As manufacturing jobs dwindle in rural areas and the economy remains stagnant the lack of opportunities for high school graduates has made them important targets for military recruiters. In Wilkesboro, N.C., Sally Ferrell has been trying to inform students about alternative careers outside the military. Now she has to do that away from the local high school, because school officials who see her efforts as unpatriotic have stopped her visits.
Writes Mitch Weiss of The Associated Press, "For three years, Ferrell has asked permission to distribute pamphlets and other materials that warn students to think twice before joining the military." Such counter-recruiting groups "say recruiters have given young people misleading information about military service and often target high schools in poor and rural areas where options for graduating students are limited; the activists want students to know they have prospects besides the military."
Typically, military recruiters are given complete access to high schools, and that was the case in Wilkesboro, until the controversy arose. "Now, they can only visit twice a semester," Weiss reports. "And when they do, they have to stand at a table outside the cafeterias. They can't sit down and talk with students while they're eating lunch." (Read more)
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