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Corey Mead -

In its rush to find the next generation of cyberwarriors, the military has begun to infiltrate our high schools and even our middle schools, blurring the line between education and recruitment. The Air Force, for example, runs a “CyberPatriot” national high school cyberdefense competition, geared toward influencing students to pursue careers in cybersecurity. The Pentagon, meanwhile, has its own annual “Digital Forensics Challenge,” in which teams of players develop their own investigative tools. But no one is as innovative in his approach as Colonel Casey Wardynski (ret.)—for 16 years the Army’s top economist and now the superintendent of schools in Huntsville, Ala.

Dana Visalli -
 

Rick Jahnkow

Originally posted on Draft Notices

It’s well established that many people who join the U.S. military do so because of their economic status. It could be that they do not see options for a civilian job that pays a livable wage, they cannot afford health insurance, or they believe they’ll never be able to go to college without financial aid from the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Whether this belief is accurate or based on an individual’s limited awareness of alternatives, military recruiters are effective at exploiting economic predicament to meet their monthly quotas. Many of us refer to it as economic conscription or the “poverty draft.” It is the reason why counter-recruitment groups spend much of their time and energy gathering and distributing information on alternative sources for job training and college financial aid.