Carmion - I invite all of the parents of my students to come into the classroom and discuss their occuptations with my class. To my knowlege, none are in the military.

I am not discouraging anything except violence and war.

I do not doubt that children that are surrounded by a military culture are fascinated by military history, I just haven't seen it in my school.

The notion of "untouchability" seems quite apparent in the U.S. Thats why the number of recruits are down and why they have lowered the standards of aptitude tests. To my knowledge, Canada has not lowered their standards.

Your opinions are based on your own subjective experience. I would imagine that you are from a military family. Of course you would want to think that other children were as fascinated by soldiers and guns as you were. I'm just saying that kids who have had little or no direct exposure to the military culture, have little or no interest.

You brought up a good point about the caste system. The military, in many cultures, is another echelon of the caste system. Is it possible that North America has its own version? I do notice that police work and military service seems to run in the family. In fact, many towns are dominated by military personnel and so you have communities of like-minded people.