Liberals Vs. The Military Part #9473: The Stephen King Edition

by John Hawkins | May 6, 2008 7:35 am

Here’s Stephen King[1] on the troops, which he would no doubt tell you that he supports,

“I don’t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got, the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s, it’s not as bright. So, that’s my little commercial for that.”

Now, this is essentially just a rephrase of John Kerry’s notorious gaffe[2],

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq. …”

Of course, this isn’t true. As the Heritage Foundation noted back then[3],

In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004—2005) sup:­port the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight dif:­ferences are that wartime U.S. mil:­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver:­age than their civilian peers.

Recruits have a higher percent:­age of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas.

…The previous study noted the significant differ:­ence between the national recruit high school grad:­uation rate of 98 percent and the national youth graduation rate of 75 percent. This strong distinc:­tion continues among the 2004 and 2005 recruits when compared to the national educational attain:­ment levels reported by the Census 2004 American Community Survey (ACS).[4]

Given the nature of the military rank structure, most enlisted recruits do not have a college edu:­cation or degree. Members of the armed forces with higher education are more often commis:­sioned officers (lieutenant and above). In 2004, 92.1 percent of active-duty officer accessions held baccalaureate degrees or higher.[5] From 2000 to 2005, between 10 percent and 17 percent of active-duty officer accessions held advanced degrees, and between 35 percent and 45 percent of the active-duty officer corps held advanced degrees.[6] This indicates that officers continued their educa:­tion during the course of their mili:­tary service.

…The policy regarding high school graduation status (or the equivalent) remains stringent across all four branches of the military. At least 90 per:­cent of recruits must be high school diploma graduates (which does not include equivalency). Recruit accessions from the first three quarters of fiscal year 2006 are above this guideline in all branches except the Army. As of May 2006, 83.1 percent of accepted Army recruits met this requirement, which is still a greater percentage than the national graduation rate including equiv:­alency.

So King, like Kerry, is wrong on the facts.

However, there is a subtext here that you often see on the Left; many, but not all, liberals look at our troops as dumb, thuggish, violence prone, deranged, immoral brutes.

Will they admit that? A few of them are honest enough to do so, but most aren’t. Still, there’s a reason why you see liberal after liberal going back to certain themes when their masks slip. It’s because it’s what most of them secretly believe.

Endnotes:
  1. Stephen King: http://www.breitbart.tv/html/90023.html
  2. John Kerry’s notorious gaffe: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52705
  3. noted back then: http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-09.cfm

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/uncategorized/liberals-vs-the-military-part-9473-the-stephen-king-edition/