Ban high school football – it leads to gangs and violence!

I wrote a post yesterday about a local peacenik named Lynda Haynes who is protesting Columbia High School’s JROTC rifle team. I had the opportunity to listen to Ms. Haynes this afternoon on a local talk show. She said, and I kid you not, that high school JROTC programs lead to gangs and violence.

Ms. Haynes, member of the North Alabama Military Hating Peace Network, cited as evidence a website that seeks to undermine our armed forces by encouraging people to go AWOL. The site has a page dedicated to JROTC programs, which includes a link at the top for finding out “if a JROTC unit is coming to your community” as though it a JROTC program is analogous to a posse of child molesters. The site was obviously authored by someone with no real knowledge of JROTC programs and says that “JROTC is the only program in our schools which can be expected to cause deaths and severe casualties among its graduates.” Well, not really Ms. Haynes.

Virtually every high school sport has had a history of students dying while participating. Deaths related to high school football tend to register about five to fifteen per year and 36 died in 1968 alone. And while relatively few high school athletes go on to compete on the college gridiron, and fewer still in the NFL, we still hear about such deaths. One could even argue that Sean Taylor’s murder was the result of the fortune he derived from pro football and therefore the sport played a role in his death. Maybe we should ban football.

The anti-military site given by Ms. Haynes goes on to list a number of unsourced incidents involving individuals affiliated with JROTC. The list includes a “JROTC enthusiast,” which translates into a kid who was not actually in the JROTC program but wore military fatigues. It also includes the terrifying story about how some kids fainted while standing in formation in the hot sun (again, note the football parallel). It even mentions a JROTC instructor who sexually abused female cadets. By that logic maybe we should ban all reading teachers too.

I mentioned that the list of crimes on the anti military site were unsourced. I tried to Google the first one, which was about a gang called the “Fenkell Mafia Killers,” and got no valid hits other than a book that used the anti-military site as a source. But, lets give the kooks the benefit of the doubt and assume all the details are accurate. So what if there are documented cases of kids affiliated with JROTC committing crimes, hazing other cadets, or fainting from heat exhaustion? A very cursory Google search found multiple stories about high school football players committing sexual assaults and even murders. Hazing has long been prevalent in social fraternities (and sports teams). Heat related “injuries” are common in high school sports. Does that mean all these activities are evil and should be banned? NO! Furthermore, the fact that some of the kids involved in the listed crimes participated in JROTC may be ancillary to the crime, not a contributing factor as the military haters would lead you to believe.

I was the battalion commander of my high school’s JROTC program many years ago. I don’t recall any teaching of violence. I do recall leadership instruction and training. I remember performing acts of service. I remember professional instructors who emphasized safety and genuinely cared for the cadets. Most of all I remember seeing the program turn kids – many of whom I might have categorized as “wayward” – into focused, mature individuals eager to make something of themselves. When we trained in hot weather we took great pains to tell cadets to speak up if they felt ill. The extent of our “hazing” was limited to messy activities in which senior and junior cadets equally participated, a mutually enjoyable event that did not involve any intimindation or demeaning actions.

Ms. Haynes thinks that the schools should replace JROTC with “conflict resolution” classes. Let’s be a bit more frank about what Ms. Haynes wants. She loathes our military, she probably views them as baby killers, and would like to weaken it by eliminating a fine source of identifying young, eager, and talented soldiers. I’m an open minded guy and I would like to see if there is some merit to Ms. Haynes’ “conflict resolution” solution. If she is willing, I would like to take up a collection to buy her a ticket to Sudan. Once there she can spearhead efforts to put an end to the genocide there using her conflict resolution skills. When a gang of Janjaweed thugs attepmts to rape her we’ll see how effective her conflict resolution approach is at diffusing that situation.

We live in a dangerous world. We should make every effort to avoid violence as a solution (which by the way is taught in JROTC), but we cannot be so foolish as to rely on passivity as the means of protecting our persons and our property. People like Ms. Haynes should step back and reflect on the fact that people have had to use violence to secure and defend the freedom that allows her to condemn them for their efforts. There are other countries that aren’t so tolerant.