Racial Extremists Are Infiltrating the Military

Racial Extremists Are Infiltrating the Military for the Chance to
'Kill a Brown'

http://www.alternet.org/rights/112770/

By David Holthouse, Intelligence Report
December 15, 2008.

New evidence suggests that white supremacists are taking advantage of
lowered recruiting standards to enter the armed services.
--

The racist skinhead logged on with exciting news: He'd just enlisted
in the United States Army.

"Sieg Heil, I will do us proud," he wrote. It was a June 3 post to
AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi online forum to which "Sobibor's SS,"
who identified himself as a skinhead living in Plantersville, Ala.,
had belonged since early 2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in
Poland during World War II).

About a month after he announced his enlistment, Sobibor's SS bragged
in another post to Forum 14 that he'd specifically requested and been
assigned to MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty, 98D.

MOS98D soldiers are in high demand right now. That's because they're
specially trained in disarming Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs),
the infamous roadside bombs that are killing and maiming so many U.S.
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably, part of learning how to
disarm an IED is learning how one is made.

"I have my own reasons for wanting this training but in fear of the
government tracing me and me loosing [sic] my clearance I can't share
them here," Sobibor's SS informed his fellow neo-Nazis.

One of his earlier posts indicated his reasons serve a darker purpose
than defending America: "Once all the Jews are gone the world will
start fixing itself." Timothy McVeigh

Many analysts believe that Timothy McVeigh, mastermind of the 1995
Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, was radicalized during
his experience as a soldier in the first Gulf War.

Sobibor's SS included enough biographical details in his various
posts to Forum 14 over the years, including that he's a single father
from the small town in southern Alabama, that a military investigator
with access to enlistment records for recent months should have
little trouble determining whether the Army may actually be teaching
a skinhead with genocide on his mind about tactical bomb-making.

But there's little reason to expect that will happen.

Two years ago, the Intelligence Report revealed that alarming numbers
of neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacist extremists were
taking advantage of lowered armed services recruiting standards and
lax enforcement of anti-extremist military regulations by
infiltrating the U.S. armed forces in order to receive combat
training and gain access to weapons and explosives.

Forty members of Congress urged then-Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld to launch a full-scale investigation and implement a
zero-tolerance policy toward white supremacists in the military.
"Military extremists present an elevated threat to both their fellow
service members and the public," U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, an
Alabama Republican, wrote in a separate open letter to Rumsfeld. "We
witnessed with Timothy McVeigh that today's racist extremist may
become tomorrow's domestic terrorist."

But neither Rumsfeld nor his successor, Robert Gates, launched any
sort of systemic investigation or crackdown. Military and Defense
Department officials seem to have made no sustained effort to prevent
active white supremacists from joining the armed forces or to weed
out those already in uniform.

Furthermore, new evidence is emerging that not only supports the
Intelligence Report's original findings, but also indicates the
problem may have worsened since the summer of 2006, as enlistment
rates have continued to plummet, and the military has struggled to
meet recruitment goals in a time of unpopular war. Asked about the
latest developments, military officials this fall declined to comment.

A new FBI report confirms that white supremacists are infiltrating
the military for several reasons. According to the unclassified FBI
Intelligence Assessment, "White Supremacist Recruitment of Military
Personnel Since 9/11," which was released to law enforcement agencies
nationwide: "Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates
supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented
histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as
tattoos to infiltrate the military as 'ghost skins,' in order to
recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement."

The FBI report details more than a dozen investigative findings and
criminal cases involving Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as well as
active-duty personnel engaging in extremist activity in recent years.
For example, in September 2006, the leader of the Celtic Knights, a
central Texas splinter faction of the Hammerskins, a national racist
skinhead organization, planned to obtain firearms and explosives from
an active duty Army soldier in Fort Hood, Texas. That soldier, who
served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, was a member of the National
Alliance, a neo-Nazi group.

"Looking ahead, current and former military personnel belonging to
white supremacist extremist organizations who experience frustration
at the inability of these organizations to achieve their goals may
choose to found new, more operationally minded and operationally
capable groups," the report concludes. "The military training
veterans bring to the movement and their potential to pass this
training on to others can increase the ability of lone offenders to
carry out violence from the movement's fringes."

In May, Army Cpl. Adrian Petty, a member of the Vinlanders Social
Club (VSC) skinhead gang, posted several photos to his MySpace page
showing himself in uniform serving in Iraq. One, depicting him riding
in a Humvee, was captioned, "On Another VSC Recruiting Mission."

Currently, 46 members of the white supremacist social networking
website Newsaxon.com identify themselves as active-duty military
personnel. Six of these individuals are members of "White Military
Men," a New Saxon sub-group.

Earlier this year, the founder of White Military Men identified
himself in his New Saxon account as "Lance Corporal Burton" of the
2nd Battalion Fox Company Pit 2097, from Florida, according to a
master's thesis by graduate student Matthew Kennard. Under his "About
Me" section, Burton writes: "Love to shoot my M16A2 service rifle
effectively at the Hachies (Iraqis)," and, "Love to watch things blow
up (Hachies House)."

Kennard, who was working on his thesis for Columbia University's Toni
Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, also monitored claims of
active-duty military service earlier this year on the neo-Nazi online
forum Blood & Honour, where "88Soldier88" posted this message on Feb.
18: "I am in the ARMY right now. I work in the Detainee Holding Area
[in Iraq]. I am in this until 2013. I am in the infantry but want to
go to SF [Special Forces]. Hopefully the training will prepare me for
what I hope is to come."

One of the Blood & Honour members claiming to be an active-duty
soldier taking part in combat operations in Iraq identified himself
to Kennard as Jacob Berg. He did not disclose his rank or branch of
service. "There are actually a lot more 'skinheads,' 'nazis,' white
supremacists now [in the military] than there has been in a long
time," Berg wrote in an E-mail exchange with Kennard. "Us racists are
actually getting into the military a lot now because if we don't
every one who already is [in the military] will take pity on killing
sand niggers. Yes I have killed women, yes I have killed children and
yes I have killed older people. But the biggest reason I'm so proud
of my kills is because by killing a brown many white people will live
to see a new dawn."

The Army is currently investigating war crimes allegations leveled
against Iraq combat veteran and active-duty Army soldier Kenneth
Eastridge, 24, who in November was sentenced to 10 years in prison
for the December 2007 murder of a fellow serviceman. After Eastridge
was arrested for that killing, National Public Radio publicized his
MySpace page, which showed Eastridge displaying a tattoo of SS
lightning bolts, a common neo-Nazi insignia.

Another member of Eastridge's company recently told Army
investigators that Eastridge used a stolen AK-47 to fire
indiscriminately at Iraqi civilians from his moving Humvee on the
streets of Baghdad. "The military is to some extent desperate to get
people to fight, soldiers who are not fit, mentally and physically
sick, but they continue to send them," Eastridge's attorney told
Kennard. "Having a tattoo was the least of [Eastridge's] concerns."

As part of the research for his thesis, "The New Nazi Army: How the
U.S. military is allowing the far right to join its ranks," Kennard
used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain from the Army's
Criminal Investigative Division investigative reports concerning
white supremacist activity in 2006 and 2007. They show that Army
commanders repeatedly terminated investigations of suspected
extremist activity in the military despite strong evidence it was
occurring. This evidence was often provided by regional Joint
Terrorism Task Forces, which are made up of FBI and state and local
law enforcement officials.

For example, one CID report details a 2006 investigation of a
suspected member of the Hammerskins, a multi-state racist skinhead
gang, who was stationed at Fort Hood, a large Army base in central
Texas. According to the report, there was "probable cause" to believe
that the soldier "had participated in a white extremist meeting and
also provided a military technical manual 31-210, Improvised
Munitions Handbook, to the leader of a white extremist group in order
to assist in the planning and execution of future attacks on various targets."

The report shows that agents only interviewed the subject once, in
November 2006, before Fort Hood higher-ups called off the
investigation that December.

Another report, also from 2006, covers an investigation of another
Fort Hood soldier who was posting messages on Stormfront.org, a major
white supremacist website. One CID investigator expresses his
frustration at the muddled process for dealing with extremists. "We
need to discuss the review process," he writes. "I'm not doing my job
here. Needs to get fixed."

A third CID report, regarding a 2007 investigation, notes the
termination of an investigation of a soldier at Fort Richardson,
Alaska, who was reportedly the leader and chief recruiter for the
Alaska Front, a white supremacist group. According to the report, the
investigation was halted because the solider was "mobilized to Camp
Shelby, MS in preparation for deployment to Iraq."
--

Editor's Note: As this story went to press, Southern Poverty Law
Center Chief Executive Officer Richard Cohen wrote Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, reiterating the request that the Department of Defense
adopt a zero-tolerance policy with respect to extremists in the
military. As the article notes, a similar letter, addressed to Gates'
predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, produced no action by the Pentagon.

.

End military recruitment in our public schools

End military recruitment in our public schools

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/14155/

by Fernando Suárez del Solar
People's Weekly World Newspaper
12/17/08

An Open Letter to President-elect Obama

One day, when we still lived in Tijuana, Mexico, and my son was only
13 years old, a Marine recruiter told him that if my son enlisted
someday he could become an agent in the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA). My son had grown up in Tijuana and seen how
drugs destroy the lives of innocent children and he wanted to become
a policeman.

The recruiter who exploited my son's idealism promised that he would
spend one year in the Marines and then transfer to the DEA despite
the fact that he was not a U.S. citizen. We learned too late that
none of this was true, but we accepted that in fact he would have to
spend eight years in the Marines. Then September 11 changed the
history of the world. We were proud that our beloved son would be
part of the armed forces that would protect us from terrorism.

Unfortunately, President Bush began to tell a series of lies about
WMD and the connection between 9/11 and Iraq. My son was deployed to
the Kuwaiti border in February of 2003 and although I opposed the war
because I believe violence is never the proper response to
international conflict I thought the government of my adopted country
would follow the lead of the Congress and the United Nations.

But unfortunately Mr. Bush led us into war with false reasons, a war
against an innocent people that even today no one understands. The
carnage began on March 20, 2003, and seven days later on March 27 my
son died and my life changed forever. The Marine official handed me
an official Pentagon document that said he had been shot in the head
by enemy fire, but the reality as I later learned from an embedded TV
reporter who was present was that my son had stepped on a U.S.
cluster bomb. As of today, I have never received a response to my
inquiries to the government about the facts of my son's death.

Since 2003 I have dedicated my life to telling my story, denouncing
the lies of the Bush administration, and advocating for peace. I
traveled to Iraq in December of 2003 to see with my own eyes where my
son had died at the hands of our own incompetent government, and
while there I learned that thousands of Iraqi children die every day
from a lack of medicine. One year later, I returned with $650,000.00
in donated medical aid for the Iraqi people. I have also devoted
myself to speaking out against military recruiters who lie to our
young people in order to meet their quotas.

And so, because I know that you opposed the war in Iraq, I have taken
the audacious step of writing to you directly.

Today, our schools are in great financial trouble. In minority and
working-class communities, school districts lack the necessary
resources, many schools have closed, many teachers have lost their
jobs. But the military recruiters have become better funded and so
they visit the schools whenever they like, hunting for young people
who only want to get an education. And so I must ask: "What is our
priority ­ education or the militarization of our youth?

Mr. President-elect, I ask, no I implore, you to put an end to
military recruitment in our public schools. Let us put the billions
of dollars used to fund recruitment and JROTC back into the
educational mission of our schools. Let the American Dream be
realized not with false promises and weapons training but rather with
books, decent classrooms, well paid teachers, and a pedagogy of hope.

Si se puede Sr. Obama! Yes we can.

Fernando Suárez del Solar
Founder & Director
Guerrero Azteca Peace Project
PO Box 300221, Escondido, CA 92030-0221

www.guerreroazteca.org
guerreroaztecaporlapaz.blogspot.com/

Walnut Creek group wants military recruitment ads out of movie theaters

Walnut Creek group wants military recruitment ads out of movie theaters

http://www.mercurynews.com/movies/ci_11219705

Group leaders say the ads are seen by children

By Elisabeth Nardi
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 12/12/2008

A Walnut Creek-based group is urging local movie theaters to keep
military recruitment off the silver screen.

Members of the Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center are trying to get
Century 14 in downtown Walnut Creek and other area theaters to remove
recruitment advertisements, which play before movies. The group
argues that the ads do not give an accurate picture of what it's like
to be in the military, and that they seem to be directed at children.

Military officials counter that the ads are effective in recruiting
people who want to serve, and they have no plans to stop making them.

The peace group recently organized a small protest outside the Walnut
Creek theater, encouraging moviegoers to ask theater management to
pull the ads. By the end of the night, they turned in more than 50
signatures asking that be done.

The military is "spending a lot of money with these very slick ads
that don't deal a lot with facts ­ it's all image," said Rick
Sterling with the Peace and Justice group. "We are not against the
troops or the military; we are against the way advertisements are
being used ­ it's propaganda."

It is not just that the ads run when children are in the theater, but
that they seem to targets teens, Sterling said. Targeting children
younger than 17 is in violation of the "Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child," which the United States
signed in 2002, he said.

Sterling points to a National Guard advertisement, 2 ½ minutes long,
featuring musician Kid Rock singing a song called "Warrior" as
pictures of a soldier hugging his family goodbye, then getting on a
military helicopter and patrolling Iraq or Afghanistan are shown.

Col. Mike Jones, chief of recruiting for the Army National Guard in
Washington D.C., said that the ads are meant to spur those interested
in joining to make a call and meet with a recruiter. That does not
mean those callers enlist immediately upon leaving the theater. There
are no plans to stop creating the ads, he said.

"I believe it shows as an accurate a portrayal as any 2 ½-minute spot
can show," said Jones.

The guard uses music that appeals to younger people because they are
trying to recruit young adults, not older adults and not children, said Jones.

"When you look at it, it's like a music video or a mini-movie put to
music," he said. "It has an emotional aspect to it. When you can show
what service is about through a song and a visual. ... You have the
ability to communicate a deeper message."

But Sterling argued that theatergoers are paying to see a movie, not
ads. When ads come on television at home, he said, you can choose to
flip the channel.

The guard spends $6 million a year on movie advertisements, Jones
said. One in every nine phone calls they receive from viewers of the
movie ads leads to a new recruit, as opposed to television spots,
which on average produce one recruit for every 22 phone calls, he
said. The military has a responsibility to use taxpayer money
effectively, to reach as many recruits as possible with its
advertising dollar, Jones said.

"It is a dangerous world, and we try and show a very realistic
message," he said. "We try as diligently as we can to be honest and upfront."

Sterling says he has talked with management at the Walnut Creek
theater, who told him they will notify their bosses of the petition.
However, the ads are sent to the theater by a national company.

Calls to the movie theater manager and to Century Theatre
headquarters were not returned.
--

Reach Elisabeth Nardi at 925-952-2617 or
<mailto:enardi@bayareanewsgroup.com>enardi@bayareanewsgroup.com.
--

Online
To see a National Guard ad that plays before a movie, go to
<http://nationalguardwarrior.com>nationalguardwarrior.com.

.

National Guard At Full Capacity

National Guard At Full Capacity

http://www.fox23news.com/news/local/story/National-Guard-At-Full-Capacity/smDvzAGlBE2aITtcZfr8BQ.cspx

Last Update: 12/12/2008

The New York Army National Guard has recruited and retained enough
Soldiers to meet 100 percent of its authorized strength.

Of the 10,481 Soldiers the New York Army National Army National Guard
is authorized the Guard now has a strength of 10,491.

Maintaining a fully-manned force is essential if the New York
National Guards is to meet its federal mission to provide trained
units and soldiers for missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans,
and other locations around the world,. These Citizen Soldiers also
carry out vital state missions, providing forces for homeland
security missions and responding to state emergencies.

"Meeting the 100 percent strength goal shows the people of New York
that its Army National Guard is fully ready and mission capable,"
said Major General Joseph Taluto, the Adjutant General and commander
of the New York Army National Guard.

Maintaining strength is especially important because if New York's
National Guard cannot maintain their forces at acceptable levels of
fill unit force structure will be moved, Taluto explained. If force
structure leaves New York the there will be fewer people and less
equipment -trucks, humvees, and helicopters-that the people of the
state rely upon, he said.

A robust National Guard is also an economic benefit to New York. In
2008 the New York Army and Air National Guard injected $717 million
into the New York economy in salaries, contracts, construction work,
and educational benefits.

"New York has a well-balanced Army National Guard which can respond
to an array of emergencies with helicopter units, an engineer
battalion, infantry units, medical units, and transportation and
military police units," Taluto added.

This is the first time since the Vietnam War era that the New York
Army National Guard has been at 100 percent strength. This is due to
a combination of aggressive recruiting; retaining our combat
veterans, the restructuring of the New York Army National Guard's old
Cold War organization and the federal mission the Army National Guard
has today.

"None of this would have been possible without the support of
Governor David Paterson," Taluto said. "Governor Paterson has
strongly backed the New York National Guard and has worked hard to
personally ensure that the needs of our soldiers and their families
are met by state agencies."

"At Governor Paterson's direction the Division of Veterans Affairs,
the Office of Mental Health, and the State University of New York
have focused on supporting our Guard veterans and all veterans," Taluto added.

Recruiting Soldiers has always been a key mission for National Guard
Soldiers and commanders. Unlike their Active Army counterparts,
National Guard commanders are responsible for recruiting their own
Soldiers. While the state maintains a professional force of
recruiters to aid those commanders, the Guard has always been a
community-based force.

The New York Army National Guard hit is lowest strength ever of 8,984
Soldiers in April of 2006. The strength of the Guard declined from
11,519 in 2001 due to a confluence of events.

As National Guard units were mobilized for service in Iraq and
Afghanistan, older, longer-serving Soldiers who could not meet the
physical requirements for deployment left. At the same time leaders
across the National Guard were focused on preparing units for
deployment in 2003, 2004 and 2005 and the focus on recruiting was
lost. Strength dropped.

When he took charge of the National Guard in 2006, Taluto made
recruiting new Soldiers and retaining veterans a priority. He went to
the National Guard Bureau and argued against plans to move force
structure from New York to other states. He set a goal of maintaining
a 10,000-strong Army National Guard and convinced Guard leaders in
the Pentagon to give him a chance to make that goal.

Since then the New York Army National Guard has recruited 7,024
Soldiers while 5,879 left the force through retirements and the
separation of Soldiers who elected to end their service before
reaching 20 years.

New York Army National Guard attrition rates are relatively low. More
than 85 percent of Soldiers who are able to stay in the New York
National Guard do so. The national retention rate is about 82 percent.

Incentives to remain in the Guard include improve Family Assistance
Programs that helps Soldier families when Soldiers are deployed and
here at home, new and improved equipment, a program to upgrade
existing armories and build new ones, reenlistment bonuses, education
programs, and meaningful state and national missions.

The New York Army National Guard increased the size of its full-time
recruiting force and put some of its best officers and
noncommissioned officers in those jobs to meet this goal.

At the same time, the National Guard embarked on a National
recruiting effort in which Soldiers enlisting in the Guard can earn
bonuses of up to $20,000 depending on their military occupation.
Guard Soldiers can also access federal tuition benefits and New York
State provides tuition assistance to Guard Soldiers attending SUNY or CUNY.

"There are many powerful incentives for a young man or woman to join
the National Guard," Taluto said. "National Guard Soldiers can serve
their state and nation while living in their home communities and
attending college or working in their careers," he added.

While the Guard has been incentivized as never before, people still
join out of a sense of patriotism and to serve their state and
country, Taluto emphasized.

"The New York National Guard was successfully recruiting Soldiers
before the economy took a downturn," Taluto said.

The National Guard's G-RAP program, or Guard Recruiting Assistance
Program, under which current Soldiers can earn $2,000 for recruiting
new Soldiers, also provides an incentive for Soldiers to work with
recruiters. New York has paid $3.3 million in G-Rap money to
Soldier/Recruiters since 2006.

In 2005 the New York Army National Guard also transformed itself to a
modular force, more readily deployed in today's wars, by eliminating
force structure put in place to during the Cold War era. This
reduction in overall force is another reason the New York Army
National Guard is at 100 percent strength.

The National Guard eliminated an armored combat brigade which
consisted of two tank battalions and an infantry battalion, and gave
those Soldiers new assignments in the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat
Team which is just finishing a tour of duty in Afghanistan. The New
York Army National Guard today consists of the 27th BCT, the 42nd
Combat Aviation Brigade, the 42nd Infantry Division headquarters, and
critical support elements, like transportation units, logistics
units, and MP battalions in the 53rd Troop Command.

During the Cold War era the National Guard considered units that were
at 80 percent strength. In the large mobilization those empty
positions would be filled by Active Army Soldiers and individual
reservists. The National Guard was a Strategic Reserve force which
was not expected to be ready to fight at all times.

Today the Army employs the National Guard as an operational reserve,
rotating units in and out of combat zones on a regular basis for nine
to 10 month deployments. Low-strength units are no longer acceptable
in this environment. It is more desirable to have fewer units that
are fully manned, than a larger force structure that is partially manned.

"The National Guard today is fully integrated into peacekeeping and
warfight missions going on worldwide," Taluto said.

.

Interactive Army Experience

Interactive Army Experience

http://cbs3.com/topstories/Interactive.Army.Experience.2.886273.html

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3)

A simulated flight on an apache helicopter is just one of the many
interactive experiences offered at The Army Experience Center in The
Franklin Mills Mall. It's a place where people of all ages can
virtually learn everything about the military, from where the bases
are to a variety of military career options.

There's a touch screen there which can help you navigate through a
list of specialties from electrician to radiologist. Most fields are
the same as civilian careers. Recruiters say only 20 percent of the
jobs they need filled are for combat.

"We always look for highly educated people to join the army," said
Sgt. First Class Angel Espada.

Some recruiters have reported that enrollment went up after
employment nationwide went down.

"Potentially we try to match you with your job experience in the
civilian sector with some career opportunities inside the army,"
explained Al flood, the director of The Army Experience Center.

The pay and benefits are great. The more you serve, the more you get.
But, there's a reason shoot 'em up action games abound here.
Recruiters say even if you want to join the military as a nurse or
administrative assistant, you're going to have to learn how to
operate a gun, because learning how to defend yourself is part of the
army experience.

"Anybody who joins the army today needs to understand there is a
chance that they could be deployed," said Flood.

RELATED LINK:

http://www.thearmyexperience.com/

.

Army recruiter on Shore proud of his successes

Army recruiter on Shore proud of his successes

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/world/bal-id.scenes14dec14,0,2051180.story

By Scott Calvert | scott.calvert@baltsun.com
December 14, 2008

He's in the Army now. But he doesn't act it. Not with that slouchy
posture and white hoodie, that scraggly beard. Not with that mumble,
swallowed up by the breeze whipping down Laurel Street in Pocomoke City.

Soon enough, 20-year-old Xavier Arnold will be Private Arnold. Soon
enough, he'll have to look and sound a lot more like Sgt. 1st Class
James Gill, the clean-shaven, clear-voiced, uniformed soldier who
stood beside him the other day in tan combat boots.

Next month Arnold will leave this Lower Eastern Shore town, his
family, his girlfriend and their baby and report to basic training.
Gill made it happen. He's the affable U.S. Army recruiter who met
Arnold last year at Pocomoke High and stuck close until he enlisted
two weeks ago.

Gill knows Arnold could wind up in a war zone and get hurt, or worse.
After something bad happened to an early recruit, the guilt ate at
Gill. But he says the odds and the opportunities favor Arnold. So
he's pleased for the young man, and for himself.

Arnold was Gill's third enlistee of the month, helping the recruiting
station based in Salisbury to double its quota of six. That in turn
contributed to a solid month for the larger Delmarva Company and its
parent Baltimore Recruiting Battalion at Fort Meade.

The military is in the midst of a recruiting boom thanks to a host of
factors: fewer jobs in the civilian world, less violence in Iraq, fat
signing bonuses. In the past year the Army, Navy, Marines and Air
Force have all met or beat their recruiting goals.

"It definitely helps that the news out of Iraq is not quite as
negative," said Capt. Christian Miller, head of Delmarva Company.
"You combine that with the downturn in the economy - layoffs, plant
closings - and the military is a very good option these days."

Enlistment bonuses as high as $40,000 are a big draw. That is how
much Arnold will receive during his four-year hitch. Unlike a
fast-food joint or a chicken plant, the Army will teach him radio
repair, a skill that should lead to a decent career.

Of course, the Army could also put him in mortal danger in Iraq or
Afghanistan. With a nonchalant air, Arnold declares he'd like to go
to war: "Fun, excitement, bullets flying around."

For Gill and fellow recruiters, life has gotten easier as it's gotten
harder for many Americans. In late 2005, when he started recruiting,
the economy was humming and Iraq was sliding deeper into chaos.

"A lot of the high school seniors and the grads felt as if they had
more options and they didn't really look at the Army as one of the
major choices," Gill said last week at the Salisbury station, a
strip-mall storefront wedged between an Outback steakhouse and a
beauty supply shop.

"They're really looking at the Army more," he said, though it's too
early to tell what effect the dicey situation in Afghanistan might have.

Gill, 30 enlisted in 1996 out of high school in State College, Pa. He
had the usual reasons: to see the world and earn money for school.
Later, he tried college for two years but missed the Army life and
camaraderie. His postings have taken him from South Korea to Fort
Irwin, Calif. He took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq with the 82nd
Airborne Division and then spent nine months at a base near Fallujah.

When his recruiting orders came, he wasn't thrilled. Recruiters to
him were "second-tier soldiers, not even real Army, paper pushers."
Worse, he initially struggled at his first post near Pittsburgh. He
didn't reel in a single recruit for four months.

One recruit he did eventually land ended up haunting him. He was an
18-year-old named Jimmy Hawkins. In Baghdad, he got shot in the leg,
shattering his femur. Hawkins didn't die or even lose the leg, but
he'll always limp. The news hit Gill hard.

"It was like being punched in the stomach; everything just dropped
out of you," he said "That guilt made it hard to recruit. You develop
relationships with these guys."

In September 2007, Gill transferred to Salisbury, home to six
active-duty recruiters and two civilians. The Army shares quarters
with the three other branches, and there's a friendly rivalry. Gill
has recruited 45 soldiers all told, eight of them women.

The job is punishing. Gill works 12-hour days Monday to Friday and 9
to 5 on Saturday. Some Sundays he drives recruits to Fort Meade so
they can enlist the next day. He has little personal life. He rarely
sees his three kids, who live with his former wife in North Carolina.

But Gill says he enjoys putting promise-filled but directionless
persons on a path that may be good for them and the Army. He makes
sure prospects realize that the chances of going to a war zone are
50-50 and that there are no guarantees.

In Salisbury, Gill was assigned three high schools, including
Pocomoke. One day last year, Arnold stopped at his display table near
the cafeteria for the free Army pens. The two got to talking, and
Gill made plans to visit with him and his mother.

That encounter led to the moment last week when Gill pulled up on
Laurel Street in his government Chevy. He had to drop off some
paperwork for Arnold, whom he calls "a good kid" lucky to escape
bleak job prospects on the Lower Shore.

After a minute, Arnold stepped out of the home of his 18-year-old
girlfriend, Quadera Mills. They had been spending time with their
infant son, Xavier Jr. "You show your mom the contract?" Gill asked
him. He had, and she had no questions, just enthusiasm.

"She's blasting stuff around," Arnold said, "calling everybody she knows."

"For real?" Gill asked.

For real. Arnold reports for basic training in five weeks. Gill
reports even sooner to his new post at Fort Lewis, Wash. He requested
Fort Bragg to be near his kids. But the Army said he was needed in
Washington state as a platoon sergeant. That, as Arnold will learn,
is an order.

.

Blackhawk helicopter swoops into Clarke Central stadium

Blackhawk helicopter swoops into Clarke Central stadium

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/121708/new_368435674.shtml

Military bird brings message

By Ryan Blackburn | ryan.blackburn@onlineathens.com
12/16/2008

Sgt. J.J. Sutherland knows what it's like to dream of becoming a
football superstar. He also knows how hard it is to make ends meet
working odd construction and surveying jobs.

"I was working dead-end jobs, and I decided there had to be more out
there," Sutherland said. "That was the turning point."

Sutherland realized the military would be his future, a possibility
that he and other National Guard officers wanted Clarke Central High
School students to think about Tuesday, as they took a break from finals.

"(Serving in the military) opens up a lot of doors - it teaches you
discipline, self determination and makes you proud to be able to
serve your country," Sutherland said. "Somebody did it before me, so
the least I could do is do it for them so that these kids can
continue to live free."

Sutherland and other soldiers with the 1-185th Assault Helicopter
Battalion for the Air National Guard in Winder left an impression on
students with one of the military's recruitment ambassadors - a UH-60
Blackhawk helicopter.

Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps instructor Lt. Col. David
McMickle, a former Blackhawk pilot, had asked National Guard Soldiers
to make the 6-minute flight from Winder to put the craft on display
for about two hours during the school day.

"I hope by having the Blackhawk come here today - I hope that
inspires some students to figure out what they want to do," McMickle said.

The 12,000-pound, 64-foot-long Blackhawk looped around the school and
came to rest on the football field's 50-yard line.

"It was a lot louder than I expected," said Janette Petersen, a
junior who waited through the morning to get the chance to inspect
the helicopter with her JROTC peers. "I was inside the (school)
building, and it was still loud."

Students took turns checking out the cockpit while Army recruiters
talked up the advantages of military service - a steady paycheck and
training for future careers.

The military relies on Blackhawk helicopters because they can
transport people, food and medical supplies to remote areas
relatively quickly - at a top speed of 170 mph. The first model was
built in 1979 to replace the Huey, which was best known for
transporting troops in Vietnam.

While the Blackhawk may send men and women into a firefight, they
also are the vehicles that return them to safety, said JROTC
instructor Sgt. Martin Seay.

"When you see one of these, then you know you're going to get a
ride," Seay said. "If you get deployed in a hot zone, these guys can
come in under fire and extract you out of there."

The Air National Guard in Winder takes a few community missions every
month, visiting a high school or putting the craft on display as part
of an air show.

Clarke Central Junior Hugo Martinez used the visit to make a more
permanent memory of the equipment he hopes to man one day. He
videotaped the instruments so he can see them over and over - until
he's able to fly them himself.

"One day, I'm going to have that vehicle, and I'll be responsible,"
Martinez said. "I want to be in that Blackhawk."

.

Student activists want to offer alternatives to military

Student activists want to offer alternatives to military;
Hamilton Club Action to discuss 'counter-recruitment'

http://www.livinglakecountry.com/SussexSun/Story.aspx?storyId=828115

Club Action members contacted by the Sussex Sun said most group
members want the club to present an alternative to U.S. military
recruitment drives at the school.

Posted: December 17, 2008
By PETER ABBOTT
pabbott@jcpgroup.com

Hamilton High School - Club Action members contacted by the Sussex
Sun said most group members want the club to present an alternative
to U.S. military recruitment drives at the school.

Club Action will meet today to decide whether and how to pursue the
matter. Freshman Jaime Klein said "everyone" in the group "except one
is for setting up a counter-recruiting table."

Fellow club member Allyson Ollenburg agreed. She said she wanted the
club, formed when the Amnesty International chapter merged with the
CARE Club, to offer alternatives to military service, including jobs
and careers, affordable colleges and the Peace Corps, at its
"counter-recruiting" tables.

Ollenburg opposes the Iraq war. "A lot of us don't see any point to
it," she said.

"Kids who don't have plans or don't think they can afford college
think that the only thing they can do after high school is join the
military," she said. "Some of them also think they'll be doing
something huge for the country."

"We're all pretty positive about this (counter-recruiting)," she
said, "but Mr. Krill isn't sure we should do it."

Dan Krill, the group's faculty adviser, denied opposing the
counter-recruitment proposal. "I make decisions after looking at all
the facts," he said in an interview yesterday. "I don't have an
opinion (on counter-recruiting) at the moment."

He said the group would take up the issue for the first time at
today's after-school meeting, but added that he thought the high
school's current procedure for handling recruiters "seems like a fair
one to me."

He also denied that he had been prohibited from speaking to the news
media before discussing the issue with Hamilton School District
Superintendent Kathleen Cooke. Dustin Klein (Jaime's brother) had
made such a claim in an interview last Monday, which was reported in
last week's Sussex Sun.

Krill said the club numbers about 20 members, though only about half
of them are "active members."

Jaime Klein said the club is also involved with other issues,
including the environment, "fair trade," human and animal rights, and
the child soldier problem.

"We discuss the issues at our (twice-a-month) meetings," she said,
"and when we decide to do something about them, we bring it to the
school's attention."

Club members concerned about the issue are reacting to a change in
school policy at the beginning of this school year that now allows
military, college and employment recruiters to operate in the hallway
near the open school cafeteria area during lunch periods, which are
covered by the state's compulsory attendance law.

The change reversed the previous policy, established at the beginning
of the 2006-07 school year that had confined recruiters to the
guidance counselor area.

Club Action's predecessor, an Amnesty International chapter, had
asked Hamilton High School Principal Candis Mongan in fall 2006
either to move military recruiters out of the cafeteria or allow the
club to "counter-recruit."

Dustin Klein, the Amnesty International chapter president at the
time, called this year's policy reversal "a violation of the
agreement made when I was president." Klein graduated last spring.

Klein and the Amnesty International faculty adviser then, retired
social studies teacher Bill Bodette, have called the military
recruitment practices before the 2006 move "manipulative."

They said military recruiters would initiate conversations with
students at lunch tables and reward students for how many pushups
they did with T-shirts or lesser prizes for fewer pushups.

Public Information/Volunteer Coordinator Denise Dorn Lindberg said
such practices were "rare" and "not representative of what happened
in general."

In a letter published in today's Sussex Sun, she wrote that under
current procedures established by Mongan, "Recruiters may speak to
students who come to their table, but they are not allowed to
approach students."

Recruitment issues are not confined to Hamilton. Arrowhead High
School, for one, confines college and military recruiters to the
guidance counselor area.

"Recruiters are not permitted to go through the lunchroom because of
the compulsory attendance law," Principal Bonnie Laugerman said in an
interview Monday.

She said she established the rule about two years ago, in
consultation with the school district superintendant, because the
previous practice had allowed recruiters "all around the lunchtables,
engaging kids and making some of them uncomfortable. … We now ask
them to remain at their presentation tables."

The school has recently moved college and military recruitment tables
even farther from the cafeteria and closer to the guidance counselor
area, she said, though they're still visible from the cafeteria in
the large, open student "commons."

She also noted that the school is "legally obligated to allow
military recruiters in the school."

Pat Grobschmidt of the U.S. Army Public Affairs Office in Milwaukee
said Army recruiters follow each school's procedures.

"Some have an open-door policy, while others limit us to recruiting
once a month, once a quarter, or even as little as once a year," she
said. "We prefer it when we can get into the schools. We're very
happy when they let us do so."

.

Some area students opt to keep info from military recruiters

Some area students opt to keep info from military recruiters

http://www.spinalcolumnonline.com/Articles-i-2008-12-17-56671.113117_Some_area_students_opt_to_keep_info_from_military_recruiters.html

by Andrew Sawmiller
2008-12-17

December 17, 2008 - Parents and students in some lakes area school
districts are taking action to prevent military recruiters from
accessing individual student directory contact information that the
military uses to assist in the quest to sign up new recruits.
Although organized counter-recruitment campaigns are a thing of the
past in the lakes area, some are content to merely keep recruiters
from obtaining an individual student's contact information through a
little-known provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

With no draft, the U.S. military depends on volunteers willing to
serve and protect the nation and its interests, leaving U.S. Army,
Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force recruiters to find volunteers. One
of the ways recruiters locate prospective soldiers is to scour area
high schools for students interested in what the military has to
offer. The recruiters get some help contacting students through the
No Child Left Behind Act.

Section 9528 of the act requires that military recruiters be granted
access to student directory information or federal funds for the
school district can be restricted. The section states that, if a
school receives federal funding, it must give military recruiters the
same access to student contact information that's given to colleges,
universities and prospective employers.

"Both the Michigan Department of Education and No Child Left Behind
Act take positions on military recruiters," said Shelley Rose,
director of communication services for the Oakland Intermediate
School District. "There is a provision where federal funds may be
withheld if (student contact information) access isn't granted, but
nobody here is aware of any instance where federal dollars were
withheld because of such action."

However, school officials are also required by the federal act to
inform parents and students about how they can prevent student
contact information from being accessed by military recruiters.

"Carolyn Claerhout, our manager of district and pupil services, said
that if she gets questions from local schools, she explains to them
that their FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) notice
should include information about 'the military right of access' and
the ability of parents to opt out if they so choose," Rose said.

In the lakes area, this is often done through a letter informing
parents and students of the issue and of their right to block
military recruiters' access to a student's contact information.

However, that doesn't stop recruiters from having accesses to school
facilities.

While the No Child Left Behind Act states that federal funding can be
withheld if a district doesn't provide student directory information
to military recruiters, local school district officials say that in
some instances the act's language is vague, and has been interpreted
to mean that access means the ability to set up shop in and around
certain areas of a school during normal school hours, such as having
an information table in the school cafeteria during lunch periods.

The Waterford, Walled Lake and Huron Valley school districts all
allow military and college recruiters on school property during career days.

In the past, there have been counter-recruitment efforts launched in
the area by parent groups, but both schools officials and military
recruiters say those efforts have since stopped and there is little,
if any, organized counter-recruitment efforts under way.

"It's never really been a parent's dream for their kids to go into
the military, but once they sit down and see what's really going on,
they tend to have a different view," said Air Force Staff Sergeant
Jonathon Zolnai, who operates out of a Clarkston recruitment center.
"A lot of them don't really know what the military is all about. But
once we sit down and I talk to them and show them the real story
behind everything, parents tend to get real accepting of it. It's
just a matter of actually getting that chance and telling them what's
actually going on.

"This entire area is real supportive of the military, whether they
want their kids going into it or not," he said. "They all recognize
and appreciate what we do."

When it comes to the tactics used to recruit potential Air Force
personnel, Zolnai said there's a much different approach then what
public envisions.

"A lot of times, the military recruiters will try to sell the
military life to people," he said. "I'm not a salesman. Everything I
tell these kids, everything I show them is real examples. I don't
want them taking my word for anything. If they have a question I
can't answer, I know tons of people who can and put them in contact
with that officer. I want them to see first-hand this is how it is.
If you like it, cool. If not, at least you know for future reference."

Zolnai said the Air Force offers incentives for enlistment.

"The Air Force doesn't do signing bonuses. Those are for other
branches that need them," he said. "We'd like to have them, sure. But
it's not going to kill me if they don't sign up. Right now, the Air
Force has a huge waiting list just to get in. But the Air Force
offers the No. 1 college benefits of all the military branches out there."

For example, the Air Force offers 100 percent tuition assistance for
master's degrees; an $80,000 GI Bill, which is good for 15 years
after service is completed; and since the Air Force is more
technologically-advanced, according to Zolnai, all the training
provided is good for college credit.

"The Air Force doesn't play around with education," he said.

While Zolnai's base of operations doesn't cover West Bloomfield, he
said he has encountered some great recruits from the Waterford,
Walled Lake, and Huron Valley high schools.

A total of 11 students from those three area school districts
enlisted in the Air Force after graduating in 2005. In the total
graduating classes of 2006, Zolnai said 20 area students enlisted.
For the class of 2007, 12 students opted to join the Air Force. This
latest graduating year, two students signed up.

All four main branches of the armed forces tailor their enlistment
incentives ­ based on factors including the area, employment and
unemployment rates, and public opinion at the time.

Local U.S. Marine Crops Spokesperson Sgt. Justin Shemanski said the
marines offer full tuition coverage while a person is on active duty,
as well as other scholarship opportunities such as a $208,000
scholarship for ROTC commitments in college.

"Our mission out here is to inform," he said. "We sell the
intangibles; honor, courage, commitment. Those are our core values. A
lot of other services don't do that. They have more monetary
incentives, things like that and enlistment bonuses. We have those,
but not to the extent of other services. We find that most of the
kids out there today want the same thing kids did 10 years ago. They
want the travel and the adventure. They want the camaraderie that
comes with being a marine."

While unable to break down the exact number of recent high school
students enlisting in the Marine Corps from each of the local
districts, Shemanski was able to give an idea of the numbers pulled
from the general area, which also includes Pontiac.

In the past year (November 2007 through 2008) 84 area applicants
enlisted. In November, four applicants enlisted. For December of this
year, four other applicants have also committed to enlist.

In an average year, Shemanski said, the Marine Corps brings in 85
recruits from the metro Detroit area.

Some of the tools used to inform kids about the marines include a
Hummer H-3 driven by Shemanski, and other things such as literature,
films and the like to show potential recruits what the marines can offer.

Calls to the local U.S. Army recruiters went unreturned prior to press time.

The following is breakdown on how local school district's handle
student contact information when it comes to military recruiters.

Schools and Community Services Specialist Rhonda Lessel said the
Waterford district complies with the current federal laws and
requirements as they pertain to student contact information and its
release to military recruiters.

"Yes, districts are required under the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 to give military recruiters the same access to
secondary school students as they provide to post-secondary
institutions," she said. "These requirements are contained within and
amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. If a district's
policy allows colleges and or universities the ability to come in a
set up tables, then that same access must be available to the
recruiters. Waterford does allow this.

"Student information provided to colleges, universities, and military
recruiters is considered directory information which includes name,
address, and telephone numbers," Lessel said. "The Waterford School
District notifies parents annually through its district newsletter
that directory information will be shared for these purposes."

To decline the release of such information, parents must do so in a
formal way on paper, to show a record to the opt out choice.

"Parents must notify the Waterford School District, in writing to the
superintendent's office, that they wish this information to be
withheld (from military recruiters)," Lessel said. "We don't have any
parents, this year, who have opted out."

Various amounts of federal financial assistance afforded to local
schools comes from an assortment of funds, and it's very difficult
for most districts to nail down just how much federal funding would
be lost if student contact information wasn't made available to
military recruiters.

"The Waterford School District receives $9 million in federal
funding," Lessel said. "It would be difficult to clarify what portion
of federal funding (instructional, grants, etc.) would be withheld if
districts didn't comply.

Judy Evola, marketing and community relations director for the Walled
Lake Consolidated School District, agreed that the federal law is
vague. However, she said the district gives up student directory
information to the military. She said when Walled Lake students ask
to have their directory information withheld, that information is
kept from all who seek access to that information.

A letter is sent home to parents and guardians each September
informing everyone of the access to directory information and the
possibility to have the directory information blocked.

Parents have the option of have part or all of the information kept
away from potential recruiters.

The district's notification letter states, "directory information
that is not considered to be an invasion of privacy and can be
disclosed to outside organizations without parental consent ... The
Walled Lake Consolidated School District receives federal funding
under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. This law
requires that, upon request, the district must provide military
recruiters three categories of directory information on high school
students; name, address and telephone number. Parents of high school
students may choose to have this information held confidential by
completing this form."

The form goes out to every single family, every single year and is a
highly-publicized occurrence, according to Evola.

"We follow the law to the letter," she said.

For the current academic year, 43 students at Walled Lake Community
High School have withheld their contact information from military
recruiters. Also, 76 students at Northern High School have likewise
chosen to keep their directory information private. At Western High
School, 104 students have opted out. Thus far, 23 students from
Central High School have opted out, as well.

"We're not going to speculate on how much federal money we may loose
out on, because first of all, the law says 'may.' It doesn't say it
would," Evola said. "We do give recruiters the same access to
students that colleges get, and based on those who have opted out, we
follow that, as well."

The district also allows military recruiters to set up tables in
school lunch rooms to hand out information and speak with interest
students during lunch periods.

"They can't just randomly go into classrooms, but often they will
come sometimes and talk in classrooms if it's applicable to the
curriculum," Evola said. "They do set up in the halls, but I don't
know if they do it at sporting events. It's usually in the cafeterias
during lunch, and during college and career fairs."

Director of Community Relations and Education for Joey Spano said
that the ability to opt out of having directory information released
to military recruiters is done when incoming freshman register with
the high school. That's when they fill out the information forms, and
there is an option to have that information withheld at that time.

"If it's no, obviously we don't share," she said. "If it's yes, then
if a recruiter wants that information, then we'll allow access just
to that directory information."

Recruiters are also given access to the high school on certain occasions.

"We do periodically allow recruiters to set up a table in the lunch
room, during lunch at the high school," Spano said. "That's done
maybe five times during the school year. We also allow that for
colleges and universities, too.

"We do not allow them to go into the classrooms, or through the
buildings unauthorized, or distributing information at athletic
events," she added. "We restrict them in that way. They have a
certain day, we'll set up a table and that's going to be your day
(for military recruitment)."

Spano said she was unable to provide figures on the number of current
high school students who asked to keep their contact information from
being accessed by military recruiters.

Director of Community Relations and Fund Development Janet Roberts
was out of town and not available for comment prior to press time.
However, one school district official was able to provide some
insight into the issue.

"At the beginning of each year, students receive an emergency
information card that asks parents to check a box 'if you do not want
your student's name, address and phone number released to military
recruiters,'" said Dawn Cruz, supervisor of computer information
systems and pupil accounting for the district. "Parents may contact
their child's school at any time to ask them to be removed from the
recruiter list."

For this school year, 1,106 out of 1,687 students at Milford High
School have opted to keep their contact information from being
accessed by military recruiters. At Lakeland High School, 1,002 out
of 1,730 students opted not to be contacted, according to Cruz.
--

Andrew Sawmiller is a staff writer for the Spinal Column Newsweekly

.

Recruiting Still Challenging Despite Job Market, Official Says

Recruiting Still Challenging Despite Job Market, Official Says

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2008/12/mil-081216-afps06.htm

By Army Staff Sgt. Michael J. Carden
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2008 – Although military recruiting is less
difficult in a waning economy and low job market, attracting recruits
remains an ongoing challenge, a Defense Department
[]
official said here today during an interview with the Pentagon Channel.

"Military recruiting is always a challenge, regardless of what the
unemployment rate
[]
is," Curt Gilroy, accession policy director for the Defense Department, said.

Unemployment in the United States rose to 6.7 percent in November and
is projected to continue its increase in 2009, the Labor Department
reported last month. For the military, however, high unemployment
typically means more recruits and higher retention rates.

"When the economy is lacking and unemployment rises, like we're
experiencing today, jobs are scarcer and military recruiting is less
challenging," Gilroy explained. "But it's still a tough job for our
recruiters."

In spite of the unemployment rate or the state of the economy, the
services still need to recruit 185,000 men and women each year in the
active-duty forces and another 65,000 for the reserves just to
replenish the force, he noted.

Recruiters have one of the toughest jobs in the military, he said.
About 15,500 of them work in recruiting stations across the country,
educating young men and women on benefits, pay and training
opportunities in the military, Gilroy said.

Military recruiters have the most significant impact in the whether
the services reach their monthly and annual goals, even with a
difficult economy, he said.

Recruiting so far in fiscal 2009, which began Oct. 1, is on par with
the success the Defense Department enjoyed in fiscal 2008, which was
the department's highest recruiting year in the past five, he said,
adding that the trend has continued into the first two months of fiscal 2009.

Although the Defense Department only releases specifics on recruit
quality annually, Gilroy said, the majority of recruits in October
and November had high school diplomas and scored above average on the
armed forces' aptitude tests.

"The state of the union with respect for recruiting is very good,
particularly the last two months," he said. "Beginning fiscal year
2009, the services have not only met their numerical recruiting
goals, but they've met their quality recruiting goals as well."

The total force enlisted more than 28,000 new recruits in October and
November. For both months, the Army and Marine Corps exceeded their
goals, while the Navy and Air Force met their goals.

"Regardless of what unemployment is, we need to recruit about 250,000
young men and women each year to replenish the force," Gilroy said.
"We talk about the military being an all-volunteer military, but it's
really an all-recruited military."

.

A soldier's story: War affects whole family

A soldier's story: War affects whole family

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/12/21/a_soldiers_story_war_affects_whole_family/

Parents feel their son's stress disorder

By David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times / December 21, 2008

TEMECULA, Calif. - When Army Sergeant Ryan Kahlor returned from two
combat tours in Iraq last year, he was a walking billboard for
virtually every affliction suffered by today's veterans. He had a
detached retina, a ruptured disk, vertigo, headaches, memory lapses,
and numbness in his arms. Fluid seeped from his ears.

He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and
traumatic brain injury. He was violent and suicidal. He carried a
loaded handgun everywhere. He drank until he passed out. He cut
himself. He burned his skin with cigarettes. He bit through his
tongue just to watch himself bleed.

Kahlor, 24, admits he came back not caring about anyone - the
military, his friends, his family, or himself. But, pushed hard by
his parents, he slowly accepted and then embraced counseling and
treatment. Today, he has begun to recover.

His parents are still trying.

The Kahlors - a college employee and a nurse - have fought through a
series of transformations unfamiliar to most military families.

Tim Kahlor says he and his wife, Laura, have been left with what he
calls, only half in jest, "secondary PTSD." He says his doctor
prescribed antidepressants to help him cope with his son's ordeal.
And both parents, haunted by their son's physical and emotional
breakdown, are fiercely opposed to the war.

Tim Kahlor, 50, who had felt a patriotic surge after the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks, turned against the war after Ryan complained
during his first tour about ineffective body armor and poorly armored
vehicles. Laura Kahlor, 53, blames the war for her son's
psychological and physical torment. Although she is now grateful for
the treatment he belatedly received, she - like her husband - wishes
they had never let Ryan enlist.

They are still bitter over the several months that their son drifted
while they pleaded with both Ryan and the military for effective PTSD
treatment. Ryan survived several roadside bomb attacks in Iraq but
was traumatized by the violence he saw.

"I was so naive. I was this kid from the Bible Belt who thought our
country would take care of our soldiers," Tim Kahlor said. "I have
guilt for helping him get into this."

A year after the terrorists struck America, Tim Kahlor drove Ryan,
then 18, to the local Army recruiting office to sign up. Although the
Kahlors would have preferred that Ryan attend college, they were
proud of his determination to serve his country.

When Ryan wrote about equipment shortages, Tim telephoned and wrote
to the Pentagon and Congress. Laura sent Ryan a hand-held GPS device
after he complained that military devices kept failing.

Tim Kahlor joined Military Families Speak Out, a group opposed to the
Iraq war. He marched in protests behind caskets, lined up boots
outside the Capitol to represent the war's dead. He put up a sign
outside his home: "Support Our Troops - Let 'em Come Home."

He confronted military recruiters. He intercepted young men outside
recruiting offices, warning them: "You have no idea what you're
getting into." He read to them from Ryan's journal - including
descriptions of collecting the gear of a close friend killed by a sniper:

"My stomach soured. . . . His gear was soaked with blood. My hands
could still feel the moisture of his sweat. I felt like something was
missing in me."

Tim was thrown out of a political fund-raiser for railing against the
war. He approached motorists in cars with yellow ribbons, demanding
to know exactly how they supported the troops.

Some days, Tim wears a button to his job as a payroll coordinator at
the University of California, San Diego. It features an updated
number of the war's dead and a question: "How Many More?"

When Ryan returned in early 2007, "he came back a stranger to me,"
his father said. Tim focused on his son's deteriorating mental and
physical condition. He described delays in treatment as Ryan was put
on desk duty, unable to perform simple tasks because of his brain
injuries and prone to violent outbursts.

"I was either going to die by my own hand - or someone else's," Ryan said.

But through it all, he said, "my dad fought tooth and nail for me,
knowing people in the military can't speak for themselves always. My
dad pushed me to get help. He doesn't let me cut corners, and he's
always on my butt."

In November 2007, Ryan was sent to be treated at San Diego's Naval
Medical Center. His therapists say he is making remarkable progress
after months of physical and speech therapy and mental health counseling.

"We look at Ryan and we say, 'Thank God, we got a good one here,' "
said Colleen Leners, a nurse practitioner who is his primary care
manager. "Ryan wanted to get better."

To treat his PTSD, Ryan was referred in May to the National Center
for PTSD in Palo Alto, Calif., run by the Veterans Administration. He
completed an intensive 65-day group program with veterans from wars
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

There, Ryan said, he learned to recognize his "stuff points" -
traumatic experiences in Iraq he was afraid to confront.

"There's no time to grieve in combat, so you just stuff it," he said.
"You see your friend die and then you go back to work."

Without treatment, Ryan said, "I'd be sitting in a dark room
somewhere - or dead."

Ryan said he suffers from survivor's guilt and intends to seek more
counseling. He is still being treated for vertigo, for speech and
memory difficulties, and for fluid and ringing in his ears.

The military has provided him a hand-held organizer to help him
organize his life and remember appointments. He draws maps to help
him locate his parked car. "As many times as I've been hit in the
head, a lot of stuff that seems simple on a daily basis becomes
difficult," Ryan said.

Even so, he chose a challenging subject - the Russian invasion of
Georgia - for a speaking exercise in group speech therapy.

Laura Kahlor considers her son a newly minted person, just as she
considered the tormented young man who returned from Iraq a different
person from the son she sent off to war - the one who had "Duty,
Honor, Country" tattooed on his leg.

"He came back so violent," she said, recalling the images of bloody
Iraqi corpses Ryan brought home on his laptop. "I was afraid he'd use
his gun on himself."

Today the gun is locked in a drawer, and Ryan is evolving into the
caring, gentle son his parents remember. At the request of a
counselor, he often talks to other soldiers with PTSD, encouraging
them to seek treatment.

Ryan does not publicly discuss his father's activism or his own
feelings about the war. He says only: "That's what we're fighting for
- for people's rights to speak out."

When his enlistment ends in March, Ryan plans to leave the Army. He
is shopping for a new house and intends to enroll at a community
college. He wants to become a history teacher or physical therapist.

After all that has befallen him, would he enlist again?

"Probably not," Ryan said. "But since I did it, I'm glad. It's
matured me. It's made me stronger, more confident."

His mother said that although she's grateful for Ryan's counseling
and for the travel and educational benefits the military has
provided, "it still wasn't worth it."

Tim Kahlor, sitting in his living room at dusk, flanked by his wife
and his tall, strapping son in Army fatigues, reflected on his
family's six-year ordeal. He paused and said, finally, "I wish he had
never gone in."

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Alternatives to military recruitment

Alternatives to military recruitment

http://www.marinij.com/opinion/ci_11282048

By Denise Beck
Posted: 12/21/2008

To overcome roadblocks preventing high school students from learning
about alternatives to military enlistment and service, members of
Marin County H.O.P.E. (High School and College Outreach Peace
Education), and an informal San Rafael committee composed of student
activists, veterans, military families, parents and teachers, waged a
two-and-a-half-year campaign for a written equal access policy in the
San Rafael City Schools.

After a long process of negotiation with the district, we are pleased
that the San Rafael City Schools adopted a written protocol on Oct. 13.

Modeled after a Chicago policy, the protocal grants groups like HOPE
the same access to high schools, school-sponsored events and career
information sites that they provide to military recruiters.

More specifically, the protocol includes groups that provide
information on alternatives to military careers in the definition of
recruiter. It follows that groups such as HOPE are allowed to provide
career information to students on campus and at school-sponsored
events such as career fairs and options fairs if the principal grants
access to other recruiters.

In addition, if the principal allows military recruiters to post
information in various career information sites, or areas of the
school accessible to students such as bulletin boards, electronic
posting sites, or career centers, groups that provide information on
alternatives to military service are also permitted to post
information in these sites.

During the coming year, HOPE and supporters will work to expand the
reach of the protocol in a few ways.

First, there needs to be a clear policy on recruiter visits to
classrooms incorporated into the document.

Next, student privacy safeguards should be included in the protocol.

For example, in order to ensure that student names, numbers,
addresses, and test scores are not released to the military when the
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Test is administered,
school staff need to notify the military before the test is given
that they are restricting recruiter contact.

Finally, we would like to see restrictions placed on the number of
military recruiter visits, which would comply with the No Child Left
Behind Act, rather than leave the frequency of visits to the
discretion of principals.

While this protocol is a very positive first step that ensures that
students will be exposed to more balanced information on this issue,
there are even a few ways to make it even better. We are hopeful that
the district will effectively implement the protocol and make the
necessary modifications.

It is the first such protocol in the county and merits adoption by
every school district in Marin.

Denise Beck is the founder of Marin County High School and College
Outreach Peace Education. For more information: Go to www.mpjc.org

.

4 recruiter suicides lead to Army probe

4 recruiter suicides lead to Army probe

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jXhro764ui04dI4I9iaT5q-uPsswD957VIE80

By MICHELLE ROBERTS
Dec 22, 2008

HENDERSON, Texas (AP) ­ Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Henderson, a strapping
Iraq combat veteran, spent the last, miserable months of his life as
an Army recruiter, cold-calling dozens of people a day from his
strip-mall office and sitting in strangers' living rooms, trying to
sign up their sons and daughters for an unpopular war.

He put in 13-hour days, six days a week, often encountering abuse
from young people or their parents. When he and other recruiters
would gripe about the pressure to meet their quotas, their superiors
would snarl that they ought to be grateful they were not in Iraq,
according to his widow.

Less than a year into the job, Henderson ­ afflicted by flashbacks
and sleeplessness after his tour of battle in Iraq ­ went into his
backyard shed, slid the chain lock in place, and hanged himself with
a dog chain.

He became, at age 35, the fourth member of the Army's Houston
Recruiting Battalion to commit suicide in the past three years ­
something Henderson's widow and others blame on the psychological
scars of combat, combined with the pressure-cooker job of trying to
sell the war.

"Over there in Iraq, you're doing this high-intensive job you are
recognized for. Then, you come back here, and one month you're a
hero, one month you're a loser because you didn't put anyone in,"
said Staff Sgt. Amanda Henderson, herself an Iraq veteran and a
former recruiter in the battalion.

The Army has 38 recruiting battalions in the United States. Patrick
Henderson's is the only one to report more than one suicide in the
past six years.

The Army began an investigation after being prodded by Amanda
Henderson and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. Cornyn, a Republican on the
Armed Services Committee, said he will press for Senate hearings.

"We need to get to the bottom of this as soon as we can," he said.

The all-volunteer military is under heavy pressure to sign up
recruits and retain soldiers while it wages two wars.

Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command,
acknowledged that recruiting is a demanding job but said counseling
and other support are available.

"I don't have an answer to why these suicides in Houston Recruiting
Battalion occurred, but perhaps the investigation that is under way
may shed some light on that question," he said.

In all, 15 of the Army's 8,400 recruiters have committed suicide
since 2003. During that period, more than 540 of the Army's
half-million active-duty soldiers killed themselves.

The 266-member Houston battalion covers a huge swath of East Texas,
from Houston to the Arkansas line. Henderson committed suicide Sept.
20. Another battalion member, Staff Sgt. Larry Flores Jr., hanged
himself in August at age 26; Sgt. Nils "Aron" Andersson, 25, shot
himself to death in March 2007; and in 2005, a captain at battalion
headquarters took his life, though the military has not disclosed any
details. All served combat tours before their recruiting assignments.

Charlotte Porter, Andersson's mother, said her son ­ who served two
tours in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne and earned a Bronze Star ­
couldn't lie to recruits about the war and felt an enormous burden to
ensure they could become the kind of soldiers he would want watching his back.

"He wasn't a complainer. He just said it really sucked," said his
51-year-old mother, who is from Eugene, Ore. "He felt like a failure."

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan
Veterans of America, said recruiting these days "is arguably the
toughest job in the military."

"They're under incredible stress. You can see it on their faces," he said.

In Iraq, Henderson helped lead other infantrymen on risky
"snatch-and-grab" missions and saw several buddies die.

He had been stationed in Germany before going to Iraq. After his tour
was up, he was assigned to recruiting. He didn't particularly want to
leave the infantry, but going to recruiting allowed him to move back
to the U.S., his widow said.

Like most recruiters, he began his day with paperwork, followed by
cold calls to high school graduates and college students. He spent
lunches trying to chat up high schoolers outside the cafeteria, and
then, more phone calls ­ often 150 a day, according to his widow.

He spent evenings on the living room sofas or at the dining room
tables of the few interested young people, trying to sell them and
their families on the Army's opportunities while easing their fears.
Some recruits' parents were hostile.

"They are completely outright nasty to you. That's stressful to you
right then and there because you have some mother or father just
ripping you apart," Amanda Henderson said.

She said her husband also found himself under crushing pressure from
above. He and other recruiters in the battalion were required to
account for every minute of every day in planners and logs, his widow said.

When Henderson took some time to recover from knee surgery, his
bosses acted as if he was lazy and threatened to have him thrown out
of recruiting and reassigned far from his wife, Amanda Henderson said.

He lived in constant fear of failing to sign up enough people,
something that can result in an all-day audit by a recruiter's
superiors and thwart a soldier's chances of a promotion, Amanda Henderson said.

As much as Henderson hated recruiting, he did the job well, his widow
said. But Flores, who killed himself a few weeks before Henderson,
"was getting chewed up one side and down the other" at work in the
days before he died, Amanda Henderson said. Flores was her boss.

Smith, the Army spokesman, would not comment on Henderson's job
performance. Asked about the demands put on recruiters by their
superiors, he said recruiting duty "often does entail long hours
during the week and on weekends." But he added: "There are other duty
assignments in the Army that entail long hours, such as being deployed."

Some recruiters volunteer for the job, but most are assigned. They
must have a recent evaluation showing no record of mental
instability. But Amanda Henderson said her husband, like other combat
veterans, rushed through his assessment, insisting he was fine.

Patrick Henderson had been out of Iraq a little less than a year when
he began recruiting, and after several months on the job, his
sleeplessness and flashbacks became evident, according to his wife.
She said she stayed up one night watching him apparently flash
between nightmares of combat and of illegally signing up a recruit.

He suffered a breakdown in the weeks before his suicide, his wife
said. Because he was hundreds of miles from the nearest Army post, he
went to a local counselor recommended by the military after an
initial visit with an Army doctor. But the counselor had never worked
with a combat veteran and couldn't decipher the military jargon in
his medical records, Amanda Henderson said.

One morning in September, she woke up alone, panicked and went out to
look for her husband. The chain was on the door to the shed, but she
could see him inside. She pried the window open, and screamed. "He
was gone," she said, her voice breaking.

"I don't want anybody to feel this pain that I have," she said, her
eyes welling with tears. "It's too much for one person. They need help."
--

On the Net:
Army Recruiting Command: http://www.usarec.army.mil

.

Feds Act Against Eureka, Arcata Over Recruitment

Feds Act Against Eureka, Arcata Over Recruitment

http://www.humboldtsentinel.com/081217-01.htm

Department of Defense refers case to District Court to invalidate
citizen initiatives

Humboldt Sentinel
12/17/08
By Charles Douglas

EUREKA -- Emergency closed-session City Council meetings last night
in Eureka and later today in Arcata were called as local officials
scrambled to respond to a notice of pending legal action in United
States District Court to invalidate two ballot measures adopted by
voters in each city on Nov. 4.

The Department of Defense referred Measure J of Eureka and Measure F
of Arcata, which seek to restrict the armed forces' ability to
directly contact and recruit minors, to the Civil Division of the
United States Department of Justice. The Assistant Attorney General
authorized the filing of a civil action for declaratory and
injunctive relief based on an alleged violation of the Supremacy
Clause of the U.S. Constitution -- this would render the initiatives
invalid, according to a letter sent to Eureka City Attorney Sheryl
Schaffner on Dec. 10 by Joseph H. Hunt of the Justice Department.

Hunt notified Schaffner and Arcata's City Attorney, Nancy Diamond,
that his office intended to file the action on or about Dec. 23 in
the nearest federal district court, located in San Francisco. He set
a deadline of Friday for the cities to settle the matter out of court.

"As is our practice in civil actions of this kind, however, we are
willing to give you the opportunity to resolve this matter in advance
of any litigation by agreeing to appropriate relief," Hunt stated in
his letter.

The City Council in Eureka, at least, does not appear inclined to
throw in the towel without a fight. After a late-night closed session
following the Council meeting in which Frank Jäger and Linda Atkins
were sworn in, Schaffner told the Sentinel in an interview early this
morning that she had been directed to proceed with defending Measure
J, even if it meant putting aside the other daily work of her office.

"There doesn't appear to be any legal obligation for the City to take
up the defense of Measure J, but the Council feels an ethical
obligation to defend the will of the voters…so they've asked me to
give it my best," Schaffner said. "We will reach out to all the
forces who want to help."

Schaffner declined to elaborate on the defenses she might use to
uphold Measure J due to the confidential nature of closed session
Council items, but said she would be taking the lead in the case, as
she was certified to practice law in federal court. It is unclear as
of press time whether Arcata would be willing or able to provide any
additional support, although proponents from Stop Recruiting Kids!
pledged their help in the form of local attorneys already lined up to
assist in the litigation.

"We were sure that we stayed within the constitution," community
organizer Jack Nounnan told the Council last night. "We didn't really
want trouble but we felt that we would get it anyway."

Eureka Councilmembers did make it clear to Schaffner, as she
indicated in her interview, that they would not be willing to expend
General Fund monies to hire outside legal help. But even critics of
the anti-recruitment initiative conceded the level of public support,
with 73% in favor in Arcata and 57% in favor in Eureka.

"During the election I was very much opposed to this measure, I
campaigned against it, but 57% of the voters supported it, so as
their elected representative, I will have to support it," Jäger said.

Also in support of the measures was the Redwood Chapter, American
Civil Liberties Union, which voted last month to ask their affiliate,
the ACLU of Northern California, to provide an amicus curiae brief in
support of the measures if litigation were filed against them. The
ACLU-NC issued a report last year concerning invasive recruitment
techniques in California, which has the greatest number of youth
between 15 and 24 of any state, and ranks second in the level of
recruits to the U.S. Army.

"When the amount the government spends on advertising for military
recruitment surpasses Nike's total advertising budget, we can
understand why youth face an uphill battle when trying to make
well-informed decisions," Eveline Chang, director of the ACLU-NC
Friedman Youth Project said.

According to the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate,
well over half of the federal government's total advertising budget,
more than $700 million, went towards military recruitment advertising
-- a figure that surpassed Nike, Wal-Mart, Mastercard, and Coca-Cola
in a 2007 Advertising Age study. When advertising is combined with
recruitment support, the campaign to find recruits for the armed
services is well over a billion dollars.

"It seemed the recruiters had the run of the campus; they have access
to classrooms and students in the lunch room," seventeen-year-old
Jacquieta Beverly, a recent graduate from Tennyson High School, said
in an ACLU release. "It got to the point where it felt like they were
harassing you. They would follow you into the lunchroom offering to
buy you snacks and stuff. It felt like it was an invasion of your privacy."

The controversy over military recruiting has been building amidst the
unprecedented deployment of military units to perform "domestic
operations" and "put down civil unrest" inside the United States,
according to a Sept. 8 report in the Army Times.

The 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division went on-line
on Oct. 1 at Fort Stewart and at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado
to perform domestic assignments associated with NORTHCOM, or the U.S.
Northern Command, and Infowars cited a recent U.S. Army War College
report warning of the potential for federal troops to be used against
people inside the United States.

"Already predisposed to defer to the primacy of civilian authorities
in instances of domestic security and divest all but the most extreme
demands in areas like civil support and consequence management, DoD
might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the
disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats
to domestic tranquility," retired Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Freir
stated in his report. "Under the most extreme circumstances, this
might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the
United States."

The Washington Post also reported on the expected deployment of up to
20,000 uniformed troops to domestic duty inside the U.S. in the next
three years, which the Cato Institute warned would constitute the
creeping militarization of domestic law enforcement. Former
Times-Standard publisher Dave Stancliff asked in an Oct. 5 column
whether the country was preparing for martial law.

"I'd wager most Americans aren't aware of this new strike force
within our country," he stated in his Times-Standard piece. "Are we
closer to internal collapse than any of us realize? Why does the
federal government feel the need for such a unit within our borders?
The idea that active duty soldiers will be used to control unruly
civilian crowds is both terrifying and unconstitutional."

For more information on the Friedman Youth Project, visit
www.aclunc.org/youth. To contact the local Measure F/Measure J
campaign, visit www.stoprecruitingkids.org.

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Don't Be A Buffalo Soldier

Don't Be A Buffalo Soldier

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=940&Itemid=1

by Carl Dix
This article originally appeared in Revolution.

"Don't sign up for America's wars under the leadership of 'commander
in chief' Barack Obama."

Barack Obama is going to the White House-the first Black
president-and he's calling for a new spirit of service to
America. Well I got a question, especially for Black youth-are you
going to sign up to fight America's wars now? When Bush was talking
about staying the course in Iraq till victory is achieved, most of
you all weren't buying it. But now your chests swell with pride when
you think of Obama becoming the commander-in-chief of the free
world. Some of you all are thinking maybe you would fight for an
America that has Obama in charge.

Don't do it. The nature of these wars hasn't changed. They still
come down to raining death and destruction on people who haven't done
a damn thing to deserve that kind of brutality. Is having a Black
commander-in-chief enough to get you to enlist in America's wars for
empire, to kill people, and maybe die yourself, trying to keep
America's stranglehold on the world in effect? Or are you going to
stand with people around the world in opposition to these wars? Are
you going to buy the poison Obama is selling and think, and act, like
an American? Or are you going to start thinking about what humanity needs?

You all aren't the first generation to face this question. Back in
the 1960s, the U.S. sent hundreds of thousands of young men to
Vietnam-to kill people and maybe get killed yourself to serve the US
empire in trying to drown the Vietnamese people's liberation struggle
in blood. They tried to send me over there, but thanks to the
powerful movement of resistance to that war, and what I learned from
GIs who had gone to Vietnam, I refused to go and kill people in
another land. I had more in common with them than with the people
who ran this country. And with all the hell Black people were
catching in the U.S., I felt my fight was here. I got sent to
Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for this "crime." Other GIs
refused to go out and fight the "enemy" or resisted in other
ways. And many who did go came back to the U.S. and got involved in
resistance against the crimes of the system. Some of them joined the
Black Panther Party and promoted solidarity with the struggle of the
Vietnamese people. I became a revolutionary communist back then, and
I've been on that tip ever since.

Some things are different today. The U.S. is going against a
different kind of enemy, Islamic fundamentalists, who don't represent
anything good, and there isn't a powerful movement in opposition to
these wars at the moment. But one thing is the same-these are wars
for empire. They're going to send you to murder people at wedding
parties in Afghanistan, terrorize children in their homes in Iraq and
run their torture chambers. No one should join up to fight or give
support to these wars!

Bombs dropped on villages in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan by U.S.
war planes won't be any less destructive if Obama is the
commander-in-chief of the pilot dropping them! Israeli cluster bombs
spread in Palestinian villages and refugee camps won't kill any fewer
children if Obama is authorizing the military assistance instead of
George Bush! Threats to attack Iran won't be any less warmongering
if they are uttered by Obama instead of Bush!

So again I ask you-are you going to approach these wars thinking like
an American? Are you gonna follow the example of the Buffalo
Soldiers? They were Black cavalry units formed in 1866, made up of
former slaves who had fought in the Union army in the Civil
War. They were sent off to fight in the murderous and genocidal
"Indian wars," driving the native inhabitants off their lands to make
way for the expansion of America, "from sea to shining sea." And
while the Buffalo Soldiers were fighting the native inhabitants for
America, Black people in the southeastern U.S. were catching hell
from the KKK and mob violence.

Some people think the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers is something to
be proud of. Colin Powell kept a Buffalo Soldier statue on his desk
when he was a top official during both of the Bush
presidencies. Colin Powell, who tried to cover up the My Lai
massacre during the Vietnam war, who was a major architect of the 1st
Gulf war and who went to the UN and lied thru his teeth to justify
the invasion of Iraq in 2003, finds the Buffalo Soldiers
inspiring. He called them "the wind beneath my wings" and especially
cited their "loyalty." Later they were sent by the U.S. to fight
Mexican Revolutionaries like Pancho Villa. This is a shameful
legacy, and it's no wonder that a war criminal like Colin Powell is
inspired by it.

If you follow in the footsteps of the Buffalo Soldiers, you will be
called on to do just like they did: commit horrible acts against
people who have done nothing to you, and you will do it in the
service of a system that has carried out terrible crimes, including
against the masses of African-American people, and you may end up
giving up the only life you have in the service of that foul system.

DON'T DO IT! Don't sign up for America's wars under the leadership
of "commander in chief" Barack Obama and carry forward the legacy of
the Buffalo Soldiers. Instead get with a cause that's in the
interest of humanity, and is something worth fighting for-making
revolution to wipe imperialism off the face of the earth!

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