Well, the daughter of one of our good blogging friends, Dana at Common Sense Political thought, is among the numbers of new enlistees. This has triggered some understandible emotions at the Pico residence:
Well, Autumn’s big day is coming: her recruiter is coming tomorrow at 1100 to pick her up for transport to the Harrisburg Military Entrance Processing Station. We had thought this would occur on the 20th, but her actual processing starts early on the 20th, so the Army is transporting her up on the 19th. As it happens, I had a couple of vacation days to use, and I took off tomorrow and Tuesday, so the change won’t be a problem for me.I really admire folks like Autumn. My hat's off, thanks all around, and good luck!
After processing, she’ll be on a plane to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for nine weeks of basic training ....
So, she leaves in about 14½ hours for the biggest, hardest test of her life. We’re all really proud of her.
See also the interesting discussion from "xbradtc," "Recruiting in tough times ... ":
I recall a meeting at the Indianapolis War Memorial ... Our battalion commander ... reminded us that the nation’s people did not exist to serve in the Army, but rather that the Army existed to serve the nation. The whole point of the service was to help the nation achieve peace and prosperity. “If I catch you hoping for a recession, I’ll nuke you into next year!” T’was a lesson I took to heart.
More than once, I found potential recruits who were wholly qualified, but had no great desire to serve. If that young man or woman had a solid plan, they had my best wishes. Often, when you spoke to a young man or woman, they would immediately tell you, “I’m going to college.” Fair enough. But a few probing questions would soon tell you that they had no idea what they were going to college for, what they wanted to study, how that major would help them, how they planned to pay for school or pay off student loans. Those were the folks that I would recruit.
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