Resident Scholars of the A.P.I.
Recruitment Is Down For George's War!
Recruiters hawk promises of opportunity, financial independence, medical care, training, and travel, along with a chance to trade all individual rights for camraderie. They have been preying upon high school kids, on campuses, for some time now. When Congress passed George W. Bush's, No Child Left Behind, in 2001, it included a requirement that the military be given access to school grounds, and that students' names, addresses, and phone numbers be turned over to military officials. What does military recruitment have to do with education? Nothing! It has a lot to do with conning kids, on the threshold of adulthood, who have yet to aquire the experience necessary, to make a life-altering decision.
When I was pregnant thirty-six years ago with my first child, I did not want the baby to be a boy. I was in the military, had lost friends in the war, and saw the damaged young men returning from Vietnam on a daily basis. The American War on Vietnam sprouted from a lie, nourished itself on hundreds of thousands of dead Vietnamese, and Americans, and blossomed into a multi-year, murky quagmire. I could not fathom bringing a child into the world, loving, nurturing, protecting, and teaching my child for eighteen to twenty years just to sacrifice my child to the war gods. I still cannot. My first born child was a boy.
The recruiters got to my son. He was 17. A diploma wasn't necessary, they told him, we'll help you get a GED. Why wait and suffer high school when destiny is within your grasp? All he needed was my signature. I was loathe to sign. I knew what he would face, and I knew that much of what he would be asked to do was inherently wrong (a condition that continues today with the targeted misuse of military force). I argued against his enlistment. My son was not going to return to school and would be a truant. He wanted that "golden opportunity" and after all, he was almost eighteen, a man! He would go anyway, he told me. I signed with deep regret.
I spent years after that with my stomach tied in knots. Sleepless nights were the norm. He served in three combat zones over a period of fourteen years and spent time in one of the mysterious "Stans" where the US does "sneaky stuff". He has been injured, shot, is sick with something that causes him to throw up all of the time, has done things he still can't even think about, let alone talk about, and he has PTSD. Like so many veterans, he worries that seeking help from the VA will result in stigmatization and has grown weary of waitng months for appointments. "Be all that you can be" was a clever and misleading lie.
George W. Bush lied to justify the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. The need for a war on Iraq was sold to the American public through cherry-picked information and a series of fear-based, propagandized lies. His merry band of Neo-con war planners had the occupation on paper a decade before Saudi Arabian Wahhabis attacked the World Trade Center in New York. Most Americans were ignorant of the difference between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. After all, THEY are ALL Arabs, aren't they?
Today, American parents are standing up to military recruiters, and George W's dirty "No Child Left Behind" trick. If this war is so necessary and so RIGHT then let us see all of the Bush offspring line up at the recruitment office. The "twins" are out of college, they support their father's war - let them enlist and go, even if they just drive supply trucks to "Support Our Troops". Then, there is George Bush III, Jeb's son (who wants to enter politics), he is young, and strong, so send him! What about Cheney's daughters, and the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of our representatives, our Senators, and Congressmen? Evidently, they don't buy "This War" enough to go themselves, or to send their own children, or grandchildren!
I am very thankful that my eldest son was here to discourage my youngest son's enlistment, and that all of our family stand together, proud and tall, against the New American Empire.
Stand up for yourselves, American Parents, do your duty toward your families like so many others in the world are trying to do. Watch out....in American neighborhoods where the jobs have been outsourced, the military recruiters are as thick a cloud of locusts.
Do your homework as all patriots must
and never forget that...."war is a culture of death"
.................Kitchen Window Woman...................
When I was pregnant thirty-six years ago with my first child, I did not want the baby to be a boy. I was in the military, had lost friends in the war, and saw the damaged young men returning from Vietnam on a daily basis. The American War on Vietnam sprouted from a lie, nourished itself on hundreds of thousands of dead Vietnamese, and Americans, and blossomed into a multi-year, murky quagmire. I could not fathom bringing a child into the world, loving, nurturing, protecting, and teaching my child for eighteen to twenty years just to sacrifice my child to the war gods. I still cannot. My first born child was a boy.
The recruiters got to my son. He was 17. A diploma wasn't necessary, they told him, we'll help you get a GED. Why wait and suffer high school when destiny is within your grasp? All he needed was my signature. I was loathe to sign. I knew what he would face, and I knew that much of what he would be asked to do was inherently wrong (a condition that continues today with the targeted misuse of military force). I argued against his enlistment. My son was not going to return to school and would be a truant. He wanted that "golden opportunity" and after all, he was almost eighteen, a man! He would go anyway, he told me. I signed with deep regret.
I spent years after that with my stomach tied in knots. Sleepless nights were the norm. He served in three combat zones over a period of fourteen years and spent time in one of the mysterious "Stans" where the US does "sneaky stuff". He has been injured, shot, is sick with something that causes him to throw up all of the time, has done things he still can't even think about, let alone talk about, and he has PTSD. Like so many veterans, he worries that seeking help from the VA will result in stigmatization and has grown weary of waitng months for appointments. "Be all that you can be" was a clever and misleading lie.
George W. Bush lied to justify the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. The need for a war on Iraq was sold to the American public through cherry-picked information and a series of fear-based, propagandized lies. His merry band of Neo-con war planners had the occupation on paper a decade before Saudi Arabian Wahhabis attacked the World Trade Center in New York. Most Americans were ignorant of the difference between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. After all, THEY are ALL Arabs, aren't they?
Today, American parents are standing up to military recruiters, and George W's dirty "No Child Left Behind" trick. If this war is so necessary and so RIGHT then let us see all of the Bush offspring line up at the recruitment office. The "twins" are out of college, they support their father's war - let them enlist and go, even if they just drive supply trucks to "Support Our Troops". Then, there is George Bush III, Jeb's son (who wants to enter politics), he is young, and strong, so send him! What about Cheney's daughters, and the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of our representatives, our Senators, and Congressmen? Evidently, they don't buy "This War" enough to go themselves, or to send their own children, or grandchildren!
I am very thankful that my eldest son was here to discourage my youngest son's enlistment, and that all of our family stand together, proud and tall, against the New American Empire.
Stand up for yourselves, American Parents, do your duty toward your families like so many others in the world are trying to do. Watch out....in American neighborhoods where the jobs have been outsourced, the military recruiters are as thick a cloud of locusts.
Do your homework as all patriots must
and never forget that...."war is a culture of death"
.................Kitchen Window Woman...................
posted by Kitchen Window Woman at 8:00 PM
6 Comments:
The Recruiters have literally HOUNDED my recently-graduated son-he was actually hiding in the bathroom at school to avoid them.
For those of you who want to know how to fight back, there is an excellent site where you can find some great resources.
http://leavemychildalone.org/
I have posted about this topic (as you know) but it is from a distance, observing things in the US as they develop. There is however no substitute for experience and (as your post details) history will only repeat itself unless we learn from it.
Good article.
C0y0te
http://www.avalon5.com
"Howl @ The Moon!"
Heck, "the twin" can't even get themselves a J.O.B. of any persuasion, much less fight in Daddy's war.
Recruitment is down? But how can that be? We're winning the war. Freedom is On The March. They wouldn't lie about that would they :)
Recruiters are really getting desperate now. They go back to the front lines if they don't fill their quotas, so they're lying through their teeth. We need some of these Chicken Hawks to sign up, but don't hold your breath.
I am convinced that as more and more jobs leave this country the only way left to make a living will be to serve in the military. No More Jobs and Pell Grant cuts combined will keep the middle class and the working class offspring out of college with no other choice. The corporate government has it's sights on Iran, Syria, all of the Stans and even Saudi Arabia. They will need many bodies to station at the permanent bases that Halliburton is constructing all over the world. We have to stop it! They are making American into a model of Victorian England except that this time, "the sun will never set on the American Empire." The only people not in danger of serving are members of the ruling class and their children.
Thanks for the links..I checked them out
This was a wonderful post. I have two sons and a daughter, and I worry greatly that this never ending war on an ever expanding axis will gobble them.
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