Stone Cupid Real

"A teacher for 30 years, Truthout reader Kirk Stapp now faces a new problem: how to advise his students on the offers made to them by over-eager military recruiters."--TO.

He sent sent them the account below, which moved me to tears, so I sent him an email (mine follows the piece, FYI), and he has kindly allowed me to copy the whole thing here. --Julie


The Class of '05
    
By Kirk Stapp
t r u t h o u t | perspective

Friday 24 June 2005

    After a marine or army recruiter visits Mammoth High School, students frequently ask me questions about my military experience in Vietnam. Eventually, these conversations lead to a single question: Should I enlist?

    Advice can carry a heavy burden in shaping a seventeen-year-old's future: employment, culinary school, a community college, a UC, a tour in Iraq, an amputated leg, a lifetime full of nightmares, cancer from the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium used in US and British munitions, a flag-draped coffin.

    Ryan (not the student's real name): "The recruiter said that my ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) scores were so high that I could become a helicopter mechanic or even go to officer's candidate school."

    "You know, if you enlist, you're going to end up serving a tour or two in Iraq or Afghanistan." There is an awkward moment of silence. "If you're smart enough to have options in the military, why don't you go to college?"

    Ryan hesitates: "My folks said they could help me pay for books, but that's about it. They can't afford to ..." There is a pause - then a glimmer of hope: "The recruiter said that if I enlisted I would receive ten thousand dollars, an enlistment bonus, and thousands more in college tuition assistance when I get out." If you get out. He's looking for an opening. It's not "Should I enlist?" He wants to know why he shouldn't enlist.

    "What do you think?" Ryan asks, while looking at the floor.

    I think recruiters target poor kids. The chance of Ryan's being killed in Iraq or Afghanistan are minuscule. The chance of his losing a leg or arm or eye are probably less than two percent. Sadly, the chances of his suffering from exposure to radiation are probably astronomically high given the fact that hundreds of tons of depleted uranium munitions have been expended in Iraq during the first gulf war and Bush's crusade.

    The idea of advising Ryan to not serve his country is repulsive to me. Americans have always served ideas bigger than themselves: "freedom," "opportunity," "liberty," "justice," "truth," "equality." Most of these ideas are enshrined in our Constitution: they are called the Bill of Rights.

    Ryan hands me an Army National Guard brochure: "BE ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST POWERFUL WEAPONS." "Citizen. Soldier. Defender of Freedom." "Your country needs you."

    "Ryan, you're not American's most powerful weapon and you're not an army of one. You also need to know that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, there was no link between Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and 9/11, and the people in Iraq, at least the Shia, didn't vote because of Mr. Bush's Iraqi Freedom; they voted because the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa - a religious order - vote or go to purgatory or wherever Muslims go. They also voted because they wanted American troops our of their country." There is another prolonged pause.

    "What the recruiter won't tell you, Ryan - or for that matter, what most American newspapers won't print - is that not only have we killed over a hundred thousand Iraqis, demolished many of their cities, allowed their museums to be ransacked, crippled their water and electrical system, desecrated their Qur'an; but we also sold over 200 state-owned Iraqi enterprises to foreigners, multinationals like Halliburton - and Iraqis aren't even entitled to any of the contracts to rebuild their own country. We've decimated their country and economy. And then there are the US prison camps - Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Force Base, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba - it's much worse than a "few bad apples," we're torturing people to death. Amnesty International has branded the US prison camps a human rights failure. Muslims around the world fear us and hate us. We've lost the moral high ground."

    Ryan is intensely staring at his hands; his fingers are claws. He wants to know why he shouldn't enlist.

    "Mr. Stapp, didn't you enlist during the Vietnam War?"

    "Yes!"

    "Why did you enlist?"

    "For the GI Bill, so I could go to college - my family was poor; because I thought it was the right thing to do; I didn't know any better; I just signed up."

    Ryan unlocked his fingers, placed his hands palm down on the desk, extended his fingers, slumped in is chair.

    "Ryan, let me ask you this: why wouldn't the recruiter let you bring your enlistment papers to school for me to read?"

    There is an tense silence. He still wants to know why he shouldn't join.

    "Okay - if you are going to enlist, make sure you get everything the recruiter promises you - in writing. Your enlistment papers are a contract with Uncle Sam. If they promise you enlistment bonus money, or free tuition money, or officer's candidate school, make sure you get it in writing. And before you sign any enlistment papers, please bring a copy to school so I can read them and talk to you about what's in them, what they mean. And one other thing, promise me - promise me - if you do end up in Iraq and you encounter a destroyed Iraqi tank or armored vehicle, stay the hell away from it. It was probably destroyed with depleted uranium munitions, which means if you breathe any of the contaminated dust, you could get cancer. Of course, the army will deny that DU can cripple you, but over 200,000 troops who returned from the 1991 Gulf War are now dead or debilitated with ailments ranging from leukemia to kidney failure to brain damage: all attributed to service in Iraq - that's 1 in 3!"

    "The recruiter said I would be stopping terrorism - stopping another 9/11."

    I am almost shouting through clenched teeth. "Afghanistan was about stopping al-Qaeda and terrorism. The war in Iraq isn't about stopping terrorism. It's about oil or egos. According to a recently released secret British memo, the intelligence and the facts for going to war in Iraq were 'fixed' by the Bush administration eight months before the war was started. Today, ninety-five percent of the fighters in Iraq - fighting against American soldiers - are Iraqi nationals, not foreign fighters or bloodthirsty fanatics or insurgents. The Iraqis view the US-led forces as 'occupiers' not 'liberators.' We're increasing terrorism. Last year, terrorist incidents were at a 20-year high, and they have increased five times since then. We're making America and the world less safe." Ryan is looking at his hands again. I lower my voice: "Iraq is drifting into chaos and taking the US and the Muslim world with it."

    Ryan stops listening. After a brief silence, he changes the subject: a few comments about teachers, friends, the end of the school year. There is a clumsy parting. "Take care, Ryan."

    Ryan is a pragmatist and an unwitting patriot. A long time ago I taught a unit about war poetry. Talking to Ryan, I am reminded of the ending of Kipling's poem, "Epitaphs of the War" - "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

---

    Kirk Stapp can be reached by email.

Dear Kirk,
Thank you so much for this! Would you mind if I copied it on my blog? See below for link.
I have a 12 year old son about to enter a public junior high in California. He's been privy to my frequent anti-Iraq war rantings, and tho he plays the usual airsoft battles and gaming with friends, he is aware of all the things you told Ryan about this war. All 5 of his best buds, whom I love dearly, are mostly aware, too, and even tho I get that deep sigh from Jackson when I holler at the radio one more time with them in the car, I thank Pacifica Radio for being there when I can get it, and truthout every day for being my homepage. I'm a subscriber.)I am thankful that my son has been raised in a home where there is no incoming TV since 1996. He sees it at a couple friends, and when we're in hotels, but his buddies are usually here at our place...and we watch a lot of DVDs. I'm afraid he IS a movieholic.
My point is, I'm with you trying to spread the knowledge of WHY it is a bad decision to be recruited during THIS war, and as a point of fact, kids should read WR Pitt's piece today about the unspoken fact of our nation's economy being based on the Military Industrial Complex's need to perpetuate itself through CREATING endless war (see also Gore Vidal, but you already know this.)
Thank you also for your service in Viet Nam. We have a paraplegic friend having trouble getting benefits for his MS which was probably caused by Agent Orange. He's in litigation. I'm from Iowa, land of the veteran, and to breathe of these things in any social situation brings inflammation, but I really like the way you handled it by saying, and I quote you here, "The idea of advising Ryan to not serve his country is repulsive to me. Americans have always served ideas bigger than themselves: "freedom," "opportunity," "liberty," "justice," "truth," "equality." Most of these ideas are enshrined in our Constitution: they are called the Bill of Rights." And then, Ryan showed you the brochure and you refuted the Army National Guard's claims. You are so right. This has to be, above all, A CONVERSATION. But it has to be the conversation on everyone's lips. We can't be discussing Michael Jackson, ( thank god that's over, but I bet Bush is nervous...See Dick and Karl run to find something else to talk about-like Iran...), or American Idol, or Desperate Housewives or LOST. Why is it always TV? "Kill your TV." They don't talk about the Downing Street Memo or any of the things you told Ryan on it, anyway.

China is buying Maytag. I come from the town in Iowa where they used to make every Maytag washer you ever saw. There is a Wal Mart there, and a state prison, too, so my home town is DYING. But the supreme court, even the "Clinton nominees" voted to keep letting that happen and to kick homeowners out to do that yesterday... I'm rambling, and my son and his friend want to go for a swim. Next year, someone from JROTC will be visiting THEM.

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