Marine Corps recruitment sluggish

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

War concerns, economy, parents among reasons cited
Mon, May 23, 2005

STEPHEN CLARK
Observer-Dispatch

After talking to a recruiter last summer, Mount Markham Senior High School senior Ryan Andela decided to become one of the few and the proud by joining the Marines.

"It sounded like a good opportunity so I jumped on it," he said, explaining that the recruiter got him excited about the jobs and incentives offered. He enrolled in the Delayed Entry Program in September, which allows prospects to prepare for service through weekly meetings and activities with a recruiter before basic training. But it was that delay that led him to change his mind in January, and instead work on his grandfather's farm.

"Nobody can go wrong joining the Marines," he said. "In order to be a Marine, you have to love it. It has to be in your blood. It wasn't for me."

Nor is it for many other students, as national and local recruiters are finding out. For the fifth straight month, recruiters have fallen short of their recruitment goal after hitting it consistently for about a decade. The Army is faring no better.

http://www.uticaod.com/archive/2005/05/23/news/28854.html

[amerikat]

1. Hell No. We Won't Go

I am battle hardened from the sixties. But not to old to not fight.

[Placebo]

10. My generation...

just might need to call upon you and your brothers and sisters one more time to help us defeat the draft if it ever rears it's ugly head again.

[Toots]

16. The draft would be the best thing we could hope for to stop the fascists.

As long as the military is voluntary middle America will not care how many wars the US gets involved in. They have no stake in it. Put their precious little Johnnie into the mix and see how quickly wars come to a halt.

[MadisonProgressive]

18. Their only stake is making sure their yellow ribbons are clean

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

20. They'd better be careful... Theres more than a few of us!

[MADem]

2. Naaah, REALLY? Now who woulda thunk it!!!

For what seems like the hundredth time, I am gonna pound my old, tired, whining drum. Please, anyone reading this, REMEMBER what I am gonna say (yet again).

This is still ACCESSION GOAL(a fake, feel good number). The numbers to close out the year for SHIPPING GOAL have not yet failed past the point of no return. If they had a couple of incredibly, hyperpatriotic, Pearl Harbor style good months, coupled with a service realignment (rob "slots" from USAF Peter to pay USMC Paul, basically), they could still pull out shipping goal for the year. It would take a FUCKING MIRACLE, but they could maybe, possibly, with God on their sides, do it.

The bitter truth of the matter--IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. They are gonna miss shipping goal, they are going to be IN CRISIS, and they are gonna go to Congress (that body will be without a filibuster option) and ask them to reinstitute a targeted draft. And barring peace in our time, the GOP thugs will vote for it. Who will be our Gene McCarthy?

Unless we can run like hell out of Iraq, that is what four more years of Chimp has bought us. If we do not leave Iraq, or unless the insurgency miraculously ceases and our forces are suddenly greeted with sweets and flowers, we are headed to Draftville, and a whole new world of American Pain.

I've worked these sorts of issues in a past life, what is happening now in the recruiting environment is way past unsustainable. It's all over but the brutal, heartfelt sobbing, unless we can find a way OUT of the Mess o'Potamia (as Jon Stewart terms it, and rather appropriately, too).

I am not hopeful. I hope I am wrong, wrong, WRONG on this. Sadly, I think I am on the mark, barring withdrawal.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. you are right, the draft is ... just round the corner

[fasttense]

13. ACCESSION GOAL?????

I thought I read in one of the articles that fewer people were showing up at boot camp than needed. That is shipping goal. Or did the ever careful media get their info wrong?

[quaoar]

4. The solution is simple

Everyone who joins the Young Republicans gets to do an 18-month tour in beautiful western Iraq, home of the picturesque Sunni Triangle and quaint villages like Fallujah and Ramadi.

[Erika]

5. Young Republicans do war?

Like Cheney, they will say they have other priorities.

[Selatius]

6. Then we will nail them with the label of "hypocritical coward"

They talk war, but when it comes to walking the war, they scatter to the four corners of the earth.

[burrowowl]

7. Here is an article

about Looies and Captains not reupping:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0522-05.htm

and they are not joining the mercenary corpos.
We are going to have a draft or pay for very expensive mercenanarys.

[AndyTiedye]

8. Betweeen Iraquagmire and what the Marines did to Jason Tharp...

...it is no wonder they are having difficulty recruiting.

Jason Tharp never even made it to Iraq. He didn't survive "water survival training".
He drowned in a pool in the presence of several instructors, less than
a day after another instructor was filmed by a local TV crew
verbally and physically abusing the obviously terrified recruit.

[kbm8795]

9. That is horrific. . .

Do you have a link to that story? There had best be a very thorough investigation - I do hope his congresspeople and Senators know about this outrage.

[Placebo]

11. Woo-hoo, Carbondale!

Sorry to be off topic but I love that place. :)

[AndyTiedye]

17. More on the Death of Jason Tharp

Do you have a link to that story?

Here are some, google returns many more:

Marines probe boot camp drowning
Drill instructor caught on tape striking 19-year-old

An autopsy revealed 19-year-old Jason Tharp drowned last week during water survival training at the Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, S.C.

Video shot on Feb. 7, the day before Tharp's death, by NBC affiliate WIS-TV in Columbia, S.C., shows Tharp, visibly shaken and almost terrified, taking a forearm shot from a Marine drill instructor.

<snip>

"He's just afraid because he is not able to do the swim correctly right now, and he just wants to leave and go home," said Staff Sgt. Anthony Davis on the Feb. 7 videotape.

<snip>

Marine Corps officials say Tharp voluntarily entered the pool the next day, where he drowned during a 25-meter swim. Officials also say there's no early evidence of any misconduct by Marine instructors at the time Jason drowned, but the conduct caught on camera the day before raises questions about exactly what happened in that pool.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6988854/



Dead Marine’s letters tell of regret, illness

‘If you can get me out I will be forever grateful,’ he wrote in final missive to parents

The Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In his last letter home, Marine recruit Jason Tharp said he was sick and he wanted out of the Marines so badly that the military’s promise of money he could use to study art in college didn’t matter anymore.

“If you can get me out I will be forever grateful,” Tharp wrote in his last letter mailed from Parris Island to his parents in Sutton, W.Va., on Feb. 2, six days before the 19-year-old drowned on the last day of water survival training.

“I don’t care about the money. My health is in jeopardy because we don’t have enough time to eat and I am getting sicker and sicker. I am serious this time and I will use all of my power to try and get out, too. Thanks if you help me.”

The letter said he feared he would get pneumonia, coughing up blood like some of the other recruits. He could barely do the required number of sit-ups and pull-ups, and it didn’t seem like he was improving.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/11010346.htm

more at...

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=1511
http://braxtonian.com/2005/03/jason-tharp/
http://braxtonian.com/issue/4/outsidethebeltway.com/archives/9311
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/9311

There had best be a very thorough investigation - I do hope his congresspeople and Senators know about this outrage.

It has only gotten the attention it has because they were fool enough
to abuse him on television, one day before he drowned in a
pool surrounded by swimming instructors. Even with such a case of
(at best) gross incompetent or (more likely) foul play, I have heard
no news of any court-martial, nor any discipline of any kind in this
case.

There is only one piece of good news out of this sad story.
the Jason Tharp Memorial Scolarship Fund, which has been set up
in Jason's memory. Nobody should have to join the military just
to go to college.

(Charleston, West Virginia) May 18, 2005 - Two Braxton County, West Virginia, High School students have been given scholarships to honor the memory of a Marine who drowned at Parris Island.

<snip>

Tharp was a 2004 graduate of Braxton County High School. He had said his goal in joining the Marines was to earn money for college. His parents, Johnny and Linda Tharp, set up the foundation with the help of New York City singer Renee Snyder.

<snip>

The Tharps thought establishing a scholarship would help another child avoid that dilemma, "We're going to do this in memory of Jason. Give another kid a chance to get a scholarship without having the choose over the military."

“We wanted to keep Jason’s memory alive and to provide funding for students like Jason who want to go on to college,” a spokesperson for the scholarship fund said. The Tharps say they eventually want to be able to get enough money to give a student a full ride to college.

This is the contact information that has been published for contributions for the Jason Tharp Memorial Scholarship Fund:

Attn: Brenda Gibson
C/O Braxton County Board of Education
441 North Hill Road
Sutton, West Virginia, 26601

[oasis]

12. Jenna Bush, Barbara Bush, George P. Bush and then there's Neil's kids

How can thre be a shortage?

[geckosfeet]

14. they are not exactly what the military is looking for,,,,

They want the poor and underprivileged to carry rifles and stop bullets. These rich kids won't even want to soil their socks or clean their own rifles.

[stanwyck]

19. actually

if you read the NYT breakdown last year on who is serving, the average soldier has a higher education and is from a more affluent family than the average person in their age group. People have misconceptions about who is serving, according to race, gender, and socio-economic background.
However, you won't find the progeny of members of Congress serving. Not one child of a senator or representative enlisted following 9-11. So much for growing up in an "uber-patriotic conservative family." It doesn't translate.
On a personal level, our liberal son, raised by liberal parents, is a Marine on his second tour in Iraq. And our household income is in the six figures. I don't consider us "poor or underprivileged" in the least.

[geckosfeet]

21. you are right to some extent

but I think your son is in the minority. Can you discuss what does your son does? Has he been comissioned ?

When I was in the AF there was quite a disparity. Many enlisted people were there because of lack of options and they were clearly from some of the backwaters.

[stanwyck]

22. For many of these young people

the military is their "college". Their family and friends encourage them to choose a MOS which will help them find a job when they leave.
My son has had two years of college (which he hated). He does plan to finish when he leaves the Marines. He'd like to teach elementary school. And male teachers are desperately needed. But he's always known he has options. We planned for his education and his sister's. My husband and I have had more than our share of luck (and much of it is luck, I'm convinced). So, he has latitude many others don't.
He likes all the physical stuff. He liked boot camp. To his amazement, (since he hadn't grown up with guns and was worried he wouldn't do well at the firing range), he's an excellent shot. His MOS reflects that skill.

[Roland99]

15. "Sluggish. Like a wet sponge."