Sorry, this might be better suited for ‘fun and games’, but it does have a message. My favorite bits:
Recruiter: “Because of exiting current events, the army needs new members!”
Recruiter: “Damn! Even the dumbest teenagers in the dumbest town in the dumbest state know better than to join the Army!” (sound like anyone?)
Recruiter: “You can’t legally join the Army until you’re 18, but if you preenlist now, we will save you a spot in America’s next unresolvable conflict!”
Recruiter: “Thanks for fitting us in, Principal Skinner!”
Skinner: “Well, I’d do anything for my beloved Army!”
Recruiter: “How 'bout re-enlisting?”
Skinner: “How 'bout you bite me!”
In the high school where I worked last year the soldiers would come into gym class and do calisthenics with the students. They would always drive up and park in the school parking lot with either a beautiful motorcycle, BMW, something that wasn’t a Hummer, but maybe a little smaller than a real humvee. I think it is illegal for the school to refuse them entrance. They can even get hold of students’ telephone numbers. The recruiters who worked on my nephew (they didn’t need to work to hard- he had always wanted to be in the Marines and was always playing the video game ‘Call to Duty’) used to take him deep in a state park where they would illegaly shoot off machine guns together. The morning he was to leave at 5:30, they personally picked him up.
But why would a school refuse them entrance? OK, so you’re anti-military, but why should everyone else be? Lots of people think joining the army or the Marines is an honourable and useful thing to do.
Probably a legal thing. You have to be 18 to join, and I’m certain that a few 15 or 16 year olds would try to do it. Also the school is responsible for kids under the 18…It’s all the parental law stuff.
Probably a legal thing. You have to be 18 to join, and I’m certain that a few 15 or 16 year olds would try to do it. Also the school is responsible for kids under the 18…It’s all the parental law stuff.[/quote]
Oh, right. You can be a squaddie at 16 in Britland, I think, hence the confusion. But why would the US Army be bothering to trying to recruit kids under 18 if they’re not allowed to? I wouldn’t have thought that was a very cost-effective move.
There is a HUGE difference between recruiting 16-17 year olds in a high school and giving toddlers guns. Junior ROTC programs have been in the US high schools for a long time.
Because of Overt Official Policies of Discrimination in the Military
Sure, some people may want to join, including homosexuals who the government bans from military service. It was on that ground that several law schools sued and a US District Court struck down a federal law forcing them to allow recruiters on campus.
[quote]Harvard Law School will once again ban military recruiters because of the Pentagon’s policy on gays in the military, the school’s dean announced yesterday, the day after a federal appeals court blocked enforcement of the federal law that forced schools to allow the visits. . .
Harvard had long barred military recruiters from formal campus visits because the Pentagon’s ban on gays violated the school’s nondiscrimination policies. Like many other law schools nationwide, Harvard was forced to allow the recruiter visits two years ago, when the government invoked a law known as the Solomon Amendment and threatened to cut the university’s federal funding.
Harvard became the first major law school to reinstate its ban. . . At Boston College, Boston University, and Columbia University, officials said they were reviewing the 100-page decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, and considering their next steps. . . [/quote] boston.com/news/nation/artic … rs_banned/
Because of Substantial Privacy Concerns and Unfair/Unreasonable/Deceptive Recruiting Tactics
[quote]Under [the federal No Child Left Behind Act] NCLB, schools receiving federal funds are required to provide student contact information to military recruiters unless the individual student or the student’s parents notify the school that they do not want the information to go to the recruiters. . .
Not only are parents and students often not aware that their private contact information may be released by their school, school districts themselves risk litigation if they do not provide adequate notice to parents of their right to opt out of the release of this information . . .
. . .with a $1 billion Army advertising budget and an overall $4 billion recruiting budget at work, kids choosing whether or not to enlist face some of the most sophisticated marketing tactics and shrewdest messaging money can buy. . .[/quote] berkeleydailyplanet.com/arti … ryID=23969
[quote]Six New York teen-agers sued Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on Monday, alleging the U.S. Department of Defense broke the law by keeping an extensive database on potential recruits.
The suit in federal court in Manhattan follows a series of allegations last year of misconduct by recruiters, who have experienced difficulty meeting targets because of the war in Iraq.
The Pentagon last year acknowledged it had created a database of 12 million Americans, full of personal data such as grades and Social Security numbers, to help find potential military recruits.
The Pentagon has defended the practice as critical to the success of the all-volunteer U.S. military, and said it was sensitive to privacy concerns.
But the suit alleges the Pentagon improperly collected data on people as young as 16 and kept it beyond a three-year limit, and said that the law does not allow for keeping records on race, ethnicity, gender or social security numbers.
“On the one hand Congress has afforded broad latitude to collect information but on the other hand the Department of Defense has completely flouted those limits”. . .[/quote] schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2006/ … sfeld.html
For me, if it is a just war with wide spread support- institute the draft. Other than that, I don’t want my children exposed to some hyped up version of what military sacrifice really means. If the recruiters want to go into the schools, let them take someone with them whose had half of their face blown off to show them the reality of war. In addition, I support raising the minimum age to enlist to 21- ditto for voting and drinking age. 18 is still a baby for most in the US.
Much to the dismay of Harvard and a number of other educatonal institutions, the Solomon Amendment was upheld in a Supreme Court decision last year, and it turned out that most of the schools in question weren’t committed enough to the cause to forego federal funding. Harvard’s endowment may be enough these days that they can do without the government’s money, but it should be interesting to see how it plays out.
Privacy concerns I’ll grant you, though it is worth noting that the parent has the option of refusal. If there were evidence of coercement then it would be a problem, but in the case of minors they can’t actually sign them up anyway, so that would be hard to show. With non-minors they obviously can conscript you by draft, but they haven’t done that either.
Edit – just checked that article about Harvard, it was from 2004, so it’s entirely moot because the Supreme Court has since ruled otherwise.
FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Defense attorneys hinted Friday that a Supreme Court decision barring the execution of mentally retarded defendants could keep the Army from seeking a death sentence against the only soldier known to be charged with “fragging” – or killing his superior officer – during the Iraq war.
Little else was said by attorneys for Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez during his arraignment Friday on two counts of premeditated murder. He is charged with killing Capt. Phillip Esposito and 1st Lt. Louis Allen, his superior officers in the 42nd Infantry Division of the New York National Guard. Martinez did not enter a plea, which he can do later under military justice rules.
Col. Patrick Parrish, the judge overseeing the hearing, set a tentative trial date of June 4.
During the 30-minute hearing, defense attorney Maj. Marc Cipriano told Parrish they may raise issues of mental health that would prevent Martinez’s execution under a 2002 Supreme Court decision that found sentencing mentally retarded criminals to death violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Both Cipriano and the chief prosecutor, Maj. Craig McNeil, declined to speak to reporters after the hearing.[/quote]
Well obviously it beggars the question, what the hell is a retard doing in the US army? A staff Sgt no less! It would suggest to me, at least, that there is a problem meeting recruitment demand and that standards are being lowered. If you think about it, they must have passed over some very motley choices to make this man a sgt!
Lets wait and see if he was in fact retarded before jumping to conclusions. Mental disabilities in various forms are a method of choice for getting out of harsh sentences…
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Well obviously it beggars the question, what the hell is a retard doing in the US army? A staff Sgt no less! It would suggest to me, at least, that there is a problem meeting recruitment demand and that standards are being lowered. If you think about it, they must have passed over some very motley choices to make this man a sgt!
HG[/quote]HGC -
Sorry, I see nothing in this…[quote]During the 30-minute hearing, defense attorney Maj. Marc Cipriano told Parrish they may raise issues of mental health that would prevent Martinez’s execution under a 2002 Supreme Court decision that found sentencing mentally retarded criminals to death violates the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.[/quote] to support your allegations.
At this point, its just a lawyers bantering for his client. Wait & see is best, IMO.
This case sounds vaguely familiar, I think there is more to this. Maybe I can remember or find some more some specifics about this one. I know there was another case regarding fragging with a Muslim named Soldier…let me look and see what turns up.
I think the military did lower their standards because they were hurting for recruits. First the Army was giving 20,000 dollar signing bonuses. I believe I read that certain criminal offenses would be overlooked that before would have disqualified someone. I don’t think the Marines give signing bonuses. I heard anecdotally that immigrant students in the US illegally could get legal by signing up- but I’ll have to check more into that before putting it across as fact.
US Army recruiting standards actually have been consistently raised in the last 10 yrs or so.
Info searches on Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez turn up nothing related to any “mental ilness” or previous “mental” problems. He was an enlistee in 1990 in a New York National Guard unit.
He had progressed up to Staff Sgt, E-5, and was a Supply Sgt. in his unit.
A “signing bonus”, known as a Enlistment or Re-Enlistment Bonus has traditionally been offered in the US Army for certain MOS (Military Occupational Specialties) areas. Its cheaper and more efficient to keep a well-trained service member in a job than to have a lack of available specialists. This applies to many different job areas.
Non-US citizens have for 100 years or more been offered the opportunity to achieve US Citizenship by serving, honorably, in branches of the US Military.
The incident I mentioned regarding the Muslim named soldier is this:
In April, a sergeant in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division was convicted of murder
and attempted murder for a grenade and rifle attack that killed two officers
and wounded 14 soldiers in Kuwait during the opening days of the 2003 invasion.
Hasan Akbar, a 34-year-old Muslim who was sentenced to death, told investigators he
staged the attack because he was upset that American troops would kill fellow Muslims.