I guess I should ask, how would you feel if this was happening at you kids elementary school?

I am with you on this one. You should have absolutely been notified. If you get letters sent home for upcoming book fairs and bake sales you should definitely be notified if the military plans on making weekly visits to interact with your children. I find this entirely unacceptable. My suspicion is that maybe your school district had no say in the matter if they didn't even bother to discuss/notify you about it. If that is the case then that makes this even more alarming. Your response is appropriate.

For the record, I'm not claiming the military is good or bad. But clearly there is some ulterior agenda to this program. This isn't simply a PR gig, considering you weren't notified. And this isn't simply out of the goodness of their hearts to read books to your children. Question is... what are they really doing there and why do they need access to this school and your children?

This was kinda the point I brought up to the principle about being notified. You need a permission slip for your kid to go on a field trip, or take a sex ed class, I don't feel that this is any different. They should at least have my permission for the troops to read to my kid.

Of course it is training. You know so they don't freak out when their are troops in the streets 5 to 10 years from now.

I feel this is mostly about good PR for the base.

probably.

I do not feel these troops are qualified to interact with the children.

technically, an ACT-33 child-abuse background clearance is the only thing required for one to be "qualified" to interact with children. the school janitor could be a drug abuser or alcoholic; as long as he passes an ACT-33, he's good to go. military personnel go through several screening processes before they're even allowed to raise their right hand and sign a contract, and in general they are held to a higher standard of conduct and discipline than any civilian is.

I feel these people who are trained for combat have NO place in an elementary school on a regular basis.

the vast majority of U.S. military personnel are not combat-arms troops. most are support, logistics and service personnel. the Coast Guard, Air Force and Navy do not require annual rifle qualification so there are MANY members of those branches who have never even touched a weapon. The Army and Marine Corps have plenty (read also, the vast majority) of members who never touch weapons other than required annual rifle qualification (dog-n-pony check-the-box unless you're actually a combat-arms person). you have identified one of the many misconceptions in the large information-disconnect between the U.S. military (which represents a mere 1% of the U.S. population) and the civilian world.

I feel all of the money the troops are getting paid to be at the school is a waste of tax payer dollars.

perhaps you should write your congressman/woman about us not needing a dozen nuclear-powered supercarriers, or to replace every F-16, F-15, A-10, F-18, and AV-8B with the new multi-billion-dollar F-35 fighter. if wasting DoD budget dollars is one of your beefs, trust me, the military/DoD wastes plenty billions of dollars elsewhere that could/should be chopped first. Also if these guys are active duty, they are being paid 24/7 regardless of whether they are sweeping hallways, inventorying supply connexes, or mentoring schoolchildren. So no money is being "wasted." If they are National Guard or Reserve, then yes, they're only paid when in uniform. But if they are from Fort Carson, then they are active duty; null argument.

I am scared for my daughters safety being around troops who potentially could suffering from PTSD and freak out some day.

i empathize with your concern for your daughter - but we return to one of my earlier points. the VAST MAJORITY of military personnel are not trained to, are not expected to, and do not experience direct combat. for those who do, we have gotten very good for screening for, treating, and helping members who do develop PTSD. don't treat it like leprosy. you are further demonstrating the great divide between the general population and the 1% of them who actually serve in the military under austere conditions, an authoritarian institution, and bureaucratic leadership. shame on you for this comment.

I feel this sends a conflicting message to the children with all of the anti gun talk in school, and then force the kids to be around people who shoot guns and train to kill people every day.

i've already said my piece on why this statement is ridiculous. educate yourself. for the servicemen whose job is to train to kill people (a tiny, tiny fraction of the military to begin with), they deploy and operate under VERY restrained, constrained, disciplined circumstances. they don't show up in Baghdad and start mowing down children, and then come home and start choking people when a car backfires.

in short, although you have a right, in general, to be concerned for your daughter, as a caring parent should be, you have also demonstrated a fairly-large degree of ignorance on your "understanding" of our military.

conclusion: chill the fuck out. nobody is going to go PTSD-flip-out on your kid. the men wearing uniforms that show up to say hello to your child and her classmates are probably more disciplined, polite, humble, hardworking, and professional than many of the teachers in the same building.

your comments are part of the reason veterans have a disgruntled-mindset toward civilians to begin with.

Wow, you obviously put some thought into your statement, thank you for sharing your views on the situation. But no not shame on me for that statement. If the school is not tellin the parents exactly who the people are and what they are doing, I think I have a right to be concerned about my child potentialy being around former combat troops. It was not made clear to the parents who is interacting with the kids until one of them got hurt.

I'm glad you have brought up some important pieces of information regarding the military on the whole. I think the OP should not just "chill the fuck out," but rather continue learning about this particular program. I think as a parent OP has the right to know a little bit more about the people that are around her 6 year old. I agree with you, that it is unfair to insinuate that the members of the military are only trained killers that don't have qualifications to be around children or maybe a milder form of that. I think the parents of this school and any others involved in this program deserve to have a view into what sort of program this is rather than receiving no notice as they were. On the other hand you can't make the claim that these uniformed soldiers are better role models or people ("more disciplined, polite, etc.") than the teachers. That is completely unfair to the teachers, especially after you admonished OP for being prejudice against the soldiers. There may not be a grand conspiracy here, or it might be, as some have suggested, acclamation of young children to military presence, or just a simple PR-based community outreach, but in any case it left parents out and that is not right. Also, OP deserves to be fired up a little bit about his or her daughter having an adult soldier fall on her. This comes back to OP's point about the soldiers not being qualified to be around children and this program being forced onto teachers, who trust their administrators' mandates. That also, I think, supports my claim that it is unfair to call these soldiers more hardworking or whatever than teachers. They have different skills and whether the skill set of soldiers is appropriate for educational purposes is the point of this debate.

POSSE COMITATUS

Let me drop a little more info here, I have two family members that work at the school. They said the teachers were not given much notice of this program starting. The teachers we not informed of what exactly they should have the soldiers doing, it was kinda left up to each teacher to manage the troops that were in there rooms. Some of the teacher are preparing their class for an important test coming up in a few weeks, these classes were told that they did not have to have the soldiers in the class room until the test was done. This to me is an admission that the troops are a distraction to the class. My family member are not happy about the program coming from a teachers stand point. I really would like to know what other teachers and parents think of the program.

There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for you as a parent to not have been informed about this. I'm also curious how this was implemented in such a shoot from the hip sort of manner. This is the sort of thing that, to me, should have at least started as a proposal, been discussed at length in an open forum that allowed parents to air their questions, concerns and criticisms, and then provided parents with apprehensions to allow their kids to not participate. The latter could result in minor social repercussions but when it comes down to it, the parents should have a right to make the call when it comes to something like this. Especially when there apparently is no foreseeable end in sight as the principal said. Kids are pretty sharp and as much as I'm sure many parents have been trying to keep their kids mentally protected from the recent school shootings in the news, they've probably picked up on some of it. With our school systems struggling as it is and with America lagging behind in just about every important measurable subject in schools across the country, at it's most basic level this military presence is at best an unnecessary distraction.

First off I want to say I totally agree with your concern over not being notified of the troops presence.

Now having said that the rest of your post is laughable at best. I am an active duty sailor who regularly volunteers at local schools (mostly the DoD schools but others as well). This most definatly is a PR stunt for the base/military in general. And I will even go as far as to admit that it is an attempt to desensitize children to the military. How ever this is no different then the police or firefighters doing the same. It has been stated that only a small part of the military are "trained killers". But even so, we are not child killing monsters. Many of us love and have children of our own. While I might not agree 100% with the idea of putting troops in school for defense I will tell you this, 99% of our troops, trained killers and support alike, would suffer a life time of pain before they would allow your children to be hurt.

Your dislike of troops seems misplaced. You say you work an the base and "see how they treat civilians" but you forget that the base is their home. Of course they are going to different then they are in town. You do not act the same at work as you do at home. Also I work at a mostly civilian run facility and in my experience it is the civilians who treat the military poorly. And most of them don't even realize they are doing it. Point and case, I work in an office building, more or less, and was called into my civilian supervisors office and scolded for failing to check all the civilians cubicles and trash cans for food/trash before locking up. We have a janitor and I do not remember my job description including that title. We are also treated as inferior and uneducated. Maybe it is different where you are, but here the civilians are the assholes.

Let me get this strait, your daughter was playing dodgeball, a game who's object is to run around, and throw balls at each other, and she got hurt? Really? "No physical contact" and you've never tripped into someone while running around? I do not know the details, so my argument could very well be invalid, but from what you said, it sounds like an honest accident.

One thing you learn in the military is regret. Not in a bad way in a "I wish I would have studied more in school" kind of way. And many troops want to pass this info on to the next generation.

And if you want a really left field way to look at it think of ti this way. The military is sensitizing its troops to children. A child's laughter can be the best medicine for alot of things. The memory of a smiling child can be the difference between giving up (in combat or in life) and pushing on. And conversely, it's probably incredibly hard to kill an Afgan child with the memory of happy us children in your mind. Plus, the men and women of the military like to think of themselves as heros. ESP when the media is always telling us that. And heros need admirers. Have you ever done something you didn't think you could do for the sake of your child? The need to appear as heros to these children will encourage these troops to actually be the heros.

PTSD is not a joke, it is not an infectious deseas, and it is not taken lightly in the military. You might hear us joke about it, but trust me, it is serious. Plus do you really think the military, which is trying so hard to win your hearts, would send those troops to the schools and risk an incident?

TLDR: You should have been notified, but the is nothing to fear, we are not monsters, we care about Americas youth.

You agree with the first part of my post, then say the rest of my post is laughable, then go one to agree with the rest of my post. Obviously most troops really care about this country and the people in it or they wouldn't have joined the military. If soldiers need to heal from there war wounds by being around kids, GET THE PARENTS PERMISSION FIRST. There is obviously a huge rift between members of the military and private citizens, this issue needs to be addressed or we risk really hating each other.

I probably could have worded that better, but it was late. What I intended was that you're overly concerned with the troops being there. And your acusations that they were all ticking PTSD time bombs, or the vanguard of a coming military state were laughable.

I wasn't talking about "healing war wounds". You are making it sound like the military is full of those stereotypical 'Nam vets from the movies. It is hard to explain some times, but try to envision the monotony of daily life in the military. Speaking as a Sailor, I spent five years living on a ship. A big, metal, grey, floating home/work. Just the stress of day in day out eat, stand watch (Monitoring ships eqipment), sleep, repeat can break some of the strongest men. Additionally being away from society can have the same effect and revert normally civilized (wo)men into cavemen.

The rift isn't as large as many people think it is, but it is getting worse. (Ex)Military do tend to act stuck up or arrogant about their service. But when you look at whats really going on it is almost expected. Take a group of 18year olds and shape them into people that they never knew they could be. Push them to do things thought to be beyond them, and keep telling them that they are the best in the world. Hell, most 18 year olds already think they are the greatest thing ever. So yes, military members, esp the younger ones, can be very obnoxious. However that is no excuse for the blatant disrespect, some of which bordering on vilifying, that a good portion of civilian population gives out. We are guard dogs, yes we will kill to defend our Constitution and home, but we know who our "masters" are. Another issue is when people say they dislike/hate the military and are confused when everyday soldiers are offended. As I stated to antoher person, try criticizing the "military leadership" not "the military". And while it is not my place to tell you how to raise your daughter, by making a huge deal over the service members being around children you are re-enforcing the notion that "soldiers are bad" which of course, continues the disconnect. And kids talk, "my dady says the military is bad" now their children see the military as evil. This can be seen most evidently in low income or high crime areas. Children raised being told that "cops are bad" have no respect for the police and are less likely to seek them when in need. And this leads to all kinds of bad things. I pray that a time when martial law is instituted or we are fighting on US soil, but SHOULD that day ever come, don't you think it would be better for your children to trust our troops? And on the topic of martial law, the fear that the US will impose martial law and become a police state is ridiculous. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, we are not required to follow unlawful orders. We are not the Nazis.

Basiclly if you want to help reconnect the parts of our society start with yourself, Be the change you wish to see. And on the parinoid side, it will be alot harder for the soldiers to treat you poorly if you were friends before the invasion.

What kind of military presents are they handing out?

What the is with all of the OCD spellers. *presence there, happy now?

Because proper grammar and spelling goes more towards the credibility of the writer/how serious someone will take you. So does not doing things like calling someone giving a kid a piggy back ride an "asshole". Having more than one paragraph helps as well.

If you want to be taken more seriously, write out what you want to say, like in note pad or an app that has spell check, then come back in an hour or two, and read it again. Fix any errors you then find, and then post it.

Most of us are just trying to help you out.

Ok, thanks.

I used to do this when I was in the military in 1998. 99% the soliders there are fishing for an award through his/her command, so they can get the required points for promotion. There's no evil scheme, it is simply a free teachers aide for the day. I helped kids with reading, writing and math. It was 2 hour shifts every Wednesday. I missed plenty of days due to there being too much work for me to leave. I was not required to be in uniform and I went about half the time in gym clothes due me going right after lunch. I went a few times in my coveralls due to the kids being fascinated with me being tank turret mechanic. What are soliders supposed to do when they aren't in battle. Tanks only break so often when not in use and not a lot infranty'n needs done outside of a battle. I would give your post some credence if you weren't sending your children to school on a military base.

The difference is that this is an all day thing, and the teachers are spending more time directing the troops than they would like. There are multiple troops in each class room. When 28 uniformed troops stand at the entrance of the building and the kids have to walk through them to get inside it it quite a sight to see.

Your kid got bruised while playing at school, and you want to turn it into some big Alex Jones paranoia bullshit?

Maybe you should homeschool.

That's funny you say that because that is exactly what me and my wife have decided to do because of this. And my kid didn't just get bruised playing, she got bruised by a Soldier playing at her school.

Knock yourself out.

Don't listen to these people. Your concerns are valid, and you should be worried about these things. What people who don't live in Colorado Springs fail to understand, is that the city is a Federalized city. My family has been there since the 1800's, we get those cool red Pioneer plates to make us feel special. There are three industries in Colorado Springs. The military, defense contractors, and evangelical propaganda machines, I guess four if you count law enforcement. Not that one could consider CSPD law enforcement. They harass citizens and protect soldiers with severe mental problems. The only place in the area I would allow my child to attend public school is Manitou Springs, aside from that home school is the only option.

I have long ago left the 719 for higher elevations on the other side of those mountains. Not everyone can do that, but being aware of your environment is the first step in making good decisions in the future.

I am glad to see someone here could see how I have a problem with this scenario. I probably would not have had such a problem if my child had not been hurt the second day of this new progam. I still don't want troops in her school every singe week until who knows when. I have to say I am kind of suprised by people's reactions on this thread so far. It shows there are a lot of military people here in r/conspiracy. Which I think is good, we need the troops to be on the side of the civilians. Remember soldiers, I help pay your salery with my tax dollars, you work for us, not the other way around.

You need to seriously check yourself. You need to remember that there are plenty of people on our military that aren't 'assholes'. When the shit really does hit the fan in this country, you are going to thank God that there are some kind, intelligent, brave men and women with guns and the courage to help take down a tyrannical government. There are thousands of military members that have wonderful souls, love children and are TRUE patriots.

You are right when you say that they shouldn't be in our schools, playing around with our children on a regular basis. But you also have to remember that the soldiers that are at the school are probably volunteered (or told) to be there and they most likely all want ONLY the best for you children. If you look far enough up the chain of command, I'm sure you will find someone to blame. Don't take your hate out on some 18-19 year old kid because he joined the military to pay for college and thought he could serve his country while he did it. I was one of those kids.

Look dude, I have plenty of family that is in the military. So don't think that I just hate some one because they are a member. I also currently work on Fort Carson so I get to see how the troops behave toward civilians on a regular basis, witch I don't really like most of their attitudes. They are not all bad. I called them asshole because they were playing dodge ball with six year olds and my daughter got injured in the process. I blame mostly the troops supervisor and the teacher that was in charge at the time because there is supposed to be NO PHYSICAL CONTACT. Clearly this shows that they have not been trained on how to properly behave with the kids. Sounds like you only really have a problem with the fact that I called them assholes. Which they are for bruising my kids face.

I can only suggest that you protest this deplorable act with some action! Quit sucking off of the Military tit, quit your job on post at Fort Carson, and teach those baby killers a lesson.

Having a huge military is killing this country.

there are plenty of people on our military that aren't 'assholes'.

my definition of "asshole" includes the willingness to puncture another person's body and let all their blood out so that they die.

by swearing an oath to bear arms (for halliburton's profit btw), they squarely meet that definition.

Thanks, I needed that.

we're living in the empire man. as we speak i'm trying to convince my spouse to move somewhere where we can be empowered and not live to work while always being in debt to slimeballs in new york.

Ok, thanks.