Page 10
The Battalion
Tuesday, March 9,1993
Before you sign,
know the truth
This letter is intended for those indi
viduals who are presently sophomores
in the Army ROTC program and are
considering whether or not to sign a
Guaranteed Reserve Contract. Since I
am currently a Second Lieutenant in the
Nation Guard, I can give you the real
scoop. However, before I do, I want it
to be known that I'm not trying to talk
any of you out of signing a contract. I
just feel that you should be given the
whole picture.
You will probably have people tell
you that the eight year obligation is re
quired from you for the $1800 that you
receive over your final two years.
However, you probably won't be told
that this money is considered in your fi
nancial aid package (i.e. you wotild
have received this money anyway if
you were receiving financial aid, but it
would have been in the form of a loan
instead of a grant).
Likewise, you will probably be told
that you will receive over $200 per drill.
However, you probably won't be told
that you can lose up to 30 days of ac
tive-duty pay if equipment is lost by
your subordinates. Officers will tell
you to make your subordinates sign
hand-receipts for the equipment. The
only problem with this is that there is
an extremely high rate of turnover
among enlisted personnel in the Army
Reserves. Furthermore, you will be
lucky if you are allotted time to do an
inventory more than once a year.
Finally, don't expect your civilian
employer to give you vacation time of
on top of your two-week annual train
ing (many view this as your vacation
time).
Now weigh this with the good things
that you have heard about getting com
missioned, so that you may come to the
right choice for you.
the matter. Inform people that this isn't
what college life is supposed to be -get
ting drunk of the weekend, sobering up
on Sunday, and resuming school on
Monday (hopefully) - this isn't what
these four or five very important years
are all about. They're about growing
mentally (and sometimes spiritually),
making lifetime friends and commit
ments and of choosing what path of life
you really want. Hopefully, you can
see my side - and T'd appreciate your
interest and concern by responding in
one of your articles.
many more of my fellow students dis
play such a lack of responsibility and
consideration, these companies may
choose to recruit only at schools where
they have had high attendance and ap
plicants who displayed a strong interest
in their companies. I, like everyone
else, hope to get before I graduate.
Please don't hurt my chances by turn
ing employers away.
economy. Remember, tax increases
have never reduced the deficit, and for
proof I point to the tax increases under
Reagan and Bush that were supposed
to reduce the deficit. The only thing
that can reduce the deficit is to cut
funding by scraping the "current ser
vices baseline" way of funding the gov
ernment and only adjust budgets for in
flation.- . ..
Melissa Megliola
Class of'94
Travis Waddell
Class of'96
Mark A. Magee
Class of '94
2 Lt. Michael Buck
Class of '91
Employers irritated
with irresponsibility
Clinton's economic
plan seems slick
Religious debate
found enlightening
Drinking not part
of college curriculum
There's something that has been
plaguing A&M ever since I can remem
ber. It has given this University a label
with many people I know, and I'm sure
it's been branded the same by many
others. What I'm referring to is alco
holism and drinking. This of course,
should be of no surprise to anyone
reading this letter, however, I do feel
that this topic needs to be discussed on
a local newspaper level - and the Battal
ion would be ideal for this purpose. I
have been in many discussions with
many different people about one thing
about those choosing not to attend
Texas A&M University. Among other
obvious reasons, such as "A&M does
not adequately accommodate to my
needs, and/or my Major," which any
one should be able to understand, there
has also been the frequently-heard no
tation that "Yea - Texas A&M, the Beer-
Drinking Capital of the World That
doesn't impress me..." Well, it doesn't
impress me either.
This is where I ask for your help in
I am writing this letter in response to
the lack of professionalism displayed
by many graduating students here at
Texas A&M. The placement center on
campus works very hard to provide
students with as many employment op
portunities as possible. To do so, they
assure prospective employers that our
graduates are responsible students and
job candidates. We in turn need to live
up to our part of this agreement.
My father, a manager and recruiter
for a worldwide engineering firm,
spent the last two days at A&M recruit
ing mechanical, electrical and civil engi
neers. His division has openings for
college graduates at around $35,000, of
fers excellent benefits, and opportuni
ties for advancement. Last night, they
held and information session for
prospective applicants. Around 35 stu
dents signed up to attend and between
12-15 actually showed up. The compa
ny paid to have refreshments that went
to waste and the recruiters were surely
irritated by the exceptionally low
turnout.
If you sign up to attend an informa
tional session, you are committing
yourself to attend. Companies are by
no means required to hire Aggies. If
This letter is in response to Charles
Lwings' letter printed in the March 2
edition of the Battalion. It seems that
Clinton Wants to add the value one
could receive by renting their house out
for the year to our income, thereby rais
ing the number of people who are
moved into a higher tax bracket.
Sounds kinda SLICK to me.
Secondly, I am tired of this liberal lie
that the r ich got an unfair tax break and
didn't pay their fair share during the
Reagan/Bush y£afs. First of all, every
body got a tax break in the eighties, but
the "rich" got the smallest break of
them all, by about 1%. Also, during the
last few years, the top 5% of wage earn
ers paid 40% of the taxes. Seems pretty
fair to me.
President Clinton may want to in
crease jobs and improve the infrastruc
ture, but his stimulus package will cost
about $170 billion, and his youth jobs
package will cost about $4 billion. The
economy is growing better than it has
in the past few years. In the last quarter
of 1992, Gross Domestic Product grew
by 4.55, the. largest growth in 5 years.
We don;t need to tinker with the econo
my right now. Let the market forces
take care of the problems.
It seems Clinton doesn't want
"shared-sacrifice" or else he would cut
his salary and really cut spending, not
just reshuffle money in the present
I would like to commend both Cam-
pys Crusade for Christ and the Agnos
tic and Atheist Student Group for carry-
v ing out a wonderful debate last
Wednesday night. Both groups
showed great tact in using facts and
reasoning power to answer some very
tough questions. I hope to see more of
such debates,, especially between other
religious and philosophical groups on
campus, but all done in a spirit of want
ing to understand each other:
Peyam Barghassa
Graduate Student
Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of
the editorial hoard only. They do not necessarily reflecl
the opinions of other Battalion staff members, the
Texas A&M student body, regents, administration,
faculty or staff.
Columns, guest columns, and Mail Call items express
the opinions of the authors only.
The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and will
print as many as space allows in the Mail Call section
Letters must be. 300 words or less and include the
author's name, class, and phone number
Due to space restrictions, guest columns will not be
accepted unless the author contacts the opinion page
for prior approval before submitting columns.
We reserve the right to edit letters for length, style, and
accuracy
Letters should be addressed to:
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