Not For Our Kind of People
Staff Sgt. Jason Rivera, 26, a Marine recruiter in Pittsburgh, went to the home of a high school student who had expressed interest in joining the Marine Reserve to talk to his parents.
It was a large home in a well-to-do suburb north of the city. Two American flags adorned the yard. The prospect's mom greeted him wearing an American flag T-shirt.
"I want you to know we support you," she gushed.
Rivera soon reached the limits of her support.
"Military service isn't for our son. It isn't for our kind of people," she told him.
[Jack Kelly, "Parent-trap snares recruiters: The tune changes at some homes when they hear 'sign here' ", The Post-Gazette [Pittsburg, PA], 11 August 2005.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
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on Sunday, 14 August 2005 at 01.46
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That's really disgusting.
You know, we've been working off a glut of people with M.A.'s and Ph.D.'s ever since the Vietnam War. Lots of people decided military service wasn't for them or for their sons, and graduate schools were SRO.