John at OP-FOR has a piece at National Review (a good piece, Eric?). He's chastizing, properly, so-called "elite" schools for their treatment of military recruiters, and their discouragement of their students from military service.
Which brings us to the comments at BlackFive, when Jimbo posted about the piece:
True story: I tried joining the Army a year ago and had to get one of those fancy $1,300 psych evaluations that only a professional civilian consultant can do in order to get a waiver at MEPS ["Military Entrance Processing Station" -- the place where you go to get the paperwork done and your medical exams]. Within the first 5 minutes of the interview with the psychologist I convinced him I didn't have any problems. Then instead of ending the interview there, he went on and on for the next 15 minutes about how someone like me shouldn't be joining the military. Apparently I had a 95 on the ASVAB and was doing well in college (3.6 GPA) and he was telling me, to summarize: "You're just going to be cannon fodder in the miltary. You have too much potential. Read some anti-military books to see how much of a mistake joining the military is. Your MMPI-2 results show you can take criticism, but they're going to yell at you in boot camp!"So, basically the psych doctor didn't feel even a little bit bad about getting this poor guy damned as a psycho who couldn't be trusted to serve as a private, in order to keep him out of the military. For the rest of his life, if he applies for gov't service jobs, the kid is going to be asked, "Were you ever refused entry to the military?" and he'll have to say, "Yes, I was found psychologically unsuitable."
At MEPS he faxed over his 1 paragraph evaluation that said because of my goal orientation, and ironically, my ability to handle stress, I wouldn't be fit for the military because I potentially could be insubordinate at Boot Camp. The opposite of everything he said to my face about me. Basically, the guy was your typical smug blue state anti-war liberal who wants to rescue those who don't need rescuing. He rescued two other kids that day with the same evaluation -- he just changed the names at the top of the page.
It's a year later and my recruiter gave me a call saying I can now take another psych evaluation. I'm not really sure what to think. Maybe I'll act dumb and desperate and try failing the evaluation this time?
I get called a chickenhawk by the same kind of people who keep me from enlisting.
Can he prove he's not? It's not like proving that you don't have an ulcer. With a real medical condition, they can look and see. You can't "see" a psychological condition. How does this kid clear his name?
The best he can do is find another civilian expert, pay out another grand, and then -- if it goes well, and he doesn't get another anti-military jerk (or some psychologist who feels that young men with such feelings of aggression that they want to join the military need to be medicated and feminized) -- he'll have a "he said / she said" defense. 'Only one of them thinks I'm crazy! And they can't really prove anything one way or the other, so... um, why are you looking at me like that?'
Psychology should simply be banned from federal hiring decisions, and also from court proceedings. It is not a science, it's fortune-telling. We wouldn't let a tarot card reader ruin a kid's life and put something this damaging in his permanent record. We shouldn't let a "scientist" like this do it, either.
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