2012 高考英语：阅读理解课堂练学案（20）Passage Eighteen (The Military Is In) Things have really changed. Not only is the military standing tall again, it is staging a remarkable comeback in the quantity and quality of the recruits it is attracting. Recruiters, once denounced by antiwar students as “baby killers” and barred from campuses, are welcomed ever at elite universities. ROTC (Reserve Officer’s Training Corps) programs, that faltered during the Viet Nam era, when protesters were fire bombing their headquarters, are flourishing again. The military academies are enjoying a steady increase in applications. Certainly, the depressed economy has increased the allure of the jobs, technical training and generous student loans offered by the military. Students know that if they go in and become, say, nuclear weapons specialists, they can come out and demand a salary of $60,000 a year. Military salaries, while not always competitive with those paid for comparable jobs in the private sector, are more than respectable, especially considering the wide array of benefits that are available: free medical service, room and board, and PX (Post Exchange) privileges. Monthly pay for a recruit is $574; for a sergeant with four years services it is $906; for a major with ten years’ service it is $2,305. The services’ slick $175 million-a-year advertising campaign promising adventure and fulfillment has helped win over the TV generation. Kids are walking down the school hallways chanting ‘Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines,’ just like in the commercials. And many military officials feel that the key difference is the enhanced patriotism among the nation’s youth. There is a return to the view that the military is a...
