Keep our Slaves Safe

[Alerter_]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0528-11.htm

According to Chalmers Johnson, author of "The Sorrows of Empire," almost half of our enlisted forces are between 17 and 24 years of age, and they were lured into military service with promises of education, job training, escape from poverty, medical benefits and the chance to operate some cool, high-tech equipment.

The recruitment effort gets more aggressive at the high school level. Johnson wrote, "Complaints about harassment by military recruiters in San Diego became so numerous in 1993 that the San Diego Unified School district adopted a policy against releasing student information to recruiters of any kind."

Bans on overbearing campus recruiters became so common that President Bush addressed the issue in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The bill stated: "Any secondary school that receives federal funds under this Act shall permit regular United States Armed Services recruitment activities on school grounds, in a manner reasonably accessible to all students of such school."

So our kids get bombarded with formal and informal recruiting messages - and they sign up. One day, they find themselves sitting in a Humvee in Iraq, with their best friend lying dead on the floor next to them, and they suddenly realize the deception of their recruitment and the shackles of their slavery.

They just want to go home, but they can't. And domestically, we continue to trot out the tired mantra that supporting the troops means supporting the war.

If we truly care about our young slaves, we should do everything we can to get them out of harm's way.

[donco6]

1. Here in CO, we're required by state law. . .

. . . to release the names of all juniors to the recruiters.

[demigoddess]

2. You won't believe this--

Recruiters are even spending time trying to recruit severely retarded people, I had calls for my daughter who cannot speak or walk, they offered her a place on a nuclear sub, and this was before women were allowed on subs.!!!They would not believe me that she could not talk on the phone, and they pestered me and even insulted me on the phone. A friend with handicapped boys, wanted to take her son to the recruiting office and say "here's his diapers, he's all yours" she thought that it might make the phone calls stop.

[Unperson 309]

3. Same In The Sixties...

Classmate of mine back in 1968. Guy was totally blind and going deaf due to Usher's syndrome, plus he was about 60 lbs overweight with a heart condition.

They actually detailed a sergeant to *lead* Scotty through the induction physical line!! He failed the hearing test, the eye test, the balance test, the endurance test... and they patiently led him all the way from Station 1 to the final one. He was classified 4F.

I'm not surprised that people would go through the whole rigmarole!

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