JAU writes the boys from the govparochial school systems preyed mercilessly and and with impunity on the homeschoolers. These boys totally lacked any capacity or inclination to defend themselves from the taunts, pranks, beatings gleefully administered by the boys with the benefit of a short lifetime of fending for one’s self in the schoolyard….from where I stood they did not look like noble christian soldiers manfully restraining themselves in the face of provocation, but like sheltered sniveling misfits cowaring in the corner because they’d never had to go without the protection of mama’s wing….
This makes me laugh. By this logic, we should all send our children to inner city schools, because then they could learn how to pull out a nine and blow the head off of anyone who disses them, much less attempts to taunt or beat them. The only mistake that the homeschooling parents made was in sending their children to this high school – one of the advantages of homeschooling is that it prevents a child from developing the pack mentality that exists in every school, be it public or private.
What JAU describes isn’t strength of character, it is a superficial toughness that exists only in the exotic environment of the age-same. In the real world, potential victims have the protection of weapons, allies and social customs; only in the schoolyard is an individual expected to stand up for themselves without any resort to assistance. Interesting that one doesn’t see those sort of petty abuses at the office, as they would get one fired in a heartbeat.
One of my little brothers, who is quite a bit younger, came running to the car when I was a senior in high school, and told my other brother that a bully was hitting our youngest brother and making him cry. We left the car running in the street – my brother actually did a Dukes of Hazzard slide over the hood – and descended on the bully like a wrathful hurricane. The next morning, the two of us were summmoned into the Dean’s office, who wanted to know what on Earth had inspired two high schoolers not known to be bullies into beating up a fifth-grader at the elementary school.
Thoroughly unrepentant, we told the Dean that if he messed with the littlest one, we’d beat him up too. At that point, he laughed and said that when he called our mother the night before, she’d told him that she was only sorry that she hadn’t been there herself. No one ever bothered our little brother again.
The BS that passes for school socialization is useless, even detrimental in the long run. I’ve seen dozens of guys who think they’re tough from years of being the big fish in the small pond shrink like violets in their first round in the dojo, and that’s not even the true measure of the man that is real combat. Innocence is a treasure, not something to be despised, and there’s nothing wrong in believing that those to whom you belong will protect you.
My friend in Force Recon used to hate it when his platoon would hit a bar together, knowing that they were going to fight. And yet, he always threw himself into the thick of it because nobody fights just one Marine. And it doesn’t get any realer, or any harder, than the USMC.