Anti war pukes infantilize military recruits

Arizona Republic Editorial:

With all due respect to the nation's anti-war movement, the decision to enter the service is a choice to be made by young men and women and their families. Not by the activists.

Since the very first day of classes, anti-war activists have been at Valley high school gates handing out "opt-out" literature - postcards that, if signed and sent, would remove the students' contact information from lists provided to military recruiters.

Typically, the groups also bring anti-war signs. And some protesters make disparaging remarks about the military generally.

In far too many respects, modern society insists that children grow up way too fast. In others - the issue of military recruitment, for example - we infantilize them.

The voting age is 18 for a reason. We assume 18-year-old citizens are sufficiently developed to make important choices.

Late last week, state schools superintendent Tom Horne condemned the demonstrations, which he feels disrupt the school environment. Horne is spot on: "Reasonable people can differ about a particular war, but to have adults teaching students to be hostile to the military institutions that defend our freedom is educationally dysfunctional."

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I question their patriotism. How sick is it to want to lose a war so badly that you would try to dissuade people from joining the military? It is hard to have any respect for the point of view of people who would engage in such an effort. That is how they earned the title anti war pukes.