Fwd: JROTC Dirty Tricks: Major Gerry Paratore and PE

Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009
From: Marc Norton <nortonsf@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: JROTC Dirty Tricks: Major Gerry Paratore and PE

Friday, April 24, Beyond Chron published a
LETTER from MAJOR GERRY PARATORE,
a JROTC instructor at Balboa High School.

This letter was in response to my report on his comments
before the school board's Rules Committee,
in my April 23 article in Beyond Chron:

"JROTC Bills Stall in Sacramento; Dirty Tricks in San Francisco"
http://www.BeyondChron.org/news/index.php?itemid=6839

Below is Major Paratore's letter, and my response.
--

Dear Marc Norton,

The California Department of Education several month ago provided to Long Beach Unified School District a memo stating that the School Board can award PE credits to students in JROTC, marching band and those other classes as the district approves. Based on this LBUSD has reinstated PE credit for both JROTC and marching band.

As to the real cost of JROTC, based on the information given out at the Budget Committee meeting, this is how I see it.

When the School Board eliminated the PE credit last year, they created a need for additional PE teachers. Over the summer the schools, with JROTC programs, hired 7 PE teachers which the District centrally funded. Using the information provided at the Budget committee meeting a rough estimate of this cost for the 7 PE teachers is $824k.

Yesterday, the District stated that the JROTC program, with 12 teachers, would cost roughly $880k to reinstate, and if not reinstated then $233k will be needed to provide the necessary additional classes to absorb the 500 or so remaining JROTC student.

Should the JROTC program be reinstated it will return as an alternative means for students to get PE credit, which according to the State Department of Education is acceptable. This action would eliminate the need for the 7 PE teachers and associated cost. Additionally, this would eliminate the $233k needed to absorb the students into other classes.

Reinstate JROTC (12 teachers) + $880k, eliminate the need for the 7 PE teachers -$824, eliminate the need for accommodating 500 displaced JROTC students -$233k. Save $150k and get 5 additional teachers.

Gerry Paratore

--

Dear Major Gerry Paratore,

I saw your letter addressed to me in the Friday, April 24 Beyond Chron.

The opinion that Marcela Obregon Enriquez expresses in her email message concerning Physical Education (PE) credit, to which you refer, does not represent the position of the California Department of Education. The position of the department has been clearly stated by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell: "JROTC programs do not fulfill California Education Code requirements for physical education."

Ms. Enriquez does not have the authority to overrule the Superintendent, who is her boss. In any event, her qualifications to rule on state law in this matter are nowhere in evidence.

If Ms. Enriquez were correct, there would have been no need for Assembly members Mary Salas (D-San Diego), Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) and Michael Duvall (R-Yorba Linda) to introduce AB 351, which seeks to create legal authority for the granting of PE credit for JROTC. This bill has not yet been voted on by either the Assembly or the Senate, and is a long way from from becoming law, if it ever does.

As a Balboa High School JROTC instructor, it is easy for you to cavalierly claim that the school board has the authority to grant PE credit for JROTC, but our school board members have a responsibility to our students and to the taxpayers that can not be taken so lightly -- particularly given the likelihood of a suit by so prestigious a law firm as Public Advocates. Public Advocates has affirmed that Ms. Enriquez opinion is incorrect.

Your comments about the cost of JROTC are also highly dubious. Your claim that the cost to the district for seven PE teachers is $824,000 is preposterous, and nowhere supported by the report you cite. Your figure works out to nearly $118,000 per teacher. Our teachers don't get anything near that amount.

In any event, the district generally employs one PE instructor for each 300 students -- while the Pentagon requires that the district employ one JROTC instructor for each 150 students. That is twice as many employees. In addition, the salaries of JROTC instructors are considerably more than the salaries of other teachers, as mandated by the military. JROTC is far more expensive than any other program in our schools, regardless of the merits or demerits of the program.

The truth is that a fully-staffed JROTC program costs the district approximately one million dollars per year. If you don't believe me, please see the memo issued by the school district last July. I think, as do many others, that we can find better ways to spend our money.

Marc Nort
San Francisco


 SF School Board vote, May 12.pdf

,

Rochester school board debates military recruiting policy

Rochester school board debates military recruiting policy

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20090429/NEWS01/904290348/1002/NEWS

Stephanie Veale • Staff writer
April 29, 2009

The Rochester School District is again debating its policy on when to disclose student information to military recruiters.

The current "opt-in" policy says parents must give explicit permission before their child's contact information will be given to recruiters.

But Superintendent Jean Claude Brizard and others have said the opt-in policy contradicts federal law, which requires student information to be given to military recruiters unless a parent specifically prohibits it.

An amendment to the disclosure policy was introduced at Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting, though no action was taken on it.

If passed, the amendment would change the format of the letter that goes home to parents each fall and would switch the current, opt-in policy to an opt-out policy.

Under the amendment, parents would have to specifically prohibit disclosure of their child's information in writing. A non-response from parents may be viewed as permission to disclose information.

Several students and parents spoke publicly in opposition to the amendment.

Most families prefer the current policy, said Mary Adams, whose 16-year-old daughter Erin Shoemaker attends School of the Arts. Adams argued that there is no evidence the policy violates No Child Left Behind .

"Existing local board policy truly reflects the values of our community and should be proudly and strongly defended," Adams told the board members.

"I urge you to take a stand with your constituents, and defend against the anti-democratic maneuvering that seems to be verging on bullying from military officials in our community."

Brizard said the current policy cannot remain in place as-is.

"We need to align with federal law," he said. "And the law is quite clear."

The school board is scheduled to discuss the proposal further at its next meeting on May 28 at the school district offices on Broad Street.
--

STVEALE@DemocratandChronicle.com

.

Plan Would Deploy Guard Near Mexico

Plan Would Deploy Guard Near Mexico

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042402222.html

$350 Million Effort Aimed at Drug War

By Mary Beth Sheridan, Spencer S. Hsu and Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Pentagon and Homeland Security Department are developing
contingency plans to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican
border under a $350 million initiative that would expand the U.S.
military's role in the drug war, according to Obama administration officials.

The circumstances under which the troops could be deployed have not
been determined, the officials said. They said the proposal was
designed to give President Obama additional flexibility to respond to
drug-related violence that has threatened to spill into the United
States from Mexico and to curb southbound smuggling of cash and weapons.

The initiative, which was tucked into the supplemental budget request
sent to Congress this month, has raised concerns over what some U.S.
officials perceive as an effort by the Pentagon to increase its
counternarcotics profile through a large pot of money that comes with
few visible requirements.

The broadly worded proposal does not mention troop deployments,
stipulating only that the military is to receive up to $350 million
"for counter-narcotics and other activities . . . on the United
States' border with Mexico."

If the contingency plans go unused, the money would be retained for
military operations and maintenance after September 2010, an
administration official said.

The proposal is being closely monitored by the State Department,
which administers the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative, a three-year
aid package to fight drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America.
The new funding would be nearly as much as the 2009 budget for
Merida, and some observers said they fear that the military could use
the money to set up a parallel counternarcotics program with little oversight.

"The real question is what happens if this morphs into something
else," said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the issue.

House and Senate committees began receiving briefings from White
House budget staff this past week. Some lawmakers and aides said they
were unaware that the funds would be allocated to deploy troops.

"Frankly, I'm baffled that an additional $350 million has been
requested under the defense appropriation," Rep. Nita M. Lowey
(D-N.Y.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said
Thursday.

Joy Olson, executive director of the Washington Office on Latin
America, which promotes democracy and human rights in the region,
said the request lacks the accountability provisions included in the
Merida Initiative, which was passed after more than a year of debate
in both countries.

"They may say that this is for the National Guard, but the way it's
written, it is really a blank check for the Defense Department to do
whatever it wants on counter-drug issues at the border -- and it
doesn't say which side of the border," Olson said.

The administration did not seek additional funding under Merida
because the new assistance is targeted only on the U.S. side of the
border, said an administration official who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because the plan is still being formulated. A second
administration official said $250 million is for the deployment of
National Guard troops if they are needed, and the remaining $100
million would go to protect unaccompanied minors found crossing the border.

The funds are to be available until the end of September 2010. The
proposal also authorizes the secretary of defense to transfer up to
$100 million to other federal agencies.

"We wanted to make sure he [Obama] was in a position that, if the
facts on the ground warranted it, that he had resources at his
disposal to be able to enhance the capacity on the ground through the
use of National Guard troops," another administration official said.

The contingency plan to deploy National Guard troops appears to mark
a shift for Obama.

More than 10,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since
President Felipe Calderón took on the cartels after taking office in
December 2006. Amid indications that the violence could spill into
the United States, some officials have intensified calls for
Washington to beef up security along the border.

In early March, the president brushed off calls to deploy troops,
saying: "I'm not interested in militarizing the border." His comments
were echoed by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, who said last week while visiting the border region: "There
are [no plans] that I am aware of or that I would talk about" to
increase military activity.

On Wednesday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), Arizona Gov.
Jan Brewer (R), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and Texas Gov.
Rick Perry (R) sent a joint letter to the Senate and House leadership
requesting additional troops for the four southwestern border states
under the National Guard Counterdrug Program.

Expanding the program "provides a good opportunity to minimize
perceptions that anyone is militarizing the border by enabling
National Guard personnel already familiar with drug trafficking to
use their expertise and skills to support the direct services
underway by law enforcement," the governors wrote.

The issue is especially sensitive in Mexico, where any perceived
threat of military intervention is greeted warily. Mexican officials
said they have received assurances that Obama has no immediate plans
to send troops to the border.

A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, Ricardo Alday,
said the Mexican government believes that other U.S. law enforcement
agencies "are a more effective tool than National Guardsmen in
shutting down transnational organized crime operating on both sides
of our common border."

The Bush administration spent more than $1 billion to deploy as many
as 6,000 Guard troops on the border in Operation Jump Start, which
began in 2006 and ended two years later. The focus was stemming the
tide of illegal immigration.

This time, the roles of Guard troops probably would be similar,
administration officials said.

As before, no U.S. troops will operate in Mexico, the officials said,
and any National Guard forces assigned would not engage in domestic
U.S. law enforcement, a role that is broadly constrained under a
federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, Obama aides said.

Guard troops would operate border detection systems, provide
communications, analyze intelligence, build roads, and provide air
and ground transport, freeing up law enforcement agents to perform
other duties, they said.

"It would be mobility. It would be the counternarcotics surveillance
work they already do, consistent with existing missions," one
official said. "They . . . would not be opening trunks and arresting people."

The official stressed that circumstances that would trigger
deployments are still to be determined, that the funding request was
intended to preserve the president's flexibility and that it should
"by no means be seen as presupposing the use of Department of Defense assets."

The U.S. military and Guard conduct ground and air surveillance along
the border, relay data to law enforcement agencies and aid
long-standing counternarcotics efforts.

.

'Economic Draft' Forces Many Into Military

'Economic Draft' Forces Many Into Military

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-roberts-military-enlistments.artapr26,0,6095112.story

April 26, 2009
MARYAM ROBERTS

One sector benefiting from the economic downturn is military
recruitment, often at the expense of enlistees.

Hard times are forcing people to make life-changing decisions,
especially those who have little choice but to join the military.

We've lost 3.3 million jobs in the last six months alone, as the
unemployment rate has vaulted over the 8 percent bar.

The job market is terrible, and higher education is becoming more
unaffordable, as colleges slash their financial assistance and raise
tuition. Welfare support for young mothers is dwindling, with states
tossing thousands off the rolls.

For the poor and the unemployed, who are disproportionately people of
color, the military is one of the only institutions with resources to
help them ­ or their children. The military already recruits larger
numbers from low-income communities and communities of color. Blacks
and Latinos are consistently overrepresented in the armed forces,
especially in enlisted ranks.

In 2008, all four branches of the armed forces met their recruiting
goals for the federal fiscal year, as 185,000 men and women signed up
for service. This was the highest number of people joining since
2003. The number probably will rise as the economy gets worse.

The Army offers attractive signing bonuses of $40,000, as well as
support with college tuition and valuable job training.

For many enlistees, these economic incentives outweigh the inherent
dangers of joining the military even as it is engaged in two active
occupations, one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan.

To be sure, the military is a good experience for some.

But for many others, particularly women, people of color, and gays
and lesbians, it is not such a supportive environment.

Harassment, abuse and assault are all too common.

For instance, one in three women in the military has experienced
sexual harassment or assault, according to the Pentagon's own
figures. And this month, the Pentagon acknowledged that the number of
sexual assaults increased by 8 percent in 2008, with more than half
of those involving rape.

That's why the "economic draft," as it is called, is so cruel.

It's time to start seeing the whole picture, not just the one
portrayed in those glossy ads and television commercials the military
produces to lure young, impressionable students looking for a way to
pay for their education, or to persuade desperate young mothers
needing to provide for their children, or to entice young men looking
for a way to climb out of poverty and debt.

We need to offer them real alternatives ­ jobs, job training and
scholarship resources ­ so they have a real choice, not one that is
coerced by their economic straits.

We must do what we can to shift from an economy for the military to
an economy for the people.
--

Maryam Roberts is the peace and solidarity program director at the
Women of Color Resource Center in Oakland, Calif. She wrote this for
Progressive Media Project.

.

Don’t protest the veterans

[2 articles]

Don't protest the veterans

http://www.mndaily.com/2009/04/26/don%E2%80%99t-protest-veterans

Veterans face great difficulties when returning from combat, we
shouldn't be demeaned by groups like the SDS and Anti-War Committee.

BY Ross Anderson
PUBLISHED: 04/26/2009

I must say right off, this will be the most biased, emotionally
charged column I think I will ever write. I simply can't remove
myself from the anger I feel toward a people who spout such hateful,
demeaning things about an already suffering minority.

You may have heard about last Thursday's confrontation across
Washington Avenue. On one side of the street, there was the Students
for a Democratic Society and the Anti-War Committee. On the other
side was a group of veterans and people who wished to defend
American's right to enlist in our military. According to the veterans
I spoke with, those peace-loving beatniks across the street were
aggressive, disrespectful ­ tossing out insults without provocation ­
and eager to demean the other side.

To the SDS and the Anti-War Committee, I have a candid admission: I
was manipulated, lied to, forced against my will to enlist in the
United States Army. Afterward they made me kill babies indiscriminately.

I know what you're thinking, "What the [expletive]?" Yeah, it's a
ridiculous thing to conjure. Still, the absurdity of this notion does
not escape a certain minority in our population, namely the
above-mentioned groups and their pals.

"Baby killer," "Klu Klux Klan [expletive]," "A­h---." According to my
friend, President of the Student's Veterans Association Bryan Axelrod
, these are the terms that members of SDS/Anti-War Committee apply to
those who have so selflessly served their country.

Now I'm all for protesting, but not if it fallaciously and spitefully
demeans those who choose to wear the uniform. While I don't suggest
that service necessarily demands respect, decency certainly does, and
this language alone invalidates the ideas of those who use it.
Regardless if you find a person's service contemptible, you still are
required to respect that person as a human being (perhaps SDS
disagrees?). The SDS and the Anti-War Committee are the exclamation
point behind the idea that the far-left is the most intolerant group
in the entire realm of political thought. While these groups provide
guys like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity with ammunition, I ask them
to please stop.

This column previously commented on the activities and policy
suggestions of SDS, and despite my categorical disagreement with
their ideas ­immediate, unconditional withdrawal from the Middle
East, absent a responsible exit strategy ­ I addressed them in a
respectful and diplomatic tone. But in light of the way they paint
veterans in their highly skewed promotions, and after learning how
they treated my friends from the Veterans Student Association last
Thursday, I feel they have now forfeited this courtesy.

I will not contest SDS/Anti-War Committee policy stances. This column
already refuted their mushy-headed suggestions and their ideas truly
don't deserve to be entertained twice.

My issue today is the harmful puke that the protesters spew onto the
public. I live in the Seward neighborhood, so I am especially privy
to their misinformation. If you were to believe the literature put
out by these groups, all veterans are morons who were tricked into
enlisting and served only to "destroy lives and deny
self-determination of the peoples in Afghanistan and Iraq." It also
serves their agenda to promote the idea that service in either place
results in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and that the majority of
veterans have it.

Don't you people get it? These "baby-killers" of whom you speak are
not just numbers. We are not talking points to be used for your
propaganda. We are real people. We are your neighbors, your customer
service representatives, your CEOs and just maybe the kid sitting
next to you in class. Like I said, I'm not against protesting the
war, but I wish the SDS/Anti-War Committee would stop insulting our
nation's veterans in the process.

I wonder if they even realize how offensive their ideas are. I also
wonder if they understand the shallow nature of their arguments.

Groups like the SDS and Anti-War Committee want you believe that we
all have PTSD, and based on a recent report, the Homeland Security
Department has an interest in promoting the idea that veterans are
more likely to be right-wing extremist. I know many veterans and I
assure you this propaganda is false. Beyond that, it is morally
repugnant and incredibly harmful to a minority who already faces
great challenges. This politically motivated tripe belongs nowhere in
the marketplace of ideas. The idea being promoted is that veterans
are an entity to be either pitied or feared. Why can't we just be?
With all that we have to contend with (and I assure you that
returning from combat is no easy road to hoe), why must we also
contend with your hurtful judgments?

If the SDS/Anti-War Committee is going to spout untruths to advance
their agenda, I suppose that's their right. But I ask that they
please leave my vet buddies and me out of it, because, quite
honestly, it hurts our feelings.

To the leadership of these groups, I know you are well-reasoned
individuals, but your minions are clearly not. I ask that you please
do like every branch of the military does and offer your troops some
sort of sensitivity training.
--

Ross Anderson welcomes comments at randerson@mndaily.com.

--------

Fight breaks out amid Stadium Village protest

http://www.mndaily.com/2009/04/23/fight-breaks-out-amid-stadium-village-protest

A dual protest over a near-campus recruiting office turned violent Thursday.

BY Hillary Kline
PUBLISHED: 04/23/2009

Two opposing protests in front of a Stadium Village military
recruitment office Thursday ­ totaling about 50 people ­ led to at
least one fight, though no arrests were made.

Members of the Students for a Democratic Society and Anti-War
Committee lined up on Washington Avenue to protest military
involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq Thursday morning.

In opposition to the protest, students from the University of
Minnesota's College Republicans, as well as veterans and supporters,
positioned themselves in front of the recruiting office, carrying
signs accusing the original protestors of being unpatriotic.

One sign read, "End the war by winning it."

The dual protest began peacefully, with each group trying to muffle
the other's message in a shouting competition from separate sides of
the street. Eventually, members of SDS, the Anti-War Committee and
supporters crossed the street to protest in front of the military
recruiting office, resulting in a brief physical altercation between
the opposing groups leaving a few protestors pushed to the ground.

Police arrived on the scene shortly after, and the protest went on peacefully.

Sgt. Ryan Mueller, a team leader at the recruiting station, said the
recruiting office re-opened last week. He said no recruitments were
made Thursday.

Thursday's protest was one of many demonstrations planned throughout
the Twin Cities area in an effort to stop recruits from enlisting.

Grace Kelley, member of SDS, said she joined the student group less
than a year ago in preparation for the Republican National Convention
protest. The English senior said the group's slogan for Thursday's
protest was, "Recruiters lie and people die."

Holding a sign that read, "Save students, stop recruiters," Linden
Gawboy, who is currently unemployed, said she came to Thursday's
protest to show solidarity with the students who are against
recruiting on campus. She said because the cost of tuition is rising,
many students are being forced to turn to the military to help pay
for expenses; she said she believes people should enter the military freely.

Beth Englund attended Thursday's protest. Her son, Rob Emerson, came
home Wednesday night from serving in Afghanistan for the last six
months. He is currently stationed in Cherry Point, N.C.

Englund said although she thinks the people protesting have the right
to voice their opinion, she feels the protest was disrespectful to
the United States and those enlisted in the military.

Chairman of College Republicans and political science senior
Abdul-Rahman Magba-Kamara called those protesting military enlistment
"un-American."

"You can be against the war, and that's fine … but you can't be
against our military in general, that just doesn't make any sense," he said.

.

Congress to debate role of recruiters in schools

Congress to debate role of recruiters in schools

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2009Apr24/0,4670,USMilitaryRecruiting,00.html

April 24, 2009
By KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON ­ Mary Adams doesn't want her daughter hearing pitches
from military recruiters as she completes her high school education.

"They promise them all kinds of benefits without telling them of the
risks," said Adams, a registered nurse whose daughter is a sophomore
at a high school in Rochester, N.Y.

Thomas Gregory disagrees. Three years ago, he feared losing his son
to the streets. But thanks to a meeting with a military recruiter,
his son gained a career, an education and a brighter future.

"This is not a numbers game, as I've heard, and we're not creating
killers. What we are creating is citizens for tomorrow," Gregory said
during a February meeting of the Rochester Board of Education, which
is considering whether to limit recruiters' access to contact
information for high school students.

A similar debate is expected in the coming months in Congress.

When approving the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, lawmakers
inserted language requiring high schools that receive federal money
to meet certain requirements regarding military recruiting.

Upon the military's request, high schools must provide students'
names, addresses and telephone numbers. They also must give military
recruiters the same access they provide to university and business
recruiters during college and career fairs.

Congress will consider reauthorizing the education law later this
year. Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., wants Congress to change how schools
handle student contact information so military recruiters do not have
automatic access to it. He said parents in his district are
frustrated that recruiters are contacting their children at home.

Under Honda's bill, parents would have to consent to releasing their
children's information to the military. Currently, parents have to
ask that the information be withheld, and Honda said many parents are
unaware they have that option.

"Parents have an obligation and right to control their children's
private information," said Honda, who taught high school biology and
was a principal before entering politics.

The National Education Association and the National PTA have
supported Honda's legislation in previous years. Honda said he feels
the bill has good prospects this year because of Democratic gains in
the House and Senate and the change to a Democratic administration.

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., also senses improved prospects _
which is why he's introduced a competing bill to keep things the way they are.

"If you take federal funds, you owe it to the federal government to
let students talk to a recruiter without having to go to a recruiting
station," said Hunter, who served with the Marines in Iraq and
Afghanistan before winning office in November 2008.

Hunter said Honda's bill would severely limit recruiting because many
students will not get the permission forms to their parents.

"These are high school kids. They have more important things to do," he said.

The military generally requires recruits to have a high school
diploma or equivalent, and the average age of those who enlist is
nearly 21. A student can enlist as early as 17 with parental consent.

Of the Army's 80,000 enlistments for active duty during the 2008
fiscal year, about 14,000 _ or nearly 18 percent _ were high school students.

One enlistee, Matthew Tomlin, 17, said Army recruiters called him one
night at his home in Arbuckle, Calif., a farming town about 50 miles
north of Sacramento.

"They pay for your college, and with the economy the way it is
there's not that many jobs around, so I figured it was good," Tomlin said.

The high school senior said he has no problem with recruiters having
access to students' contact information.

"It's really your choice," he said. "You're almost 18, anyway."

Molly Jordan, 17, from Grass Valley, Calif., said her parents
initially worried about her interest in joining the Army. But she
said high school seniors are mature enough to make this decision on their own.

"I think as long as the student's fine with it, it's OK," said
Jordan, who heads to Army training in Mississippi in July.

Officials say not all high school seniors who enlist will follow
through. Some change their minds and go to college. Others don't
graduate or fail to meet physical requirements.

Douglas Smith, a public affairs officer with the Army, said granting
the military access to student contact information and school
campuses makes for a more efficient use of recruiters' time.

"It's the last time that the population is in one place," said Smith,
who is based at Fort Knox in Kentucky. "After high school, students
graduate, they scatter."

In a recent report, the Congressional Research Service estimated that
about 95 percent of the nation's school districts are in compliance
with the military recruitment provision of No Child Left Behind. It
has sparked a lively and ongoing debate in some districts, such as
the one in Rochester.

In 2005, the Board of Education approved a policy that said contact
information would not be shared unless parents approved. But only a
small percentage of parents sent in approval letters, leading a
Marine Corps official to complain to the superintendent that practice
could cause Rochester to lose federal funding.

Curtis Gilroy, director of accession policy for the Department of
Defense, testified earlier this year that he believes all 22,000 high
schools are technically in compliance with the law. But some go to
great lengths to limit access, he said.

"We think that the current law ... is very, very important to
maintain," Gilroy said.

.

Lockdown at Minneapolis military recruiting offices goes unchallenged

Lockdown at Minneapolis military recruiting offices goes unchallenged

http://minnesotaindependent.com/33327/lockdown-military-recruitment-minneapolis

By Chris Steller
4/24/09

A day's wait brought relative quiet for antiwar activists who locked
themselves to a pair of military recruiting office doors in
Minneapolis Friday. Without much reaction from police or recruiters
(at least as of early afternoon), the protesters took advantage of
heavily trafficked Washington Ave. SE to spread their message.

On Thursday similar "lock downs" at several metro area recruiting
stations, including Washington Avenue's, sparked lively standoffs and
in at least one case ended with police cutting protesters free and
issuing citations.

But on Friday, members of Students for a Democratic Society and the
Peace and Justice Committee at Macalester College experienced hours
of relative quiet outside the U.S. Army and Navy recruiting stations
near the University of Minnesota campus.

Sporadic conversations with passersby and occasional police drive-bys
punctuated a somewhat sleepy atmosphere on the shady side of a
campus-area street that carries more vehicular and pedestrian traffic
than the average Minneapolis thoroughfare.

The contrast was especially marked with a similar action last year,
when the same groups' lockdown at the same location coincided with a
street protest on the anniversary of the Iraq War, said spokeswoman
Leigh York, who was herself arrested yesterday at another recruitment
office in Brooklyn Center.

York said the two women and three men arrived before the side-by-side
recruiting stations' 8 a.m. opening today and locked themselves to
both doors. U-shaped bike locks bound door handles to protesters'
necks at each office. Connected by chained arms between them were
three more protesters.

York said those locked down and as many as a dozen supporters
(including a medic) in attendance were prepared to stay the day at
least if left undisturbed. Voluntarily unlocking would be a group
decision, she said.

Supporters offered water and hand-fed bites of banana to protesters
as the day wore on.

Passersby stopped to argue or encourage. "Get a fuckin' life," said one.

The protest, which York described as "public civil disobedience and
direct action" was meant to disrupt recruiting for a military
involved in what she called "imperialist and profit-driven wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan."

.

HOME-SCHOOLING: Military policy allows enlistment

HOME-SCHOOLING: Military policy allows enlistment

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/26/home-schooling-military-policy-allows-enlistment/

By Michael Smith
April 26, 2009

On Aug. 1, 2008, Steven D. Brewer graduated from his 13-week course
at the Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego. He was awarded the rank
of lance corporal, a rare honor, and was selected as Bravo Company
Honor Man, identifying him as the top graduate in the company of 292
men. His company broke the regimental drill record, which required
precision and discipline in rifle movement and marching. This record
has been tracked since 1921.

Steven is not only a credit to the Marine Corps, he's also a credit
to home-schooling. The second of eight Brewer children, all of whom
were home-schooled through high school, he grew up hearing his
pastor-father teach that if you have nothing worth dying for, you
have nothing worth living for.

Steven decided to join the Marine Corps when he was young. It was
Sept. 11, 2001. As the family prayed for the tragedy that was
occurring in New York City and the District, Steven had great concern
for his country and its future. Obviously, there was still work to be
done in Steven's life to prepare him for his task, and his parents,
Don and Nancy, did just that.

After Steven's graduation from boot camp, he was assigned to Camp
Pendleton to participate in the Marine School of Infantry. On Nov.
14, 2008, he graduated with 400 fellow Marines who gave him the
Outstanding Marine Honor. This honor goes to the Marine that the rest
of the class would most like to serve beside in combat.

Steven is serving in the District in Special Services as a "body
bearer." His duties include serving at the burial ceremonies for
fallen Marines at Arlington National Cemetery. His next deployment
likely will be to Afghanistan.

Many home-school graduates are interested in serving their country in
the military, but it has not always been easy for them to serve
because the military had difficulty deciding how to recognize a
home-school graduate's diploma. They were looking for some form of
"accreditation" from the state, which a home-schooler cannot provide.

In the mid-1990s, HSLDA began to work with the Department of Defense
to encourage the military branches to be open to home-school
graduates. The first response by the military was to admit
home-school graduates, but treat them as high school dropouts. This
immediately placed home-schoolers at a disadvantage because they were
ineligible for many of the incentives and special programs the
military offered for enlistment. In 1998, the Department of Defense
agreed to place home-school graduates in Tier 1 in order to conduct a
five-year study program to attempt to measure the attrition rates of
home-school graduates.

At the end of that period, unfortunately, the results were
inconclusive because a large number of recruits were incorrectly
classified as home-school graduates. In 2007, the Pentagon agreed to
conduct a new four-year pilot program, opening Tier 1 status to
home-school graduates who score 50 or above on the Armed Forces
Qualification Test.

We appreciate the willingness of the military to work with the
home-school community to allow more home-schoolers to join.
Home-school success stories like Steven's also demonstrate that the
military is on the right track when it comes to home-schoolers.

More and more home-school graduates are deciding to serve their
country through the military. Despite the policy change in 2007, some
recruiters still need to be reminded that home-schoolers are allowed
to enlist in Tier 1 and should experience no discrimination from the
military for being home-schooled.

If you know a home-school graduate who is having trouble getting into
the military, please call HSLDA.
--

Michael Smith is the president of the Home School Legal Defense
Association. Call 540/338-5600 or send e-mail to media@hslda.org.

.

Humboldt County cities restrict military

Humboldt County cities restrict military

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/25/MNE6176LK9.DTL

Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, April 26, 2009

Arcata, Humboldt County --

This picturesque community among the redwoods, once dubbed "the
Berkeley of the north" for its reputation for unabashed liberalism,
has repeatedly thumbed its nose at the federal government.

Over the years, its civic leaders have declared this city a sanctuary
for military resisters to the Persian Gulf War and barred local
enforcement of the Patriot Act. If they had had enough pull,
President George W. Bush would have been impeached at least once.

Now Arcata is at it again, with a law blocking the military from
recruiting anybody in town under the age of 18. And this time, the
law has the backing not of a few City Council activists, but of
thousands of voters who went to the polls in November.

On the same day, voters in Eureka, a historically politically staid
city a dozen miles away, surprised everybody by approving an identical measure.

"The idea that Humboldt County can fight the federal government is as
ridiculous as hell, but goddamn it, we're gonna try," said Winfield
"Win" Sample, a World War II veteran turned Orwell-quoting pacifist
who brought Arcata's measure to Eureka.

In the past, Arcata's quirky pokes at Washington have been shrugged
off as the antics of pot-drenched students and patchouli-scented
hippies for whom the '60s never quite died. Passionate, but largely irrelevant.

Heading for court

This time the federal government isn't shrugging. A court hearing is
scheduled in Oakland on June 9 on the government's demand that the
cities' laws be overturned for seeking powers constitutionally
granted to the federal government.

Characteristically anti-war cities, including San Francisco and
Berkeley, have tried to battle military recruitment. But nobody can
recall a case where a city used the ballot box as a
counter-recruitment tool, an act that has broader significance.

"It touches on a couple of core issues that really relate to the
foundation of government," said Allen Weiner, a senior lecturer at
Stanford Law School. "The questions of what areas belong to the
federal government, and what areas belong to the state."

Until November, this town of 18,000 seemed to many residents to be
dialing back its rebellious ways, booting some of its more radical
activists off the City Council and focusing more on fixing potholes
than foreign policy, and Eureka hardly had a history of such
obstinacy. Now some in Eureka, where "Support the Troops" ribbons far
outnumber the "U.S. Out of Humboldt" bumper stickers more common in
Arcata, worry that Arcata's infra-blue attitude is catching on there.

"People's sense of responsibility isn't there anymore," said Michael
Hagedorn, a former Marine and father of two teenagers in Eureka who
voted against the law. "It's a responsibility of everybody to take
care of this country and serve this country. ... That should be
instilled in kids."

But others say the anti-recruiting measures appealed to Humboldt
County's spirit of self-reliance and self-determination, which harks
back to the Gold Rush. Tucked behind a wall of towering redwoods and
lacking a railroad link to the Bay Area until 1914, its population
was largely cut off from the rest of California.

Today, Highway 101 provides relatively quick access to the urban
centers to the south, but the sense of a Redwood Curtain dividing the
county from the rest of the state has never completely faded.

"The fact that Eureka followed suit tells me it's more about
independent thinking," said Laura Middlemiss, who was born and raised
in Arcata, raised three kids there and felt that recruiters calling
her kids at home went too far.

"The reason this measure passed in this region is that people don't
want to be told what to do."

The man behind the laws

The law was the inspiration of former Arcata City Councilman Dave
Meserve, who gained national attention after his 2002 election by
spearheading a first-in-the-nation law making compliance with the USA
Patriot Act illegal.

The council followed up with repeated resolutions calling for Bush's
impeachment and withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Meserve's failure to
win re-election in 2006 is generally attributed to voter weariness of
his sometimes divisive activism.

Not easily deterred, in late 2007, Meserve began thinking about ways
to re-engage his town against the war. He hit on military recruiting,
which he saw as a link between war overseas and everyday life at
home, and he decided that instead of going to the same activists or
to the council, he'd go to the ballot.

"You don't get anywhere by getting the same 30 people out to the
demonstration. You don't get anywhere talking in all the cliches
against war, against imperialism," he said.

The measure, which Meserve wrote to focus on the naivete of youth,
easily qualified for the November ballot in Arcata, and then
qualified in Eureka, after a last-minute petition drive by Sample and
a handful of volunteers.

"Somebody had to start it," shrugged Sample, an outspoken man who
hands out business cards bearing an Edward Abbey quote - "A patriot
must be ready to defend his country against his government."

Even after it qualified, few thought Eureka would embrace Arcata's proposal.

"Twenty years ago, I don't think that would have had a ghost of a
chance of making the ballot, let alone passing," said Eureka Mayor
Virginia Bass, whose son is a Marine, and who signed the argument
against Eureka's version of the law. "Maybe (opponents) sat back and
said this could never happen - I don't know."

But when the polls closed on Nov. 4, the measure had won easily in both towns.

"I was of course happy with 73 percent in Arcata," Meserve said. "But
57 percent in Eureka just blew me away."

San Francisco's school board has battled against JROTC, and
Berkeley's City Council issued a letter - since rescinded - calling
local Marine recruiters "unwelcome intruders." But the Humboldt
County laws appear to be the most direct counter-recruitment effort
mounted by a city's electorate anywhere in the nation.

The Department of Defense refused to allow interviews with Humboldt
County recruiters, citing the lawsuit. A department spokeswoman,
responding to written questions, said it is important for recruiters
to be able to help young people and their parents make informed
decisions about military service.

According to data by the National Priorities Project, Humboldt County
youths enlist in the Army at a rate of about 1.5 per 1,000 15- to 24-
year-olds - a rate a tad higher than California as a whole, and about
on par with the national average.

In its lawsuit, government lawyers claim the country will suffer
"irreparable harm" if the Arcata and Eureka laws are allowed to stand.

Few people believe the laws will survive the legal challenge.

"The federal government is going to win. If you look at the law it
seems like almost a no-brainer," said Weiner, the Stanford Law School
lecturer, who is not connected to the suit.

The supremacy clause placing certain powers - including regulating
the military - in federal hands is well established, Weiner said, and
generally trumps the right to privacy being claimed by the cities.

The cities are also claiming that the United States is party to
international treaties prohibiting the recruitment of children under
17 - which they argue include activities such as talking about the
benefits of military service.

The treaties, the cities argue, hold equal standing to the supremacy
clause, an argument Weiner called novel.

"If they were to have a chance, that would be the one place they had
a chance," he said. But, he added, it is likely the court will define
"recruiting" as not simply a matter of discussing the benefits of
military service, but as a matter of actually signing someone up to
serve in the armed forces.

Currently, recruits must be 18 to enlist in the military - 17 with
parental permission - although contact with recruiters may begin at any age.

Activists take notice

Win or lose, for Meserve, the election demonstrated that activists
can be more effective by reaching out to mainstream voters instead of
putting all their resources into rallies or symbolic resolutions - a
message that is spreading among activists from Berkeley to back east.

"Activists around the country are certainly looking at this and
saying, 'Hmmm, maybe we can do something like that here,' " said Sam
Diener, editor of Peacework Magazine in Cambridge, Mass.

Enforcement of the laws is on hold for now, pending the court
hearing. Recruiters are still operating in their small offices behind
the Big 5 Sporting Goods in Eureka. Recruitment there also takes in Arcata.

And young people who wish to serve are still signing on the dotted line.

"My grandpa was in the Army. I just kind of want to get out of
Humboldt County and try something new," said Mary Bellach, a
17-year-old from Fortuna who is going through the enlistment process.
Her sister, Heather Bellach, will go to Air Force boot camp next
month. "Personally, I think it's up to the kids. It's what they're
going to do for the rest of their lives."

No matter what the outcome of the legal battle, residents of Humboldt
County seem to want to retain a sense of community.

Charles McCann, a lifelong Arcata resident who opposed the measure,
recalled in 2007 when his nephew, Peter Schmidt, came home to Arcata
as the county's first - and so far only - combat casualty in Iraq.

It seemed like the whole town turned out for the funeral, McCann said.

So long as that spirit remains, he said, he isn't tempted to wish
away all the hippies and students and rebels and turn Arcata back
into the conservative logging town of his youth.

"I think we'd lose something. The broad range of members of society,
I don't find that threatening," he said. "That's what changes society."

In Travel: Funky, friendly, and forever Arcata, a great,
forest-shrouded place to visit. G6

The Arcata Youth Protection Act

This text is an abridged version of the Arcata law passed in November
2008. Eureka passed an identical measure.

No person who is employed by or an agent of the United States
government shall, within the City of Arcata, in the execution of his
or her job duties, recruit, initiate contact with for the purpose of
recruiting, or promote the future enlistment of any person under the
age of eighteen into any branch of the United States Armed Forces.

Nothing in this Ordinance shall prevent any person from voluntarily
visiting a military recruitment office or specifically initiating a
request to meet with a recruiter.

Nothing in this Ordinance shall prevent individuals who are not
employed by or agents of the U.S. government from encouraging people
under the age of eighteen to join the military.

Any military recruiter who violates this Ordinance, as well as his or
her commanding officer, shall be held responsible for said violation.
Both shall be deemed guilty of an infraction and shall be subject to
the penalties stated in the Arcata Municipal Code.

Source: www.smartvoter.org
--

E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at mstannard@sfchronicle.com.

.

Don’t enlist, resist

"Don't enlist, resist"

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2009/04/minnesota-dont-enlist-resist.htm

By Meredith Aby and Katrina Plotz
April 2009

Minnesota saw a wave of dramatic anti-war protests at military
recruitment centers, April 23. The call of the Twin Cities based
Anti-War Committee for April 23 to be Zero Recruitment Day was taken
up by a host of anti-war groups that joined together, visibly
opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, exposing recruiter lies
and preventing military recruiting that day.

Despite Obama's promise to end the war on Iraq, he has committed to
keeping 50,000 troops there through 2011. Meanwhile he plans to
greatly expand the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan and send an
additional 17,000 troops. These war plans depend on new recruits for
the armed forces. The current economic crisis makes it easier for
recruiters to prey on poor and working-class youth who are given
false promises of economic benefits.

Marie Braun, an activist with the Twin Cities Peace Campaign
explained the purpose for the day's actions, "We are here to say that
we are sick of war. We are sickened by the news coming out of Iraq,
Afghanistan and Pakistan about continuing death and destruction at
the hands of our government. We are appalled by the tactics of
recruiters who use lies, innuendo and false promises to get our young
people to fight, kill and die in wars that have little or nothing to
do with democracy, national security or the welfare of our citizens."

Six Zero Recruitment Day actions occurred at military recruiting
stations throughout Minnesota, five in the Twin Cities metro area and
one at the Minnesota State University in Mankato.

In Brooklyn Center, four activists locked themselves to a station,
disrupting business for over half the day. Police were forced to cut
the door handles in order to arrest the protesters.

Three members of Grandmothers Peace Brigade were arrested after
claiming to want to enlist in place of young people in Saint Louis
Park. Afterwards, supporters continued to disrupt business. Arrestee
Sarah Martin explained their action. "When we went into the Knollwood
Plaza recruiting office, the Grandmas Peace Brigade wore t-shirts
which said 'What would grandma do? Pack for Iraq and send the
children back.' We were there to protect our grandchildren from the
deadly demands of U.S. imperialism."

The Anti-War Committee held an all day picket of an Army Career
Center in Minneapolis, which culminated in a redecoration of the
recruiting station with anti-recruitment posters and foreclosure
signs. This led Minneapolis police to cordon off the station as a
crime scene and call in the fire department. Three fire engines came
to check whether the glue was a 'hazardous material' and blocked
traffic at the busy Lake and Lyndale intersection for close to an hour.

AWC member Jess Sundin reports, "It's ironic that the Minneapolis
Police declared the recruiting office a crime scene. Our message was
that sending young people off to war in Afghanistan and Iraq is a
crime. Clearly the police agreed with us."

Across the river, The Twin Cities Peace Campaign and Alliant Action
picketed at a recruitment center in West Saint Paul. Their day-long
protest included educational outreach through flyers on cars in the
parking lots of surrounding big box stores.

At the University of Minnesota, the lengthy rally organized by
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) closed the recruiting station
there, while College Republican counter-protesters held signs - many
were racist and some advocated torture - nearby.

Stephanie Taylor, a University of Minnesota SDS organizer, explained,
"Even in the face of overt racism from the College Republicans and
signs that read 'Free waterboarding tickets,' students proved to be
successful in shutting down the recruitment center and maintaining
their political line, chanting, 'Recruiters lie, students die.'"

Minnesota anti-war groups who came together to organize protests
around the Republican National Convention are continuing to work
together to build a movement of opposition to U.S. imperialism. Zero
Recruitment Day maintained the pattern of using a variety of tactics,
including civil disobedience and direct action to get the message
across: "Don't enlist. Resist."

.

Antiwar demonstrations lead to arrests, citations

[2 articles]

Antiwar demonstrations lead to arrests, citations

http://www.startribune.com/local/43594347.html?elr=KArks7PYDiaK7DU2EPaL_V_9E7ODiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P:DiUs

April 23, 2009
RANDY FURST

Antiwar demonstrators gathered at several military recruitment
centers across the Twin Cities on Thursday, temporarily halting
operations at some of them. In Brooklyn Center, police arrested four
demonstrators, including Leigh York, at left, and Robert Kolstad, who
had locked themselves to the front doors of a recruitment center.

Katrina Plotz of the Anti-War Committee said at a news conference
that the demonstrations were organized because President Obama ran as
an antiwar candidate, but was now planning to keep troops in Iraq
through 2011 and was escalating the war in Afghanistan. First Sgt.
Mark Lovin, who heads armed forces recruitment at several St. Paul
recruitment stations, said: "We defend their right to protest. But to
impede our right to do our duty is not right."

--------

4 Arrested in Anti-War Protests

23 Apr 2009

BROOKLYN CENTER, MN. - Brooklyn Center police arrested four people
during an Anti-Iraq War Protest on Thursday.

Protesters throughout the metro demonstrated against the war. In
Brooklyn Center, protesters blocked the army's recruiting center from opening.

The four protesters refused to unlock and leave, forcing Brooklyn
Center firefighters to saw through chicken wire, cutting though the
metal door handle.

At the University of Minnesota, there was a similar gathering outside
a similar office, although police say there were no arrests or injuries.

.

JROTC Bills Stall in Sacramento; Dirty Tricks in San Francisco

JROTC Bills Stall in Sacramento; Dirty Tricks in San Francisco

http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=6839

by Marc Norton
Apr. 23‚ 2009

Late on Tuesday, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) pulled the
plug on the scheduled Wednesday hearing for her controversial
"urgency" bill aimed at requiring San Francisco to retain JROTC
(Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps). Another pro-JROTC bill,
which would restore PE credit for JROTC cadets, also appears to be
languishing in the Assembly.

Ma has not publicly revealed the reason for withdrawing her bill from
consideration before yesterday's Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Her withdrawal seems at odds with her demand that this bill be given
"urgency" status. Her move suggests that she does not have the votes
to get the bill out of committee.

A San Francisco Examiner article Wednesday stated that Ma "expects
her bill to reach the assembly floor in the next few weeks." San
Francisco's JROTC program is scheduled to end in "the next few weeks"
-- early June -- making this timeline problematic for JROTC
supporters. Even if Ma's bill, AB 223, got to the Assembly floor in
"the next few weeks," it would still need to win the two-thirds floor
vote required for an "urgency" bill, then gain a two-thirds vote in
the Senate, and get the Governor's signature, before it became law.

Even many JROTC supporters oppose Ma's bill, given that it is an
unprecedented violation of local control of education, and would make
San Francisco the only school district in the nation required by law
to have JROTC. Last week, the San Francisco school board voted 6-1 to
oppose her bill, although the board is closely divided over the JROTC
issue itself. The San Francisco Examiner also came out in opposition
to Ma's bill last Sunday, despite the fact that this
Republican-oriented daily has campaigned extensively in favor of JROTC.

THE SALAS/MA/DUVALL BILL

Ma's bill is not the only piece of pro-JROTC legislation that seems
to have hit a rough patch in the state legislature. A parallel piece
of legislation, AB 351, originally introduced by Assemblywoman Mary
Salas (D-San Diego), and now co-sponsored by Ma and Republican
Assemblyman Michael Duvall from Orange County, would allow JROTC
cadets to get Physical Education (PE) credit.

The Salas/Ma/Duvall bill was passed by the Education Committee back
on April 1, but still has not been brought to a vote on the Assembly
floor. Like Ma's bill, the Salas/Ma/Duvall legislation is classified
an "urgency" bill, and would require a two-thirds vote. As with the
Ma bill, it appears that the authors do not believe they yet have the
necessary votes.

PE has historically been used as a recruiting tool for JROTC. But
bipartisan efforts in Sacramento in recent years have tightened up PE
standards and curriculum to counter the growing decline in physical
fitness among our youth. These new PE standards led State
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell to issue a
statement last year declaring that "JROTC programs do not fulfill
California Education Code requirements for physical education." San
Francisco stopped giving PE credit to JROTC cadets this school year.
Enrollment in the program has dropped from a high of about 1,600 to 500 today.

Without PE credit, everybody knows that JROTC would be a ridiculous
drain on the school budget for a minimal number of students. If JROTC
were retained next year, but PE credit still withheld, the number of
cadets would likely drop even further. Pro-JROTC San Francisco school
board members Norman Yee and Rachel Norton have both said that they
would not favor restoration of the program without PE credit.

That is why Rachel Norton (no relation to this author) has stated on
her blog that AB 351 "paves the way for us to reinstate JROTC."

But that is only if it passes both houses and gets signed into law, a
fact not yet in evidence.

DIRTY TRICK #1

In a notable sleight-of-hand, Ma amended her bill after it squeaked
out of the Education Committee with a minimum six votes from the
eleven members. The bill originally acknowledged that it would
"create a state-mandated local program." This means that the state
would likely be required to pay the one million dollars a year that
it costs San Francisco school district taxpayers. That is why the
bill has been referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee,
which must rule on bills that cost the state money.

However, Ma amended her bill last week and took out all references to
a state mandate. There was some speculation that she was trying to
avoid a hearing before the Appropriations Committee. Nevertheless,
Appropriations Committee staff issued a report on Monday stating that
although the bill is now "keyed non-fiscal," it still "creates the
potential for reimbursable state mandated costs" to the San Francisco
school district. If the bill had gone before the Appropriations
Committee Wednesday as scheduled, she would have had to do some fast
talking to explain this maneuver. And this issue won't go away if and
when she does bring the bill to the committee in the future.

DIRTY TRICK #2

While the Ma and Salas bills are being fought over in Sacramento, the
Jill Wynns/Rachel Norton school board resolution that would restore
JROTC is being fought over here in Baghdad by the Bay. The resolution
is currently being discussed by three different school board
committees -- Budget, Personnel and Curriculum. Tuesday was the
Budget Committee hearing.

Unlike other school board showdowns, the pro-JROTC forces did not
mobilize any cadets. The pro-JROTC crowd was solely represented by
several JROTC instructors, and by Republican Party operative Chris
Bowman. The gobblydegook they presented in their comments was too
thick to report on fully here.

But, Gerry Paratore, a Balboa High School JROTC instructor, delivered
the most brazen deception of the evening, when he boldly stated that
the state has declared that it is now legal to give PE credit to
JROTC cadets. Oh yeah? Then just exactly why are Salas, Ma and Duvall
pushing their "urgency" bill to allow PE credit? Maybe Paratore knows
something the rest of the world doesn't. Paratore needs to let Salas,
Ma and Duvall know about this, not to mention State Superintendent of
Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

Then, again, maybe we should take Paratore's comments as seriously as
we do the claim that JROTC is not a military recruitment program.

DIRTY TRICK #3

There is a back story to the school board's 6-1 vote against the Ma
bill, not yet widely known.

The night before the April 1 Education Committee hearing on Ma's
bill, there was a meeting of the school board's Rules Committee,
which keeps close tabs on state legislation that concerns the
district. This committee is chaired by none other than Rachel Norton.
The other members are Jill Wynns and Kim-Shree Maufas. This gives a
clear majority to the two most ardent pro-JROTC board members.

At the meeting in question, both AB 351 and AB 223 were discussed.
Wynns and Norton clearly favored the Salas/Ma/Duval bill on PE
credit, and urged a neutral stand on Ma's bill. Okay, that's their
opinion. But, in addition, Wynns propounded the novel idea that the
Rules Committee could set policy on legislation for the entire school
board. Thus Wynns and Norton blithely instructed the district's
lobbyist in Sacramento, Vernon Billy, to support the PE credit bill,
and stay neutral on Ma's bill. When Maufas asked for a written copy
of this alleged policy on state legislation, Wynns and Norton just
sort of stared off into space.

Wynn's claim that the Rules Committee could act as if it represents
the whole board on a issue as controversial as either of these pieces
of legislation is groundless. There simply is no such policy. Quite
the contrary, the past practice has always been to bring
controversial bills to the whole board, before any public position is
taken. If this wasn't the policy, any two members of the Rules
Committee would be free to overrule the majority of the whole board.

I can attest to the fact that there were several late night
conversations about this invented policy. The upshot was that Wynns
and Norton's directives were disregarded, and Mr. Billy sat silently
through the Assembly Education Committee hearing the next day.

Ma famously said at that April 1 Education Committee hearing that
"renegade school board members are playing games with the lives of
our students." Looks to me like the "renegades" are actually Wynns
and Norton, who seem willing to invent and reinvent rules whenever it
suits their fancy.

It was in the wake of this disgraceful maneuver that the rest of the
school board, sans Wynns, decided to weigh in against Ma's bill. Even
Wynns' protégé Norton voted against Ma, leaving Wynns all in her
lonesome. It is too bad that Norton can't figure out that following
in Wynns trail on the JROTC issue itself is also the path to
political oblivion in this city (whatever $200,000 can buy you for an
advisory proposition).

NOT A DIRTY TRICK, JUST SOME NONSENSE

Before I get off Norton's case, I have to pause to point out a
glaring inconsistency in her political world view. As we all know,
the JROTC crowd makes much of the buzzword "choice," claiming all up
and down that they aren't necessarily in favor of the military in the
schools, but that students should have the right to "choose" JROTC if
they want to. I will set aside the blatant attempt to confuse the
JROTC "choice" with a woman's right to choose an abortion.

Back to Norton, one of the campaigns she has involved herself in is
what she calls on her blog the "taco truck smackdown." It seems there
is a taco truck not far away from John O'Connell High School, and
that there is a city law that prohibits catering trucks from doing
business too close to a school. Those tacos and burritos are bad for
the students, or so the story goes. Therefore this truck has to go,
despite the fact that this particular taco truck was purportedly
where it is even before John O'Connell was rebuilt at its present location.

Uh, Norton, what about "choice?" If students should have the
unrestricted right to choose to join one of the Pentagon's primary
military recruitment programs, shouldn't they also have the right to
choose to eat a taco?

Which is the bigger threat to the youth in our schools: tacos or the
military? Why, tacos, of course, says Norton.

DIRTY TRICK #4

This one is a little personal. It seems that the Examiner has decided
to censor my comments on their online articles.

Last week, April 15 to be exact, Examiner columnist Melissa Griffin
published an article sympathetic to Ma's bill. Griffin is the
columnist with the come-hither picture on her page. She calls herself
"Sweet Melissa." In her column, she quoted Ma saying that "Prop. V
garnered 180,000 votes, well more than any member of the board."

So I attempted to post a comment which stated, and I quote: "No on V
also got more votes than any member of the board. So what? There were
15 candidates for the Board of Education, and each voter had 4 votes.
Norman Yee won the top spot with 16.65% of the votes. Comparing
school board vote totals to the straight-up Yes/No vote on Prop V is
ridiculous." I also added some comments about the downtown money
behind the Yes on V campaign which would probably not be news to most
of my readers.

Well, for some reason, my post didn't show up. I tried again, and
again, and again. Now, online comments have practically become a
cottage industry, so there is no rocket science involved here. But my
comment just wouldn't show up. So I tried to post a different
comment, asking why my original comment wasn't showing up. That
didn't show up either.

That is, until later on. When I checked back later, my comment about
my missing comment was there, but my original comment was not. There
was also a comment from some anonymous person named simply J, who
said that my original comment was denied because I "probably said
something inappropriate and wasteful of time, like you always do."

Very cute, Mr. Examiner.

The next day, April 16 to be exact, Examiner's right wing columnist
Ken Garcia weighed in on JROTC. He also quoted Ma, this time saying
that she's pushing her bill "because of the board's fiscal
irresponsibility by rejecting $600,000 in federal funds..."

Not having learned my lesson the day before, I attempted to post a
response to Ma's new sound bite. To my astonishment, this comment was
rejected as well.

Here is what I said:

"In fact, JROTC costs the school district one million dollars per
year. The total cost of the program is $1.6 million. The Pentagon
pays $600,000. The Department of Defense requires the school district
to hire TWO instructors for each 150 JROTC cadets. The school
district normally hires ONE physical education (PE) teacher for each
300 students. The average salary for JROTC instructors is $84,500,
plus benefits, as mandated by the Department of Defense. This is far
more than the average salary of other San Francisco teachers, even
though the only educational requirement for JROTC instructors is a
high school diploma or GED."

It certainly would have brought the whole world down if that had
gotten onto the Examiner's website, don't you think?

While all this was happening, I managed to communicate with Griffin
on her website. I asked how she felt about the Examiner censoring
comments to her article. She responded that this must be a mere
"technical problem," and even gave me the email address of the person
at the Examiner I should discuss this with. I dutifully sent the
requested email, but never heard back. I then asked Griffin if she
was going to write about this censorship in one of her upcoming
columns. I haven't heard back about that either.

The Examiner has published a blizzard of pro-JROTC articles. But
apparently the newspaper, and its columnists, can dish it out, but
just can't take it.

MAY 12 SMACKDOWN?

If you have read all of this, you might want to know that we expect
the next school board JROTC smackdown, as distinguished from Norton's
taco truck smackdown, to take place at the board meeting on Tuesday,
May 12, when they are expected to vote on the Wynns/Norton resolution
to restore the Pentagon to its former place of glory in our schools.

Seriously, folks, this is for real. It sometimes seems like this is a
comedy show, but the military is deadly serious, as they always are.
And it's about our youth, their future, and the growing militarism
that is infecting every section of our society.

That's no joke, and there is no punchline.

.

Border Agency to Hire More Army Reservists

Border Agency to Hire More Army Reservists

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042003226.html

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Army Reserve and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will sign an
agreement today to create a partnership aimed at filling some of the
growing federal agency's 11,000 job openings with Army reservists.

The border agency is the first federal entity to join the Army
Reserve's Employer Partnership Initiative, a collaborative project
established last year aimed at placing reservists with a host of
employers in the public and private sectors.

Lt. Gen. Jack C. Stultz, the chief of the Army Reserve, said
yesterday that he is seeking similar agreements that will start more
reservists on careers with the government. The alliance with the
border agency "sets the standard among other federal agencies and the
Army Reserve," he said.

The Army Reserve, which numbers about 206,000, has about 10,000
soldiers trained in law enforcement, nearly one-fourth of the Army's
total military police force. About 12,500 Army reservists are
deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, and heavy demand probably
will be made of the reserve for years to come.

"If we're going to sustain this, we need the employers with us,"
Stultz said in an interview. "The benefit for me is a soldier with a
good, steady job."

Under federal law, employers must hold jobs for military reservists
called to active duty. But some reservists, fresh from school, did
not have jobs when they left, and others do not want to return to the
same job. "Soldiers who deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan come back and
say, 'You know, I can do better. I had responsibility over there. I
don't want to go back to what I was doing before,' " Stultz said.

Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland
Security, is the largest law enforcement organization in the nation,
with responsibility for securing trade and travel, including ensuring
that goods arriving in the United States are legitimate and that
appropriate duties and fees are paid, protecting the country against
terrorism, and enforcing hundreds of U.S. regulations, such as
immigration and drug laws.

Between attrition and new positions, the agency expects to hire for
11,000 positions this year, bringing the size of the agency to 56,000
employees. The expected hires "cover every kind of position you can
imagine," Christine Gaugler, assistant commissioner for the border
agency, said in an interview yesterday. The jobs include positions
for frontline Border Patrol agents, agriculture officers and air
interdiction pilots.

Many Army reservists are well-qualified for such jobs, she said.
"They have experienced many of the stressful situations we have
experienced on the border, situations where they have to make
decisions quickly, in difficult terrain and in the dark," Gaugler said.

"We're a good fit from the military perspective, because they
continue to represent the country," she added.

The Army Reserve has begun preliminary discussions about establishing
a similar partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration, which
is in need of air traffic controllers, Stultz said. The Army is also
considering approaching the FBI, he said.

.

Keep CIA off college campuses

[4 items]

Keep CIA off college campuses

http://www.dailyillini.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/2009/04/20/keep-cia-off-college-campuses

April 20th, 2009

I would like to respond on behalf of the Campus Antiwar Network, the
International Socialist Organization, Iraq Veterans Against the War,
and other groups that protested the CIA on campus, to the article on
4/17 by Remy Soni.

I would like to respond on behalf of the Campus Antiwar Network, the
International Socialist Organization, Iraq Veterans Against the War,
and other groups that protested the CIA on campus, to the article on
4/17 by Remy Soni.

First of all, the loaded language, such as calling our actions
"stunts" was completely uncalled for.

Our purpose was not to just stand outside the meeting in the grim
reaper costume, but we passed out informational fact sheets about
what the CIA actually does, such as torture people in Abu Ghraib,
Bagram, and Guantanamo Bay (to name a few).

The reason why we oppose the CIA from recruiting on college campuses
is because they fool their applicants, and do not offer the
information we did about their abhorent practices.We were not
disrespectful, because we were trying to get the truth out about the CIA.

The only reason we used the tactic of the grim reaper outfit was to
grab people's attention, to show them the not-so-bright side of the
CIA. For a student to take a position with the CIA, they should know
as much as possible about what the organization does.

And as for alternative means of expressing our views, we have written
about it (we have newsletters and informational sheets- like the one
passed out at the protest), and we have given presentations about the
CIA's practices (I actually gave a presentation at a C.A.N. meeting
about torture).

However, having an actual presence at CIA events is also an integral
part of our organizations. One of our missions is to counter-recruit,
and I believe we did it quite successfully. CIA off college campuses!

Patricia Richardson
sophomore in LAS
member of the Campus Antiwar Network

--------

Militarism is a problem; CIA only fosters it

http://www.dailyillini.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/2009/04/20/militarism-is-a-problem-cia-only-fosters-it

April 20th, 2009

Remy Soni recently wrote an editorial in the DI that suggested that
the groups that protested the CIA should not have "disrupted the
informational process."

First of all the protesters did not disrupt anything. The CIA
recruiter canceled when the Daily Illini reporter came in order to
keep a low profile in the media and national consciousness because
their operations are controversial.

They were not going to tell the applicants about the next coup,
Iran-Contra, Watergate, Central America, or Suharto.

Remy also mentioned that not everyone that was at the "information
session" wanted to be a secret assassin.

Probably not, but I am opposed to CIA support employment as well. All
positions in the institution are essential to the CIA mission, and
that mission in the past has included assassinations, coups, and
other immoral activity.

The applicants will find work. There are more important things in
life besides money.

Remy also writes that the CIA deserves our respect for protecting us.
They are not protecting me, or you. Torturing people in Abu Ghraib,
trying to overthrow Hugo Chavez, arming the Taliban and selling
missiles to Iran do not make me safe, just the opposite.

Will protesting the establishment of the CIA scare away otherwise
liberal sympathizers? Maybe. Public protest is one of many strategies
we use to change things.

It takes a lot of protesting to make a difference. The day before
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot his approval rating was 30%, only
slightly higher inside the Black community.

People were upset because they perceived his protests to be
ineffective. No one would dare criticize his protests now. MLK warned
us that Militarism was one of the three main problems plaguing
American society.

Indeed, it was a problem then and it is now. The CIA spreads shameful
militarism.

Jacob Crawford
senior in LAS

--------

CIA tortured people

http://www.dailyillini.com/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/2009/04/21/cia-tortured-people

April 21st, 2009

Remy Soni's column criticizes the eight protesters gathered outside
of the CIA information session on our campus. While he acknowledges
their right to protest, he laments their supposed lack of respect for
the agency. In particular, he objects to them dressing up as tortured
prisoners, asking if this is "the kind of message" we want to be
sending from our university. What seems to have upset Mr. Soni the
most is the fact that the session had to be closed prematurely due to
the disruptions.

I would suggest Mr. Soni read up on the extensive research that has
been done on CIA's torture of detainees. In particular, he should
read Jane Mayer's "The Dark Side" and the 2006 report by the
International Committee of the Red Cross, detailing the excruciating
torture CIA interrogators imposed on the "high-level" detainees at
CIA black sites. President Obama's commendable decision to reveal the
"torture memos" written by the Office of the Legal Counsel under
President Bush confirms these reports. The memos, written by Bush
lawyers, outline the torture methods which were authorized:
water-boarding, slamming prisoners into walls, sleep deprivation,
forced nudity, slapping, stomach punching, inclosing prisoners in
small boxes, sleep deprivation. These actions amount to serious
violations of the International Convention Against Torture and
several articles of the Geneva Conventions, constituting a potential war crime.

In the light of these harrowing findings, it is completely
inappropriate for Mr. Soni to criticize the protesters for their
"lack of respect" for the agency's representatives. Of course we do
not want them on our campus!

These are the representatives of an agency which ­ in our collective
name tortured people and committed war crimes. What is disheartening
is not only Mr. Soni's criticism, but the fact that there were only
eight protesters.

We all should have been there, demanding that they leave the premises!

Fedja Buric
Graduate student

--------

CIA protestors should have showed respect

http://www.dailyillini.com/blogs/different-perspectives/2009/04/17/cia-protestors-should-have-showed-respect

Remy Soni
April 17th, 2009

I am all for people voicing their opinions about a particular topic
of interest, especially one that fills them with enough passion and
zeal to ignite a burning fire in their hearts. Protests frequently
fall into this description. However, I was somewhat shocked when I
found out about the eight students that protested outside a CIA
information session at the Business Instructional Facility last week.
Although this is the third year that they've pulled a stunt like
this, what's disappointing is that this is the first time that the
session has been ended prematurely.

I'm glad that these brave protesters have strong feelings about
political and social issues that affect the world, but there are
better outlets for doing this, such as: being an opinions columnist
for the Daily Illini. The fact that an information session had to be
shut down is appalling because it shows that these students, whether
right or wrong in their views, disrupted the informational process.
We live in a time when jobs with private companies are getting harder
and harder to get, and fortunately, opportunities with the government
are increasing greatly. By their demonstration to the CIA
representatives, these protestors are basically saying, "No one wants
you here." Is this the kind of a message we want to be sent from the
University of Illinois to the CIA and other government organizations
trying to offer us career opportunities?

Maybe CIA recruiters will not consider Illinois as a candidate for
recruitment just because of one bad experience. Maybe, to them, this
incident is representative of the University as a whole. As a result,
maybe some students will now see the three protesting organizations
as hostile and unfriendly.

Don't organizations that look out for the best interests of our
country and citizens deserve our respect? Wearing grim reaper
costumes and dressing up like tortured prisoners honestly does not
seem like a serious way to have a message of protest heard, nor is it
very appropriate for this particular setting and occasion.

As one of the protestors pointed out, our University's motto is
"Labor and Learning," which he didn't believe represented the CIA's
desire to overthrow governments. First off, I think "Labor and
Learning" applies to every aspect of the University, no matter what
you study or decide to do with your degree, including finding a
position in the CIA. The motto speaks to our efforts as students to
work hard and become better educated. Secondly, not everyone in the
CIA is an evil three-headed demon trying to destroy the rest of the
world for America's benefit. Yes, friends, the CIA does also come to
campuses to recruit for many minor departmental positions that don't
necessarily make any decisions to overthrow the dictator of the week.

I'm not necessarily trying to defend the CIA because there certainly
are a great deal of objectionable decisions that have been made over
the course of the organization's history, but I am defending the fact
that college students should be able to pursue any of their dreams
and goals without the threat of a few trying to take away their
chance to gain valuable information.

I somewhat echo the sentiments of one of the students who went to the
session, saying that the protestors should realize that it's because
of the CIA and government that they can peaceably demonstrate.
Although I believe this to be true, I do respect the opinions of
these eight students. For all I care, they can go through their
entire lives and dislike the CIA; however, they do need to find other
methods of expression. They can write about their feelings, make a
film, or even bring in a group or speaker that stands in opposition
to particular CIA practices. Just remember to have just a little bit
of respect.
--

Remy is a junior in communication and English.

.

More cash for reservists staying in

More cash for reservists staying in

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/04/army_reserve_stoploss_042009w/

By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Apr 20, 2009

In a windfall for all deploying reservists, the Army Reserve's plan
for replacing stop-loss includes offering up to $1,200 extra to each
one of its soldiers headed to the war zone after Aug. 1.

The payments are to begin soon and are intended as an incentive to
get reservists who have the option of separating before their unit's
war tour to stay on at least through the deployment. Reserve leaders
say the plan is to maintain unit cohesion, and with that goal in
mind, it decided to pay the extra cash to every soldier in deploying units.

Reserve leaders crafted the plan in a bid to help bolster manning
after the end of stop-loss, the policy that for at least the last six
years has allowed all Army components to involuntarily keep soldiers
in the ranks of deploying units beyond their separation and retirement dates.

The Reserve will be the first component to begin mobilizing units
without stop-loss, beginning in August. The Guard will follow in
September and the active Army in January.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced March 18 that stop-loss
would be phased out over the next two years and ordered that as of
April 1, soldiers from any component serving under the policy get an
extra $500 a month until the elimination of stop-loss.

In March, about 700 enlisted Reserve soldiers were under stop-loss
orders, said Lt. Col. Jay Jackson, chief of current operations in the
Reserve G-1. As soon as the Reserve receives Defense Department
approval, soldiers preparing to mobilize on or after Aug. 1 will
receive an additional $200 every drill weekend, up to $1,200 total.

Asked why the incentive is being paid not just to soldiers who would
have faced stop-loss but also to those whose service obligations
carry through mobilization and deployment, Reserve leaders cited the
need for unit cohesion.

Reserve soldiers whose units will mobilize on or after Aug. 1 have a
number of options, said Lt. Col. Paul Hester, strategic plans officer
for the Reserve G-1.

They can extend or re-enlist to deploy with the unit. Six months
before the unit deploys, they will begin receiving the extra pay.

But if they choose not to extend or re-enlist, they will not deploy
and not receive the extra pay. depending on their situation, the
soldiers could be transferred to their higher headquarters, to the
Individual Ready Reserve, to another reserve unit or their unit's
rear-detachment, Hester said.

Soldiers who choose to stay with the unit must make their decision,
and commit in writing, one year to six months before their unit's
mobilization date to give commanders time to fill any vacancies, Hester said.

Six months before a unit mobilizes, it is considered a high-priority
unit and qualifies for the Reserve's Designated Unit Stabilization
Program, or DUSP.

Stabilizing units

"The goal is to stabilize units six months before they deploy," Hester said.

Under DUSP, soldiers receive the additional $200 every drill weekend,
or $50 per unit training assembly, for a maximum of $1,200 in the six
months leading up to their mobilization.

All soldiers in a designated unit, regardless of their ETS or
retirement dates, qualify for DUSP pay if they are deploying with the unit.

Soldiers whose ETS or retirement dates will come up during the unit's
deployment must re-enlist or extend to qualify for DUSP payments.

"DUSP is not only a plan or a program to mitigate stop-loss, but it's
more of a plan to stabilize units," Hester said. "What this program
does is, it encourages participating at the assemblies in the six
months prior to mobilization. By encouraging maximum participation,
you increase unit cohesion, you increase pre-mobilization training,
which increases boots on the ground time when the unit's in Iraq or
Afghanistan."

By August, officials expect about 1,600 Reserve soldiers to be
involved in DUSP, and they anticipate spending about $8 million on
the program for the remainder of this fiscal year.

The Reserve is finalizing details for DUSP and awaiting final
approval from the Defense Department.

Because of that, soldiers in units deploying less than six months
from now and after Aug. 1, when the Reserve stops using stop-loss,
will get a chance to earn the full $1,200 through rescheduled
training or additional assemblies, Hester said.

"Units that will mobilize in August, we'll make sure they are
eligible for the full $1,200," he said. "No one will be forced to,
but the unit will be granted an exception to perform [rescheduled and
extra training]."

Once deployed, soldiers who chose to extend their service in order to
deploy can decide to re-enlist any time up to their ETS date.

The Reserve does not have a program similar to that of the active
Army, which plans to offer soldiers up to $500 a month if they extend
and deploy with their unit. The Army National Guard is working on a
similar incentive program and as of April 10 was still waiting for
DoD to approve its plan.

Instead, the Reserve will rely on incentives such as DUSP and
volunteerism to fill deploying units, said Lt. Col. Mark Cogburn,
chief of strategic communications for the Reserve G-1.

Another method that the Reserve also can use is cross-leveling, in
which vacancies in a deploying unit are filled with soldiers from another unit.

"Cross-leveling is still going to be necessary, but it's really our
last means to filling units," Cogburn said. "The DUSP is one of the
incentives we're using to get soldiers to volunteer [to deploy]."

.

The Enemies Within

The Enemies Within

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/opinion/18blow.html

By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: April 17, 2009

The United States Department of Homeland Security's Office of
Intelligence and Analysis issued a report last week suggesting that
current political and economic conditions are energizing right-wing
extremist groups, that many of these groups follow extremely
conservative ideologies and that some may seek to recruit and
"radicalize" veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

True, true and true.

But, conservatives reacted by throwing a knee-jerk hissy fit. They
twisted the report's meaning to imply that they, and more importantly
our war heroes, were being vilified by a partisan document.

Their argument seeks to suppress and subjugate two rather unfortunate
facts: while only a tiny number of conservatives and veterans are
members of hate groups, nearly all hate groups do indeed follow
far-right ideology. And they covet members with military experience.

A report issued last summer by former President Bush's F.B.I.
entitled "White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since
9/11" said that "military experience is found throughout the white
supremacist extremist movement" and that these groups "have attempted
to increase their recruitment of current and former U.S. military personnel."

So, which soldiers are most vulnerable? According to the Homeland
Security report, it would probably be those "facing significant
challenges reintegrating into their communities." This could be a
large group because far too many soldiers come back from war broken
men. According to a RAND study released on Friday, 300,000 veterans
of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reported some sign of
post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression. It said that only
about half of those will seek help and only half of those seeking it
will receive "minimally adequate" treatment.

These soldiers could prove fertile ground for men hoping to prey on
their fear, loneliness and dispossession.

And those extremist leaders may be able to connect more easily with
some of these soldiers because many were soldiers themselves.
According to the F.B.I. report, "although individuals with military
backgrounds constitute a small percentage of white supremacist
extremists, they frequently occupy leadership roles."

Because many know firsthand the value of military experience, they
not only recruit those leaving the military, they send recruits into
it. According to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, "Many
white supremacists over the years have pushed their followers to join
the military and enter either the special forces, where the training
is judged to be the best in the world, or the infantry, where you
will learn the skills necessary to fight the coming race war."

The only debate we should be having is about the best way to protect
our newest veterans from falling prey to this handful of military apostates.

If they only recruit a few, that is still too many. Terrorists have
shown the world time and again that a few well-trained men is all it takes.

.