Commentary: At ease - permanently. The SoCal military academies that thrived and then folded their tents

The all-volunteer U.S. Army has faced recruiting problems and responded by raising the enlistment age from 35 to 42. It is also willing to overlook one marijuana possession conviction. The Iran war has added new recruits and strengthened military ranks. Earlier in the 20th century, the nation had no trouble expanding its military as it entered a new era of influence. Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and the policing of overseas territories helped shape public imagination. Military schools grew alongside this expansion, multiplying from before World War I through World War II. Many schools opened in Southern California and advertised widely, even placing uniforms on boys as young as six.

"Until lately, the all-volunteer U.S. Army had been having recruiting problems, and one way it chose to combat them was to raise the enlistment age last month, from 35 to 42. It also is now willing to overlook one conviction - just one, mind you - for possessing marijuana. And the Iran war has given the military's ranks a burst of new recruits."

"Back near the cusp of the new "American Century," the 20th, the nation had no problem muscling up its military. Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charging up San Juan Hill worked powerfully on the national imagination as the country undertook the policing of its new empire: Hawaii, and, from the Spanish-American War, control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, along with a robust overlord mercantilism in Central America."

"There's nothing coincidental in the fact that military schools also rose up around then, and that they kept multiplying past the first world war and up to the second one. An astonishing number of them opened here, in Southern California, although you would be hard pressed to find many nowadays. Back in the start of the century, they advertised in newspapers from the Midwest to Hawaii, and they put uniforms on boys as young as 6."

"The Page Military Academy for boys 6 to 14 - known as "The Big School for Little Boys" - offered the pledge that it "does not enroll students with vicious tendencies or who have been under the juvenile court.""

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