PLEASANT HILL - U.S. Army recruiters turned College Park High School's quad into a lunchtime shooting range Wednesday, much to the consternation of teachers and students.Break out a case of doilies for the consternated ones!
Recruiters arrived on the College Park campus in a glossy big rig, bearing realistic-looking handguns with air compressors to provide the recoil kick. And they gave the student shooters prizes.Clueless too, Jen.
Military recruiters are no strangers on high school campuses, but they usually restrict themselves to flier distribution, strolling about the quad or putting in an occasional appearance in the college and career center.
"It's not a soldier issue," said teacher Jen Kennedy. "In this post-Columbine era, target practice with high school students leaves me speechless."
U.S. Army Sgt. Delbert Miller said he and the Fort Knox marksmanship team visited College Park as just one stop on an annual tour of hundreds of schools and colleges.Except for the security guards, er "resource officers," I'm sure. I'm from the era when larger high schools often had a shooting range in the basement, but that's a different story. Giving the tykes dildoes probably would have been OK.
"We presented it as an event for the kids," Miller said. "(We used) plastic pistols hooked up to an air compressor."
Miller, whose crew handed out water bottles, T-shirts and dog tags, said he was unaware that all weapons -- including plastic guns, water pistols and Halloween props that resemble weapons -- are banned in California schools.
If students brought to school anything like the pistols the recruiters shared with College Park students Wednesday, they'd be expelled, said junior Isaac Miller. These were "an exact replica of guns with blowback," he said. "It just seems weird."Get those doilies over here, there's a cleanup on aisle 7! Think of it! Shooting might be fun!
"When you shot, it recoiled like a real gun," said senior Tom Morgenstern. "Having guns at school? It's the Army, they have a legal right to be here, but when they start bringing these games to school and try to make shooting fun?"
Morgenstern and fellow senior Jayme Farrell-Ranker had set up the school's tsunami relief fund-raising effort on the quad early Wednesday and soon found themselves sharing plaza space with the recruiters and shooting range.You should have tried a few choruses of Kumbaya.
"We're trying to do something nice and they come with their games and guns," said Farrell-Ranker.
The marksmanship unit is one of several splashy military recruiting efforts, including big rigs that turn into science classrooms, portable rock walls, "adventure vans" with interactive exhibits on educational aspects of military life, and humvees that visit elementary through high schools. The marksmanship unit dates back to 1912.Skip that stuff, I want the shooting range!
This particular demonstration took College Park officials by surprise. Principal Dennis Berger thought the event he had quickly approved Wednesday morning at the request of a former student was a ceremonial drill in which soldiers twirl rifles in a carefully choreographed routine.He got 'em mixed up with the band, I guess.
"It was a last-minute event," Berger said. "This one happened to be on marksmanship, so they had video games. ... In hindsight, I wish we had known in more detail what they were going to do. We got something we didn't quite expect."Shooting a beam of light is a carnival game, but I'd still like to give it a try.
Sgt. Miller described the pistols as carnival game-style, but students said they shot a beam of light.
More by following the link, but it's clear that the wussification of America continues apace. I remember a few years ago there was a big furor in N. Carolina when a state inspector found a small plastic soldier in the toy bin at a day care center. The horror!
