Some wonderful nuggets of information can be read between the lines of this story on military recruiting in high schools. For instance, did you know that:

A little-noticed clause in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to hand over students’ names, addresses and telephone numbers to military recruiters as a condition of receiving federal aid.

No child left behind… when we need them armed in Iraq, I suppose.

More interesting is this quote about the logistics of military recruiting:

An average of 10 telephone calls is required to produce a single “contact” with a prospective recruit. Five or six contacts are needed to gain an “appointment.” It takes two or three appointments to set up an “interview,” a three-hour session that tests the persuasive powers of the recruiter. One in five interviews results in a “contract,” or a commitment to join the Marine Corps.

So that means you need between 500 and 900 kids on your marketing list to get a contract. And the target for the year is 40,000 contracts.

So your marketing list has to be between 20,000,000 and 36,000,000 high school kids. Which raises a problem because there are only 17,000,000 of them. No wonder handing over ready-made marketing lists has been written into law. No wonder the article documents a Marine sergeant intimidating a student peace activist. And no wonder a Marine recruiter is quoted as saying, “Getting a list from a high school makes our life a little easier. But whether or not they give us a list, we will get the information one way or another.”

Your government at work. Resistance is futile.