely to find snobbery. I think you'd be more likely to get shit off a random guy in a pub than a student. My uni has a good interpol department and a lot of the modules on war and strategy seem to be popular - i've just started a sngle module on Special Forces with 150 other students. Thiers also OTC and a TA place here too, plus Wales from what I gather is traditionally a strong recruitment gorund for the forces.

As for my mum, shes not too happy with me wanting the join the army. But thats just mums. Can't blame them. And even people who are against the forces for political/moral reasons generally accept that everyone has different subjective views on the subject.

Though, I have no doubt that thier may be one or two individuals with a hate of anything to do with the state/government or those who see the forces as an escape plan for the poor. Fortuently, i've never met anone like that so far.

[Dangermouse]

I have to agree with the attitude of schools towards those who don't wish to go to uni. I nver wanted to go to uni at all while at school - it wasn't until a year later after a year in work that I decided to go for it. Thiers a huge difference between school and university life, no doubt about it. Unfortuently, many schools wish to treat thier students as commodities rather than human beings. My decision to go to uni in the end was entirely my own, and glad I made that decision. And I hated school, possibly more than anyone else on here.

[Mr_Kiwi]

Its strange looking back to my 6th/7th form years in new zealand. You could pick what everyone was going to do/be. The so called 'popular kids' all seem to have dead end jobs (if any) and happened to get pregnant or get someone preggers soon after leaving school.

The same thing happened in one of my classes where a teacher asked if there was a war tomorrow who wouild volunteer, myself and my mate were the only 2 who put our hands up, when asked why we just replied 'why not?'

I think here in the UK and most commonwealth countries the armed forces are seen with a little bit more respect than the US views their armed forces, which is a shame really.