William A. Alexander – 6/10/07

This page was last updated on June 11, 2007.

Let military fund JROTC; William A. Alexander; Beaver County Times; June 10, 2007.

Mr. Alexander has written at least 25 letters since December 2004, and all but two (this one and another fawning over Rep. Jason Altmire [D-PA]) bashed Republicans for something.

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“I am sure that the Ambridge Area High School JROTC program helps a few students with discipline, self-confidence etc., but you can be sure the armed forces participate in these programs only because it is a good recruiting tool for their particular service.

“This is all well and good, but if the taxpayers are supplying the building, utilities, transportation where necessary, etc., to make this group available to the services, it seems to me that is more than enough.

“If it were deemed worthwhile to the armed forces, you would think they could supply the instructors. It has to be more efficient than lurking around malls and buttonholing high school students to sign up to enter the service as we have seen on ‘60 Minutes’ and other programs.

“Assuming about 30 students per class and two instructors, it works out to 1.5 classes per day per instructor. If you assume the same dropout rate for each of the four years to go from a total of 85 to nine graduates, the classes would be about 45 freshmen, 26 sophomores, 15 juniors and nine seniors.

“Thus, you go from 45 to nine, about an 80 percent dropout rate. I suspect that the dropout rate is higher in the freshman/sophomore years, and the overall dropout rate is even higher than 80 percent.

“There have to be better places to put $50,000 toward instructor salaries in some other vocational, business or college prep classes where the dropout rate is more in line with normal classes.

“Again, I am not against the JROTC program. I do think that the arm of the service should be willing to supply the instructors as its part of the program.”

[RWC] What does Mr. Alexander have against the men and women who serve our country in the military?

“Again, I am not against the JROTC program?” This is the equivalent of claiming you support the troops, while doing everything you can to prevent their success.