Snopes: [True] Project 2025 Wants All Public High School Students To Take Military Entrance Exam?
Project 2025 Wants All Public High School Students To Take Military Entrance Exam?
I’m not opposed to a mandatory community service year upon turning 18, where a person who is physically and mentally able is required to spend 12 months PAID to work in a government organized community service program. This can help new adults gain new skills, create contacts, get references, and get off on the right foot financially.
But “military” is definitely not the right direction. IMO
The problem is that just discriminates against lower and middle class people more than anything.
It is work experience that has no meaningful value for a career (especially if EVERYONE has it) that mostly just serves to delay when people start college/trade school/whatever. Which hurts their ability to "hit the ground running" because they need to relearn what little they retained from high school but also impacts lifelong learning rather significantly. Whereas anyone who can pay off a doctor to say they have flat feet or some other non "yucky" issue will skip it.
And also? It is more or less worthless for the military. For anything short of cannon fodder, a year is nowhere near enough time to train someone to be useful. Even room clearing (e.g. Rangers) needs significantly more training to be less likely to shoot friendlies than foes. A lot of the problems in the Ukraine war (on both sides, honestly) can be traced to this. A soldier who can do more than "hold the line" needs significant training.
And while I think a return to having a strong emphasis on civil engineering and infrastructure as public service would be a great idea... without an education that is basically just hard physical labor. So now we have even more kids starting with debilitating injuries before they even begin their "real" career.
Federal service is very broad though. Just consider ask the different Federal Agencies and the roles they fill.
For example, when I was in college I had a 6 month internship with the National Park Service doing trail maintenance for a national park. It serves me no purpose as a resume item but I look back on that time extremely fondly even though it was the hardest physical labor I've ever done. It was incredibly physical work with really 10+ miles of hiking every work day. The NPS across the US has an huge budgetary backlog of trail maintenance going back decades.
That all is just an example but I'm sure the NPS could make great use of thousands of young workers to improve our parks. Similarly, I'm sure across the board the Federal Agencies would have a vast multitude of roles for this Federal service, including working for the DoD but in non military roles. Most of the agencies would have vast amounts of work that isn't covered by their budgets so it just doesn't get done.
I hear your concerns.
And your point, even Medics who have served in combat roles and saved lives on the front line can't even become civilian paramedics without four additional years of college after they're done in the military. This is all because nobody's figured out how to transfer the training that they received in the military over to the civilian world certifications
I say force everyone to do a year of retail. That'll do wonders for compassion as a whole.
I mostly agree. I think having a "do it by age 30" rule or something might be a little better than requiring it at 18 (I graduated high school at 17 and was already in university at 18 so this would have messed things up financially as well as mentally).
I think there would need to be a postponement situation. Not everyone is ready the day they turn 18.
I’m not opposed to a mandatory community service year upon turning 18, where a person who is physically and mentally able is required to spend 12 months PAID to work in a government organized community service program.
Why do we need mandatory service when we can just offer a good salary in a citizens conversation corps that prioritizes high schoolers in hiring?
In my country, if you can't do the mandatory military service (and yes, being a pacifist is a valid reason I believe), you can do the same amount of time working for a charity and get paid minimum wage. I know a guy who worked for the food bank, but there are other options obviously.
It's not the perfect program - I'd prefer if you could just immediately choose to do the humanitarian service instead of the military one, rather than having to go through the medical check for the military one first. And I think minimum wage is pretty horrible if you don't also get provided housing... But overall, I like the idea.
I totally would have done it. I really needed some time on my own.
I think this would make more sense if it were connected to public education somehow. Lots of high schools already require community service hours to graduate, turn that into a program where third and fourth year students spend some time in school and some time doing some kind of public service work. Though It would need to be more of an educational thing than actual paid work.
Cool, but we also take Finland's law about tuition: it's illegal to charge it.
No private schools. It's done wonders for their society because the rich people invest in the same schools as everyone else.
Endless War is a Hallmark of Fascism. This will require a large number of cannon fodder.
It very much has the "we must give meaning to life for the idiots who can't run their own life... and by that we mean we think you aren't human so just do what we need to be comfortable and dominant ourselves" vibe
Rich kids and those with bone spurs will be exempt.
Require all private schools that wish to have accreditation take a minimum of $10 and a maximum of $11 of federal dollars.
Ok, but also I see this causing populist style attacks on disabled kids too. Especially those with invisible or “minor but valid” disabilities that disqualify.
My school had us all take it at 16.
If you refused you had to go sit in the cafeteria by yourself and weren't allowed to even study. Just sit there with your eyes open not doing anything for like 4 hours.
Fuck that’s awful. Were you in Idaho or something equally awful?
Pretty much, we're also talking about right after 9/11.
We had people signing delayed papers as soon as they turned 17 so they'd go to boot immediately after HS graduation.
It was a wild time.
They had us take it in the 90s in my high school but we quickly knew it was worth nothing so everyone tanked it on purpose. We were already weary of standardized testing and knew just what to ask the teachers.
I went to high school during peace time — that used to be a thing way back when — and I think my school required it for ROTC but maybe it was more of a strong suggestion rather than a requirement.
We also had possibly the worst possible system for military recruiters. You had to choose between the regular P.E. class, weight lifting (if you played a sport), and ROTC. The end result was that ROTC was always like 2% committed future service members (who would have joined the military with or without high school ROTC) and 98% awkward people avoiding sports at all cost. (Or the worst fate of all, 1st hour PE so you were the person who smelled like stanky teen gym clothes in every one of your classes.)
My school had us all take it at 16.
If you refused you had to go sit in the cafeteria by yourself and weren’t allowed to even study. Just sit there with your eyes open not doing anything for like 4 hours.
Every time I hear stories like this, it reminds me of my old high school. As it was the only public school in the city and there were no alternatives, it was damn near impossible to actually get expelled unless you were physically threatening or dealing cocaine in the halls.
They tried punishments like this too for a variety of reasons. Not being ready for gym class, or some hands-on class that requires a uniform. In-school suspension for minor infractions. Dress code violations. Stuff like that. They were happy that most of the kids bothered to show up and not cause problems at all. Kids were gonna sit there with their headphones on, head on a desk, and probably taking a nap. Attempting to tell the kids they couldn't do that was probably going to be met with a middle finger. What were you gonna do, suspend them? That's what they wanted in the first place. It was a 3 day vacation to them.
My high school made everyone take the asvab. I must have scored well on it because the military was up my ass. I remember uniformed soldiers regularly ringing the bell and asking for me. I had zero interest in joining the armed services, but they kept coming. My mom started answering the door for me; yelling at them to get lost and leave us alone.
bro you're saying this as a fun anecdote but i'm not from america and this is terrifying
Some additional context:
This was 99-00. There was no war. Both of my grandparents served in ww2 and Korea to gain US citizenship. My dad came up in the Vietnam era when all his friends were getting drafted (aka forced to go to war). He tried to enlist but was blind in one eye, so they didn't take him. My brother would have enlisted if it weren't for a really bad skateboarding injury.
If I were good at football, it would have been university coaches knocking on my door. I was good at something the military was interested in, so they tried to recruit me to enlist.
I was 18 on 9/11/01. And my first thought was that Bush would take us to war, I'd get drafted and I needed to plan my escape to Canada. This was scarier than being recruited. I just wanted to play my bass guitar and smoke my marijuana in peace.
Reddit was right. You are being gang stalked by the government.
I didn't take it and I still had guys showing up at my door, calling me, and in one case a Marine recruiter ran two blocks to talk to me.
Wow, you must have been poor! /s
About face and March :slams door:
We could start the first war fought by dropping rich people from drones!
No wait... dropping rich people on fire from drones. That's better. We might run out of rich people, but they will run out of rich people first!
We'd need a wide range of rich people munitions if we wanted to fight a war. Armor-piercing rich people, incendiary rich people, cluster rich people, high-explosive rich people. It'll be quite the endeavor.
Doritos are really flammable. I wonder if we just feed a rich guy Doritos if it will do the trick. But you're right, that's just one type. How can we make a rich guy more stiff? Stuff enough for armor piercing. This will take quite a bit of lead pills.
For those not familiar with it, it is an aptitude test that covers a wide range of topics. The results can be informational. Beware if you score well enough to fill a job in the army that is really understaffed, you will never get the recruiters to stop calling.
I had all 3 branches showing up at my house and lying to my face to get me to join after my school made me take it.
You'd think they would realize that lying to someone who scored really high was a bad idea.
I wonder how low you have to score before the military doesn't bother to recruit you, because I had to take the ASBAV in high school and I just filled in bubbles at random since I had no interest in dying in Iraq. I still got a high enough score that recruiters kept bothering me for years.
I knew a guy that got a 14, he had to retake it to join the army
Don't need a high score to be a bullet sponge in the army.
We took it senior year and I really didn't know about it at the time. I must have flipped some switch because every branch started calling, and a navy recruiter actually came to my house wanting to talk about nuke school. I was like I don't want to bomb anyone with nukes thank you very much lol.
NPS 'nuke school' focuses mainly on shipboard nuclear power plant operation, like nuclear powered subs.
I took it, had an army recruiter show up a year later and asked to speak with me. My mom said I had already enlisted, the guy goes, "Oh, we already got em?"
"No, the Navy did, he left for bootcamp last fall."
Also had my recruiter step between the Navy MEPS guy and I to tell him to fuck off and find me a job I wanted. He would not let the nuke thing go, and my recruiters already knew I had no interest and backed my other job choices. 😂
I scored high on all fields but one and the recruiter never left me alone for four years, even finding me on Facebook.
"I'm sorry, I had an accident lately. Lost a hand and half my lung, and lost parts of my gray matter. Anyways, what would be my starting rank? General?"
Yep. I got hounded for years and years.
Tell me it’s a draft without telling me it’s a draft
Time for someone in the know to start spreading some "How to fail the ASVAB miserably!" memes.
It isn't hard...also, they will take you anyway, you would just be a bangbang.
chemical corps needs test subj-er-soldiers.
But also you just don't need to. I didn't realize that not everyone took the ASVAB. My public High School administered it to everyone (May have been an opt out option, don't remember) and I did pretty well. As a result, I was contacted by recruiters two or three times, promptly said I wasn't interested, and that was the end of it.
I have no idea what the test involves, but if that had been me, me and my friends would have tanked it and made the results useless.
I took it in high school just to have some extra testing under my belt for some reason that made sense at the time. It was probably the easiest test that I'd taken all 4 years. They're not testing for who can be rocket surgeons, but for people who have practical smarts. There were a couple of questions where you were given a series of 10 connected gears and giving the rotation direction of the first had to predict the last. Yeah, not calculus.
You'd be surprised how many private schools receive federal funding.
But honestly this isn't the worst thing. As long as it's interacted with in an honest manner the ASVAB is an excellent career test. So an honest interaction with it would be counselors telling students their results and showing them career paths that line up with those results. To be clear, we're talking about civilian career paths.
The problem is I don't hear about it being done that way anymore. (My highschool did exactly the above) I only hear about it being used by recruiters, for recruiting.
When I took my asvab I was surprised when they told me my mechanical aptitude was really good...didn't know a Phillips from a flat head but wound up as an aircraft mechanic which was fuckin dope!
Oh God, I was an idiot. My recruiter said I qualified for everything. I told him I wanted to be an Airborne Infantryman. He repeated, Everything, could write my own ticket. So I decided... To double down on an Airborne School and Infantry contract. If I could go back in time I'd give that man a beer, slap myself, and forge my own signature on a military intelligence analyst contract. I'd have loved that job, learning languages, embassy postings (travel), and being all up in everyone's tea. But no 17 year old Maggoty had to be a dumbass.
Having the right paperworks and acting on said paperwork are two unrelated things in the military.
Especially thanks to the corrupt AF B DeVos
The wars of the future will be between big ass companies using drones, espionage, hacking, assassins, etc. it won't involve us poor commoners anyway.
Well, we’ll still get blowed up.
Can we do something about making the Selective Service more equitable? Why is it that Men are the only ones that have to register for the draft? We have plenty of women serving in the armed forces, make everyone have to register.
Reagan. Talk to Reagan.
Why not just get rid of Selective Service entirely?
Although we currently have an all-volunteer military, I don’t know that I could say that conscription would never be necessary. Certainly exceedingly unlikely, but not impossible. I understand the potential need for it as a backup plan, it just seems antiquated that we’re still only considering men as potential soldiers.
Wouldn't private schools apply too with the voucher system? Or is that only meant to stay on the state level?
I took the ASVAB way back in the 90's. IIRC it was mandatory then too.
I taught in a district where it was mandatory to take the ASVAB. My principal said fine... "All tenth graders take the ASVAB".
Recruiters can only access students if in grade 11 and 12. (? Probably it's about the age for enlisting)
Best administrator I ever had.
It was optional for us in the 90s. I took it to get out of class and what a terrible idea that was. I had recruiters hounding me for months.
That may have been location dependent. In the my school in the 90s it was optional. I didn't take it because I didn't want more recruiters calling me, so I'll always be curious at how I'd have done.
In my school in the 80’s it was optional. I took mainly as SAT practice, then got an endless stream of recruiters calling me. I was the only one I knew (my group was all college track) who took it, got a 99 and did not find it useful to improve my SAT
In my school early 00s, it was optional. I took it purely to get out of class for a bit
I did aight. High eighties.
Good fucking luck. Trying to get schools to give any standardized test is like pulling teeth, entire states have given up on the idea.
lol you know they're still accepting the ones who got "draw a circle around the triangle" wrong
There's always openings in front line infantry!
This guys name is colon? That's going to take a pounding in boot camp.
We did at my school.
If we find this becomes forced, just tell your kid they’re allowed to mark all a’s and turn it in. Done.
It literally has no bearing on their school grades.
The more you cede, the more they will take.
It literally has no bearing on their school grades.
For now.
Having to give on off advice to each child each time they are compelled to take a military aptitude test is much worse than not compelling that test.
Yes
If it ever becomes forced, colleges and employers are going to expect to see scores. Absence of ASVAB results will be conspicuous.
I didn’t submit SAT (or equivalents) and still got accepted into several different colleges.
I never finished because I’m a shit student but I’m also making over 240k with no degree.
So, even now colleges and employers don’t care. Maybe higher tier colleges but I was never getting into those anyway.
WTF is this about? I showed up stoned from skipping class in 10th grade and took the ASVAB back in the day. I placed in the top 1% of the nation not remembering a single question. I was told I qualified for any position in the military. I got DQ'd so it was for nothing. Why is this an issue now?
Armed services don’t have enough recruits, so they want a bigger pool to chose from. If every kid has to take ASVAB, then they have a much bigger pool of possibilities, including being able to actively recruit better suited people. The other point was to expand jROTC, to do exactly that.
I had no interest in the military but took ASVAB thinking of it as practice for SAT, which I did care about. However the tests were different enough to not be good practice, plus then I was constantly recruited by all branches. I expect they want to be able to do more of this
I think disqualified.
This has been in place for decades, I had to take it in the 80s in a public school. It's called ASVAB like the article mentions. This is nothing new.
The required part would be new.
In some schools. In my public school, we took practice ACTs and SATs.
Just because something's "been done for decades" isn't a good reason to keep doing it, much less to expand the practice. I mean, 50 years after the draft ended, but men still have to register, isn't a good reason to sign up women.
I'm not saying keep it because we've always done it, I'm saying it's always been around. This is to get people riled up about something that's always existed.
Fun Fact: This section of Project 2025 was written by Christopher Miller.
You might know him from such things as “On January 5, Miller issued orders which prohibited deploying D.C. Guard members with weapons, helmets, body armor or riot control agents without his personal approval.”
That dude has a lot of forehead.
"Six Head"
He looks like a cliche bad polititian guy from a 90s thriller movie.