"Parents, are the biggest hurdle we (Army recruiter's) face."

[LaPera]

"The recruiters are in your face, in the library, in the lunchroom," he said. "They're contacting the most vulnerable students and recruiting them to go to war."

Amy Hagopian, co-chairwoman of the PTSA also recently took a few hours off work to stand beside recruiters at Garfield High and display pictures of injured American soldiers from Iraq.

No Child Left Behind, which was passed by Congress in 2001, requires schools to turn over students' home phone numbers and addresses unless parents opt out. That is often the spark that ignites parental resistance.

Recruiters, said that opposition can be fierce. Three years ago, perhaps 1 or 2 of 10 parents would hang up immediately on a cold call to a potential recruit's home, "Now," he said, "in the past year or two, people hang up all the time. "

Several recruiters said they had even been threatened with violence.

"I had one father say if he saw me on his doorstep I better have some protection on me," said a recruiter in Ohio. "We see a lot of hostility."

In Whittier, a city of 85,000 10 miles southeast of East Los Angeles, about a dozen families last September accused the district of failing to properly advise parents that they had the right to deny recruiters access to their children's personal information.


Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03recruit.html?oref=login

[Sanity Claws]

1. Wonder how many of them voted for W?

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Krishnas were banned from airports... Take the idea and run with it.

[redqueen]

3. I hope they're not surprised.

Hello? Needless war?

People were lining up to join after 9/11. They felt it was necessary.

But go die in Iraq? For what? Did they bomb us?

Idiots... should've seen this coming. No one lines up to join the fight against an enemy that's not a threat, dumbasses.

[Warpy]

5. The volunteer army is working the way it's supposed to

Iraq was a war of convenience, meaning there was absolutely no reason beyond misunderstood geopolitcs and an opportunity for looting to go into that country. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, a very bad guy. However, his people had water, electricity, food, and they could go out and about without being afraid of being blown up on the way.

The fact that young people (with their parents' help) are refusing to help this gang loot Iraq is great. The lowered manpower pool will also clip their wings as they look for other oil rich countries to bomb, conquer and loot.

However, should any nation try that on our own country, the recruiters would be turning the less able away. They'd have more than enough manpower to fight a truly defensive war. They had enough manpower to clean the criminal organization out of Afghanistan until Fuckwit pulled most of them out to get ready for his illegal war on the Iraqis.

If we'd had a volunteer army in the 60s, Vietnam would NEVER have gotten as bad as it did. No draft! Not ever!

[Zinfandel]

7. Perfect!

[LaPera]

4. If liberal & progressive parents resist, we know the rich don't send

their kids off to the military to die, we know most republicans are "Chickenhaws"...Doesn't leave a whole lot left for the lying slimy recuiters...

[damntexdem]

6. Hey, military recruiters, now don't forget the importance of ...

family values. LOL!

[bobbieinok]

8. also religious wrong is big on 'children obey your parents'

[Zinfandel]

9. kick.

[salin]

10. In the article an official says: volunteer your child - or we will

involuntarily sign him/her up.

Seriously - says that parents should help out - get their kids to volunteer so there is no draft...

in other words... send your kid - so the rich folks kids don't have to go... and frames it as a patriotic duty (to keep rich kids from going by averting a draft)