Appreciation for the military from the civilians

[marct]

Hi Naomi,

One of the things that has fusterated me about academia is living in a cloistered world. It's as if a "religion" is made about intellectualism and theories can solve the world's problems. As one of you said, academics talk a lot about social justice. I didn't know why I admired the editorials and honesty on armytimes.com and other military sites, but I think I understand that the armed forces practice REAL social justice in action.

I always get worried when I hear academics (including me) talking about "social justice". All too often, that has become a signifier for "institute MY version of reality" - a version I often disagree with. Maybe I've just spent too much time hanging out with Parlour Pink Marxists (who dominate my university), but I find that academics are the LAST people I want to see running a society.

"Cloistered"? The perfect term for it! Then again, it's not really surprising since most of Western academia comes out of schools run by the Church .

What exactly do the Civilian Corps do to help service people? I've thought about a civilian job possibly in the armed forces, since a lot of service personnel are being deployed to Afganistan. Or what is it that service personnel would like to see civilians/academics do to support them?

David point to some excellent examples but there is one other thing that we do, whether you like it or not . We can and, IMO SHOULD, act as a "conscience" for social actions.

Cheers,

Marc