Recruiting the New National Guard

9/11 changed everything:

"Have it alls," the ideal Guard recruit, who wants to go to college, likes military paraphernalia, wants to be an officer, and actually tests higher than those who want to use the Guard for tuition.

The last category accounts for 32 percent of Guard members and is the one Jones and company are most interested in.

Moskos, the professor, said the biggest challenge for the Guard is to make it enticing for men and women from more affluent families to join. In England, the military has a different cache, he said.

Military recruiters in the United States acknowledge that getting first daughter Jenna Bush to join would be a far bigger boost than even doubling the recruiting budget again, Moskos said.

"Unless you get privileged youth to serve, you'll have recruitment difficulties," he said. "This is trying to convince working-class youth they otherwise have a worthless existence.

"I'd like see an ad with somebody listening to Mozart and reading Milton or
Shakespeare," Moskos said.

But working-class youth do otherwise have a worthless existence. What does Professor Markos think all the consumer society is all about, if not to convince them of that?

Wonderful public morality we have in this country, eh?

Link thanks to Holden.