Just before the big blizzard hit I spent a couple of days at Parris Island, the Marine Corps east coast basic training base with a group of fellow educators. The Marines took us down there to give teachers, counsellors, and administrators a sense of what they are about, in hopes we’ll direct qualified students their way. The Marine Corps has been making Marines for a long time, and they are quite good at it. A bigger challenge seems to be just finding enough qualified recruits to keep things going, this despite the fact that the country has never been bigger and while the Marines and the rest of the military are shrinking. In a way, this mirrors the country’s own difficulty in choosing a president among a throng of contenders, of whom none in the top tiers have any military experience.  Of course, if we had a draft this likely would not be an issue. But we’ve not had a draft for nearly a half-century, really don’t require one for military...(Read Full Article)