An Older Man Has Been Going to Your Daughter's High School

Written by John Henry

An older man has been going to your daughter's high school. In fact, a few older men have been going to your daughter's high school. They have been in her classes, selling their vision of her future to her. These men are typically in their late 30s. They have had plenty of experience. They know a lot about life, and maybe they know what is best for your daughter.

They are military recruiters. Maybe they are with the Navy. Maybe they are with the Marine Corps. Maybe they are with the good old Army. But they are in high schools all across America. From sea to shining sea, there is a recruiting office in every town for every branch. Those recruiters are tasked with finding fresh blood for the U.S. imperial forces. We do not call them imperial forces, but that is what they are.

She was only 15 when they first met. She was impressed by the uniform. She was impressed by his demeanor. He knew right then that for the next four years at this recruiting post, she would be his target. It is the perfect age to start. At 15, a sophomore in high school, she can join JROTC or attend recruitment events to get a feel for military life, but actual enlistment requires her parents' permission at 17. She just has to wait a little bit to fully sign up. That is his mission: to get her to sign the dotted line. The sooner she does it, the better for him. His paycheck is tied to this. His bonus is tied to this. His wife and her car note are tied to this.

He pals around and he hangs out. What do you know? He finds out she hates history class after a short "one on one" during his first visit, just to explain some of the benefits you get from that uniform. Everyone is worried about college at this stage in life. Everyone is worried about their admissions tests and scholarships. How will my parents afford these loans? Will I be able to get student loans? Will I qualify for the Pell Grant? What will my major be? She knows that higher education is the key to a better life here in this country, but she also knows she'd struggle to afford it. If she could, she would be in debt for the rest of her life, her millenial uncle can attest to that. A half a million dollars in loans when you are freshly an adult is a big ask. It cannot be that much bigger than enlisting, can it? Especially when the person telling you about the benefits of an enlistment paints the "true picture of student loan debt" to someone who's still getting an allowance. Half a million dollars seems like a reasonable amount of student loan debt to someone like that, and it sounds even more reasonable when placed next to "$10,000 signing bonus".

The first time they spoke he learned her least favorite class is history. They say those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it, and she will not be learning any history because he is making an impromptu visit to her high school. "What period do you have history? I always hated afternoon classes." He asked off handedly last time. This time? The visit is timed ever so perfectly, knowing that she will be there in history class. The recruiter comes in his nice pressed uniform, sporting that nice multicam, the American flag on the shoulder facing backwards because it flies that way when we charge forward. He is charging forward right towards your daughter, and you might not even know it yet. But he is aware, and so is she. He is playing on all the naivete that she has. After all, he is an authority figure. He is trusted. He is well-liked in the community. You cannot hate a hero, can you?

He gives his spiel for that 45-minute history class on how you can take your ASVAB, what you need to know, and what it would be like to do basic training next year for your summer. He gave everyone in the class the study material. Did you know you could take basic training in high school? Yeah. You can do that when you are in high school. You can take your basic training your junior year, the summer of your junior year. You arrive as a senior fit, motivated, and determined to make it through the school year just as fast as possible. The moment you turn 18, he has you. You are already in. Locked in for 4 years, 6 if you count IRR.

Eventually, you will find out that your daughter has been talking to this older man. Your daughter has been told about her potential future and what he can offer her. He will do the same sweet-talking to you. You cannot enlist to do your basic training your junior summer without parental permission. He needs your help in convincing your daughter that he is her future.

All of this comes after the special McDonald's being brought to the lunchroom. Oh, I was just swinging by on my way back to the recruiter's office, and I figured I would bring you something. I know it is your favorite. The ten dollar McDonald's meal comes with a discussion about the $10,000 potential sign-on bonus. We need more people to load bombs. The planes do not load themselves. Given that we are an air superiority-driven military, it is a position constantly in need of being filled. He intends on getting your daughter to fill it.

By the time he springs the conversation on you, Mom, she's already been primed. She likes this guy. She's developed an interpersonal relationship with him. From the moment he saw her drawing on her papers, distracted and not wanting to be in school, he knew she was the perfect target. For what? What do we call this? If he was pursuing a relationship, we would know that this is fundamentally wrong in every regard. When he springs for parental permission to guide this minor towards a future that he believes is best, a future he is being paid a bonus to convince her of, maybe things are different. Maybe we would not call it grooming. Maybe we would call it patriotism. After all, she's been standing and saying the pledge to God, to the flag, and to the country every day in that same school since she was four years old. It is different, right? Surely it is different.

You know that in order to meet recruitment numbers, this is how they are doing it. [1] Reports show that for the U.S. military to meet their recruitment targets, and remember, this is an all-volunteer force, everyone consented to being there, they have to go younger. [2] 17-year-olds are signing up to do summer boot camps, and 16-year-olds are being funneled through preparatory classes and special events that feed directly into that pipeline. You can get college credits for military prep course work. All by design. They get shipped off as soon as they graduate high school. But again, he is not grooming her. He is buying her the McDonald's not as a token of affection to win her trust. Well, actually, that is why he is buying the McDonald's. Funny. But it is for a noble cause. He's 37 taking a 16 year old to lunch for America, for our safety, it's the land of the free, and home of brave men like him. And maybe sure, he picks her up from school every once in a while, you know, they have each other's numbers. She has got a lot of questions about the military and he offered it to her as a means of answering those questions, it's not deeper than that, not at all. She has got a lot of questions about her future, the future that he has promised her. Because again, this is not grooming, this is serving your nation. After all, he is the same hero that we stand up and salute when the jets fly over the football game. [3] This is a man you can trust with your 15-year-old daughter. This is a man that you already know, you know the uniform stands for selfless service, it stands for the betterment of your country, afterall, that's what the recruitment ad said. That's what Fox News said, that's what MSNBC and CNN say too. Because he is wearing that uniform, you know that you can trust him with your 16-year-old daughter. This is a man wearing one of the most esteemed uniforms this country can provide. He just wants what is best for your 17-year-old daughter. Besides, she just turned 18. She's an adult. [4] She can consent to joining the U.S. military. She wasn't groomed into it, right? Besides, once she does, she'll have the mark of empire, she'll get rebuilt, tore down and made to be a killer, and she will never hear from that recruiter again. He will be long gone, collecting his bonus and hoping his wife is not asking him just how many other 15-year-old girls he has bought McDonald's for in a bid to get that bonus. Hoorah.

See how this works? Are you picking up the picture? I'm starting to. That same 15-year-old girl that met the recruiter who interrupted her geometry class and then started timing his visits for the afternoon to interrupt her history class very well could be the 19-year-old woman that was killed by a ballistic missile launched by Iran onto a U.S. military base in Jordan. [4] You know where Jordan is? Can you point to Jordan on a map? I wonder if your daughter can, because she has been missing geography class to talk to the recruiter. I hope you can see the parallels. Once you see them, it is hard not to see them. It is hard not to think about how there is an industrial-grade grooming operation happening in our high schools.

When I was in high school, the age limit on my junior prom was 26 years old. I did not go to my senior prom. I remember once I hit 26, I was just very confused, because I could not imagine why I would want to take a 16-year-old to prom at the age of 26. I didn't think "now it's my turn to go after high school girls!" I thought "Wow, a lot of my peers were groomed and this was systemically supported." It's the south after all, land of the Baptist Purity Ball and the shotgun waiting on the porch, or the shotgun wedding. The reason our age limit was so high was because we lived not far from a military town. They had to have an age limit because there were people who wanted to go, who were older than the cutoff. To put it simply: A lot of these girls were being groomed by military-aged men in a way that is not much different than the way your 15-year-old daughter is being groomed by the recruiter. This was 10 years ago. It is not a times-have-changed thing. Ten years ago, in the grand scheme of American history, may as well be the present. The studies that show they have to groom more and more of the youth towards, let's be real, contributing to Israel's land claims and genocide in the Middle East on behalf of American weapons manufacturing corporations, are even more recent than 10 years ago.[5] All I'm saying is, there's a direct line between Korean War "pleasure women" and adult dudes showing up to my junior prom. [6]

If you search American service member Okinawa, you get all types of news stories. Soldiers abusing the Okinawan women, sexual assault, rape, sometimes even murder. But we, in our gluttonous American exceptionalist mindset, do not seem to understand that as above, so below; what happens over there also happens here. There were the same stories of rape and sexual assault and drunken soldiers abusing teenage girls where I am from. I am from a place far, far from Okinawa. I'm from Louisiana, not quite the same type of colony as Okinawa, still occupied by the same United States Army. Did you know that in 2023 and 2024, over 70,000 female service members reported being sexually assaulted by their peers? [7] Did you know that 52% of homicides that happen to female service members are perpetrated by male service members? [8] These are the facts. And you still believe that the man in the uniform going to your daughter's school, buying your daughter gifts, and trying to convince you that he knows what is best for your daughter's future, is wearing a pristine uniform? Is that uniform pristine, or have we just been groomed into ignoring the filth?

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