Some ammo for your "friendly" recruiter....

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 01:04:10 -0700

"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…

Choose the Blue

noreply@blogspirit.com (Julie CHRISTENSEN) — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:25:00 -0800

CHOOSE THE BLUE
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Some ammo for your "friendly" recruiter....

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