In the seemingly prophetic Simpsons episode G.I. D’oh (video right) recruiters shamelessly push Army propaganda on school kids offering them the chance to pre-enlist. Sure we all laughed, but who’s laughing now?

On October 15th, Chicago commissioned the nation’s 1st public high school run by the U.S. Marine Corps. And while students are under no obligation to go to the Iraqs and such, they are required to wear a military uniform and are referred to as cadets by their similarly dressed instructors. Chicago schools, which already have an Army and Navy presence, will complete their militarization (barring any ahem: major malfunctions) in 2009 with the addition of an Air Force academy high school. Although these military school are voluntary, in fact over 3,000 applicants were turned away, they are publicly funded inciting some Chicagoans to hit the streets in protest sporting their oh-so-fashionable ‘recruit peace’ t-shirts.

Even comics are not safe from the recruitment onslaught. In addition to straight-forward full page Army ads, kids are now being bombarded by subliminal messages within the comic panels themselves, as seen in this months’ X-Factor #24 (pictured right), where we can clearly see an U.S. Army billboard in the background of a fight scene. For God’s sake what’s next? Pushing fully posable Army action figures on our kids!