TexasCHLforum.com

My dad was one of those who served without a high school diploma, and he not only served but reached the top of the enlisted grades as a Chief Master Sergeant. But of course it was in a different time -- he first enlisted right after Pearl Harbor. Given the times, at the end of a long depression, there were a lot kids who dropped out of school to work and help their families. Not having graduated from high school was not all that unusual, and those who had attended or graduated college were a fairly small percentage of the population.

In the recent decades past, the percentage of those who attend and graduate both H.S. and college have risen considerably. Again, a new ballgame compared to even the Vietnam era. The military has used a high school diploma not so much as a mark of education but as a mark that the person who earned it has the gumption to stick to something. They came to this conclusion after reviewing the records of those who completed basic training and went on to successful enlistments. Those without H.S. diplomas were much less likely to finish basic training.

I am aware that the various services have sometimes waivered the lack of a H.S. diploma, and I am also aware of some those that were successful soldiers, etc. But they are, in fact exceptions, and supposedly they were waivered because the rest of their record justified it. And all of this applies in spades to those who have a criminal event on their record.

The comparison between the CHL program and the military is not a very apt one. The CHL concerns the regulation of what is supposed to be a right, and really has its "waivers" built into it already -- some misdemeanors OK, some not, etc. Its standards are set similarly to an entitlement -- as long as you meet the minimums, you are in. It is not (or should not be) set to award the CHL to "select few" who the state determines deserve it, but only to keep out the "select few" who have demonstrated they have not. (Certainly there are problems with how that line is drawn...) There is really no upper bound on who can have a Texas CHL - theoretically we could issue them to every non-felonious, non violent-misdemeanored person in the US who does not owe child support or taxes to Texas.

Joining the military is not a right or an entitlement, and it most certainly has an upper bound on how many it takes in. To the degee possible, it sets standards to get the best possible recruit given the circumstances -- how many people it needs and can afford, how many qualified applicants there are, what the job competition from the economy is, etc. And once they take an applicant, they like to have some expectation that the applicant will finish boot camp and at least one enlistment successfully. The lack of a H.S. diploma, or a criminal record of any kind, are not markers for this kind of applicant -- that's just the cold hard truth.

It doesn't mean someone shouldn't try, but he probably needs something else in his record that more than offsets those. Working on or finished GED? Scored really high on the armed services test? Dropped out of high school to support mom and kids (versus joined a gang and got busted). Evidence he turned his life around since he got busted for vandalism or whatever? Two average guys who apply for one slot, one with a diploma and one without, who do you pick? Yes, I know of educated fools and all that, but still, the higher probability of success is with the one who graduated. That's just the way it is.

seamusTX wrote:Going back another century or so, ...

Yeah,I had to cut my post off a some point.

However, one more step (or leap) off-topic... a Civil War disciplinary method, namely branding deserters, may (or may not) have played a role in the creation of the original edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

I found this a really good read.

Oldgringo wrote:

seamusTX wrote:Through most of the 20th century judges would give young men who had gotten crosswise with the law the option of enlisting in the military or going to jail. It was only with the all-volunteer forces that the military could establish higher standards.

- Jim

This is true.

I remember Parker's Midway Drug Store, the hangout of my youth (circa 1956) in Harrisburg, IL, was broken into by a jerk who was a couple years ahead of me in HS. Sam Parker, a WWII marine veteran of the PTO, gave the jerk the choice of jail or the marines. He chose the marines...

There used to be this thing called "accountability". Where did it go?

Whole different ball game now.

As you go back in time, the way discipline was handled in the military becomes less...refined, shall we say. In the era of your judge, I would suspect it would not be entirely unusual to find screw-up recruits being beaten by their sergeants on occasion to discourage their mistakes, and a thief in the barracks could easily find himself wrapped in a blanket and beaten and kicked by his fellow soldiers -- and no one would officially take notice. Sergeants ruled the earth that enlisted men walked on, and officers seldom "interfered." The "Code Red" business in A Few Good Men, where Jack Nicholson was the old school Marine, and Tom Cruise was the new, law-and-order-by-the-book idealistic but inexperienced (in actual military matters) lawyer was not an entirely fanciful rendition of the collision of the "older way" and the "newer way."

Soldiering itself was in many ways simpler and required more in the way of physical stamina and sheer mental toughness and perhaps rather less in the way of advanced technical skills, working with friendly and not-so-friendly allies, diplomatic skills, etc. We used to bomb entire cities flat or burn them to the ground; I remember reading military histories where when the the American Army rolled into Germany, in at least some sectors they sent word ahead to he German villages that any town not displaying white surrender flags from all the buildings would simply be levelled by artillery fire.

We also wanted larger numbers of troops, and it is pretty much a law of nature that the more people you want in an organization, the more "flexible" your standards are going to be. Marching right along with this is lower pay and lesser living conditions and a bunch of other stuff.

Now we want troops that are physically tough AND possess a number of other mental attributes, and we pay more to get fewer, but better people, and we send them not only to basic and advanced military training, but all kinds of technical and academic schools. There is simply not the time or resources to waste dealing with screw ups and criminals, partly because in absolute terms there are fewer resources to do so and partly because the processes themselves are more formal and resource intensive. Goodbye blanket party, hello Article 15 or court-martial. (Not saying that "unofficial sanctions" are not occasionally administered, but much more rare.)

So when someone is identified who is going to waste everybody's time, the response is to get them out as soon as possible. And the fastet, least resource intensive way to do this is to not take them onboard in the first place. Screen out those with criminal histories and/or no high school diploma, for example.