Stephen Kings Thinks Illiterate Join Military
Legendary author Stephen King joins Sen. John Kerry in thinking the U.S. military is full of people who can’t read. Terry Ann Online grabbed the video. Here’s what he said to a group of young people at an event aired on C-SPAN’s BookTV Sunday 05.04.08:
I don’t want to sound like an ad–a public service ad on TV–but the fact is that if you can read you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t then you got the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s not as bright. So that’s my little commercial for that.
(I hope the applause came from the “reading is important remark” not the “soldiers are illiterate and end up in Iraq” quip.)
King thinks the troops stationed in Iraq are illiterate, uneducated people who couldn’t get jobs in the U.S. Nice. Real nice.
In 2005 a Pentagon official addressed the myth of the stupid soldier [via Gateway Pundit]:
“They are so clearly a cut above America,” Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, said of today’s recruits.
Carr bristles when he hears unfounded charges that the men and women entering the military are less educated, less affluent or less likely than other 18- to 24-year-olds to have alternatives to military service. Rather, a combination of volunteerism and commitment to service is prompting young people to enlist, Carr said, noting that a measure of shrewdness plays into their decision. “They are planning their future and considering what part we can play in it,” he said.
Carr likes to think of himself as a “myth buster,” helping break stereotypes he said are flat-out wrong and cheat servicemembers out of the pride they’ve earned and deserve.
He rattled off examples of those myths and set the record straight for each one.
* Myth 1: Military recruits are less educated and have fewer work alternatives than other young Americans.
In fact, military recruits are far better educated than the general youth population, Carr said. More than 90 percent of recruits have a high school diploma, compared to about 75 percent of the U.S. youth population.
That’s an important issue to the military, Carr said, because a traditional high school diploma is the single best indicator of a recruit’s stick-to-it-ness and likelihood of successfully adjusting to military service. Recruits with a high school diploma have a 70 percent probability of completing a three-year enlistment versus a 50 percent chance for nongraduates.
The Heritage Foundation found “the typical recruit in the all-volunteer force is wealthier, more educated and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old citizen is.” It’s a safe assumption they can read too.
King should spend as much time looking into the true capabilities of U.S. troops as he does crafting his novels.
King’s insult brings back memories of Sen. John Kerry. In 2006 Kerry embarrassed himself by telling Californians:
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.
Kerry’s quote inspired a group of Minnesota National Guardsmen to take this memorable photograph.
[…] Here’s some reaction to Stephen King warning students they better learn to read or they’ll end up in the army or Iraq: […]