Reality of Army turns idealist into a deserter

[NNN0LHI]

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/oregon1.html

Jeremiah Adler yearned for the type of mettle-testing adventure he never found in his pacifist, vegan upbringing in the Garden Home area of Southwest Portland. snip

He enlisted in the U.S. Army -- not just a two-year stint, but a five-year commitment with a chance to attend the U.S. Army Airborne School.

"I didn't want to be the average infantryman, the average grunt," says Adler, now 18. He wanted to make a difference, he says, not only to the Iraqis he hoped to help liberate, but to the military itself.

But only hours after arriving for basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., he had a change of heart. The Army, he says, wanted to turn him into "a ruthless, coldblooded killer," and he wanted no part of it. snip

After nine days, Adler fled, running into the Georgia forest in the middle of the night with a friend. As he did, he joined thousands of other would-be soldiers who bolt from their units each year, risking everything from a blot on their employment records to prison time. Since 2001, more than 15,000 people have gone AWOL, or absent without leave, from the Army, according to statistics provided by a military police official at Fort Lewis, Wash.

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[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Someone didn't tell this youngster

that the Army is more than just a good way to rebel against your parents.

[Orsino]

15. That someone was an Army recruiter...

...desperate to make his monthly quota. The recruiter was probably glad to see the young idealist walk into his office, when he usually has to stalk high schools and malls to sell *'s war.

Recruiters dream of meeting young people who dare to do something different. Their worst nightmare, though, is the kid with a conscience; usually, these are too smart to fall for the sales pitch.

One of our favorite marching cadences in the Army has a line that goes, "My recruiter told me lies." In my day, the lies were smaller, and I still recall my own recruiter fondly (had a few moments in Basic Training and AIT in my thoughts of him were less kind). He was a decent fellow who told me a lot about what I was to face, and sugar-coated nothing. He probably hadn't though much, as I hadn't, about American imperialism.

[acmavm]

2. He's probably seen too many of those propaganda commercials

on television now about how great the Army is, best thing since sliced bread. Get an education, be all you can be, blah blah blah.

Never a mention about war, death, and how the military is being screwed by this bush* administration.

[The Zanti Regent]

4. My son loved those commercials

and he wound up in the VA Cemetery.

[hlthe2b]

7. oh... I am so very sorry...

Sadly, how many more like him will fall for this manipulation?

[RedCloud]

20. This phrase the US army stole from San Martín

be all you can be:

Serás lo que debes ser, y si no, no serás nada.-General José de San Martín, the Argentine liberator.

Be all you can be, and if not, you won't be anything.

(Conveniently deleted the last part from the military enlistment propaganda)

[displacedtexan]

3. Link doesn't work for me.

Got another link (or a back door)?

[NNN0LHI]

5. It just worked on the first click for me? Give er another whirl n/t

[anarchy1999]

6. 15,000! What? First time I've seen this reported!

WOW! Living in forests, friends in Canada or south of the border? I have a good friend that tells me he knows of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that in the beginning were paying a few hundred to be smuggled out of country, now they pay upwards into the $1,000's and are finding lives I guess in Europe.

(Since he is a naturalized citizen of the US, originally from Afghanistan (his family fled in the early '70's I tend to believe what he has to say), especially because his brother is in Afghanistan now).

[earthside]

8. Detestable

This is why the recruitment of teenagers is detestable.

My son is almost seventeen. While they grow and learn and mature (to some extent) fast during these years, their ability to make wise, long range decisions is simply limited by their lack of life experience. This is exactly why, of course, militaries have historically recruited and drafted the very young.

And this part of the story is so predictable: "It's a story bound to inspire outrage in some households, especially those with war veterans. Oregon Army National Guard Sgt. John Larsen, who spent nine months in Iraq last year, called Adler's actions "laziness or cowardice, I don't know which." Larsen was in the right front seat of a Humvee on Sept. 25 when a roadside bomb detonated northwest of Baghdad, killing Spc. David W. Johnson, who was in the gun turret. "My gunner was a cook. He wasn't trained to be in the infantry," Larsen says. "But I tell you what, he did his job. He didn't run from it.""

I've really come to despise these macho war survivors who love to praise the dead. Talk about real cowards. This asshole Sgt. John Larsen is safe at home, probably considered a 'hero' by his friends and nieghbors, but he's alive while his cook is a corpse. So it is heroic to get blown-up in a gun turret? Doing a 'job' for which he was not trained? That sounds like stupidity to me. If this guy Larsen had any genuine courage, he'd be out defending young people like Adler and opposing this illegal and immoral war.

[NNN0LHI]

11. Its no coincidence that combat troops are referred to as the INFANTry n/t

[pokercat999]

21. Minimum age for serving in the Armed Forces should be 35.

Draft should start at 55 and work down to 35. I'd love to go......laugh at the drill sgts as they tried to intimidate ME.....lol
And don't even think of giving me a loaded weapon.......lol.....it would be toooooo much fun, no wars would be fought of course and recruitment of new drill instructors would probably be a priority.
I would guess that production of grenades would have to be halted also. Officers would likly need a "green zone" to hide in, even in the USA. 54 now just one year left to start my second hitch......lol

[TreasonousBastard]

9. As a GI Rights Hotline counselor...

I've heard far too many of these stories.

In many ways, our "volunteer" military is worse than the draft. They brainwash and lure them in with incredible lies.

Then, they lie about Entry Level Separation to keep them in.

[Mizmoon]

10. I never understood combat

I get it that when someone is invading your home, you defend it. That I understand.

But when I watch depictions of battle, especially old time cannon/musket battles, I don't know how anyone ever convinced anyone else to fight.

"Yes, stand here. You will probably die, but stand right here and fire that musket at the enemy as many times as you can. Thank you."

[NNN0LHI]

12. Once you are on the battlefield the options become very limited

You have the enemy in front of you trying to kill you and your CO behind you who will shoot you if you turn and run. Thats the way it works.

Don

[DemBones DemBones]

13. We had a friend who was drafted in 1967 and when

the Army found out he was a near-genius at math, they offered him OCS. He came out of OCS a 2nd Lt. who was gung ho about the physics of rocketry. Just before he shipped out to Viet Nam, he came by our apartment and talked about it for hours. He discounted any question about what effect rockets have on the people on the other end.

Within hours of being on the ground in Nam, he went AWOL and applied for a CO discharge.

He was older than this kid chronologically but not psychologically. The Army doesn't much care about maturity, even in officers.

[diamond14]

14. here's more young men who got DUPED by bush*.....PHOTOS

these YOUNG men are recruited by the General who hyped his slogan: IT'S FUN TO KILL.....they are non-political, easily maniputed into KILLERS, and mostly white young men from America's lower middle class...these are the bush* CANNON FODDER....and their parents cheer them onward, and encourage their sons to go....



http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002191414_threemarines27m.html

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Coming of age in a time of war

By Beth Kaiman

Seattle Times staff reporter


Any other year, the boys might have been fine. But Nathan, Garrett and Cody were the Class of 2003. Their deadline for growing up came while the country was at war. They weren't driven by 9/11 rage and didn't really talk about Iraq. They just saw the Marines as the quickest route to manhood.




Three high-school seniors, Cody (from left), Garrett and Nathan, pledged to take the journey together. They would join the Marines, leaving their carefree days behind.




Lance Cpl. Garrett Ware holds captured weapons in this photo taken in Iraq in July. He was wounded in Fallujah on Nov. 9.





Rex and DeEtte Wood with a drawing of their son, Nathan, a Marine lance corporal, at their Kirkland home. Nathan was killed Nov. 9 during the invasion of Fallujah.


After the funeral, Garrett remained home to recover from his injury and worked at the Woodinville recruiting station where he'd signed up. He thought a lot about Nathan.

And day by day, he learned the fate of his Marines: Two in his four-man team were killed in Fallujah. The third was shot in the hand and came home.

In all, five of the 40 or so in his platoon were killed and about 16 were wounded, Garrett says.

"I grew a brotherhood like no other with these guys," Garrett said. "You don't expect death at all, you know?"

On Dec. 20, what would have been Nathan's 20th birthday, Garrett, Cody, Drew and Tyler Sadowski visited his grave.

[heidler1]

16. Philip Wylie saw this and wrote "Generation of Vipers" to tell about it.

What is left out of most analysis of both parental approval and desire to get involved in a war is jobs. Many career military types will admit that being unemployed or feeling unready to get a decent job pushes those who are insecure into the service. Parents see this too and bite the bullet on encouraging their kids to enlist. Bush either deliberately or accidentally created unemployment to make recruitment easier. ROTTEN TO THE CORE. This is also a factor in why unemployment is high after the war is over among those who participated, they are still not ideal employees.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

17. You know, this kind of thing

makes me wonder about people. First off, the military is NOT for everyone and if I were the magic genie, I'd wave my wand and create a midset that allows people to opt out of the service. As it is now, once you are in, they have you and you are screwed.
Having said that, and keeping in mind the generation he belongs to, I still have to ask him, "What the hell did you think was going to happen?"
Over and over again while I was in boot camp the message was drilled home 'if you don't want to come home in a box, pay attention and focus to what we are telling you'
The Marine Corps didn't try to make me into a cold blooded killer, they tried to make me realize that in the middle of the shit, if I got lucky, I could stay alive and come home.
Of course, now that I am many years removed from that time in my life and an avowed anti-war person, I acknowledge it is far easier for me to make these comments than it is for young Mr. Adler to undo what he has done........

[Igel]

18. The poor kid.

"I didn't want to be the average infantryman, the average grunt." And he was qualified to lead ... how?

"The Army, he says, wanted to turn him into 'a ruthless, coldblooded killer,' and he wanted no part of it." Did he think the Army had a division that did nothing but cuddle preemies? Work at ASPCA shelters? (And I doubt that the Army wants to make you into a killer, per say, just a soldier. The difference is small, but present.)

And I always wonder how people interpret statements like "Since 2001, more than 15,000 people have gone AWOL, or absent without leave, from the Army, according to statistics provided by a military police official at Fort Lewis, Wash." It doesn't say there are 15k currently AWOL.

That kind of kid makes me question the wisdom of allowing 18-year-olds to vote. Or serve in the military.

[RedCloud]

19. run, Forest, run!

of course, right back into the welcoming arms of your recruiter!