This thread is for posting stories about the tactics used by recruiters in the recent past and present in order to help readers to be more aware of what to watch for and possibly report such tactics that are out of line.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=3705
06/21/2005 @ 7:09pm
Recruiters Sink to New Lows
During the Vietnam War, protesters burned draft cards, rallied on campuses and marched on Robert McNamara's Pentagon. Today, with the war in Iraq raging on and on, parents, teachers and other community leaders are spearheading a new antiwar effort, telling the military to keep their hands off the children. The Times' Bob Herbert put it well: "The parents of the kids being sought by recruiters to fight this unpopular war are creating a highly vocal and potentially very effective antiwar movement."
The debacle in Iraq has made recruiting an impossibly difficult job and recruiters are sinking to new lows in the face of growing pressure to fulfill monthly quotas as well as fierce opposition from parents who don't support the President's botched Iraq war mission.
While the stunning list of recruiting abuses has received some needed media attention, it's worth reviewing the extremes to which the military has gone to fill its ranks. In Houston, one recruiter warned a potential recruit that if he backed out of a meeting, "we'll have a warrant" for the potential recruit's arrest. In Colorado, a high school student, David McSwane, who wanted to see "how far the Army would go during a war to get one more soldier," told recruiters that he didn't finish high school and that he had a drug problem. "No problem," the recruiters responded. McSwane was told to create a diploma from scratch and to buy products at a store that would help him beat the drug test.
Recruiters have urged teens to lie to their parents and have ignored medical and police records of potential recruits to not compromise recruiting goals. In Ohio, two recruiters signed up a 21-one-year-old man with bipolar disorder who had just been released from a psychiatric ward. The violations, all told, forced the Army into halting all recruiting for a day last May so it could re-train its recruiters and remind them of the ethical considerations entailed in their jobs.
Despite this recent recruit-at-all-costs mentality, the Army has now failed to meet its monthly recruiting quotas for four months straight. (It's beginning to re-jigger its goals in mid-stream and even then it still can't meet its quotas.) There's even talk among retired military brass and other defense experts that the all-volunteer Army is stretched so thin in Iraq that it can't sustain the mission much longer.
Hence, recruiting violations in the Army have nearly doubled to 320 in 2004 from 199 in 1999, and as my colleague Ari Berman pointed out the Army has added 1,200 recruiters, "upped enlistment bonuses from $6,000 to $20,000 per recruit," and created 15-month enlistments as an alternative to the standard two-year enlistment period. The Army is also accepting into its ranks a greater number of high school dropouts and lower-scoring applicants as well.
"The problem is that no one wants to join," one recruiter recently told the Times. "We have to play fast and loose with the rules just to get by." The standards for those already in are also being adjusted: The Wall Street Journal recently reported on an internal army memo which said that battalion commanders could no longer kick out of the military enlistees who had abused drugs and alcohol, gotten pregnant or were unfit for duty.
If you want to understand just how dire the situation is, you need to know that the Army is busily exploiting a provision in the No Child Left Behind law that allows recruiters to go into public schools receiving federal funding, gain access to students' personal data and cultivate potential recruits with a virtually unfettered hand. According to an Army manual, savvy recruiters should eat in the school cafeteria, befriend administrators, bring coffee and donuts for teachers and buddy up to team captains and student body presidents to win the hearts and minds of other students.
Activists are holding rallies to raise awareness, urging families to tell schools to keep their personal data private. A student-led campaign at a high school in Montclair, New Jersey, convinced more than 80 percent of the student body to keep their private information hidden from recruiters.
Then there's NASCAR. Our US military is spending millions of dollars a year recruiting young men at NASCAR races. As the Air Force's superintendent of motorsports said (according to the AP, that's actually his jobsuperintendent of motorsports), NASCAR is the military's "target market." The Army alone is spending $16 million a year at NASCAR events. Each branch of the Armed Forces sponsors NASCAR race drivers and they set up recruiting booths outside of NASCAR events. This "belly-to-belly selling," the superintendent of motorsports explained, enables the military to woo potential recruits "face to face."
"The evidence is overwhelming that the Army is slowly being worn down by its commitment in Iraq," a Pentagon adviser and military analyst at the Lexington Institute told Newsday. The handwriting is on the wall: This is a failed war, and the American people are refusing in their wisdom to fight it.
Full Version: Recruiting Tactics
Common Ground Common Sense > Issues that Affect Our Lives > U.S. Military Issues > U.S. Military Issues Archive
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03recruit.html? ei=5070&en=b77601462750a67a&ex=1118376000&
2005-06-03
[Rachel Rogers, a single mother of four in upstate New York, did not worry about the presence of National Guard recruiters at her son's high school until she learned that they taught students how to throw hand grenades, using baseballs as stand-ins. For the last month she has been insisting that administrators limit recruiters' access to children.]
[ Orlando Terrazas, a former truck driver in Southern California, said he was struck when his son told him that recruiters were promising students jobs as musicians. Mr. Terrazas has been trying since September to hang posters at his son's public school to counter the military's message. ]
Meanwhile, Amy Hagopian, co-chairwoman of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Garfield High School in Seattle, has been fighting against a four-year-old federal law that requires public schools to give military recruiters the same access to students as college recruiters get, or lose federal funding. She also recently took a few hours off work to stand beside recruiters at Garfield High and display pictures of injured American soldiers from Iraq.
"We want to show the military that they are not welcome by the P.T.S.A. in this building," she said. "We hope other P.T.S.A.'s will follow."
Two years into the war in Iraq, as the Army and Marines struggle to refill their ranks, parents have become boulders of opposition that recruiters cannot move.
Mothers and fathers around the country said they were terrified that their children would have to be killed - or kill - in a war that many see as unnecessary and without end.
Around the dinner table, many parents said, they are discouraging their children from serving.
At schools, they are insisting that recruiters be kept away, incensed at the access that they have to adolescents easily dazzled by incentive packages and flashy equipment.
A Department of Defense survey last November, the latest, shows that only 25 percent of parents would recommend military service to their children, down from 42 percent in August 2003.
"Parents," said one recruiter in Ohio who insisted on anonymity because the Army ordered all recruiters not to talk to reporters, "are the biggest hurdle we face."
Legally, there is little a parent can do to prevent a child over 18 from enlisting. But in interviews, recruiters said that it was very hard to sign up a young man or woman over the strong objections of a parent.
The Pentagon - faced with using only volunteers during a sustained conflict, an effort rarely tried in American history - is especially vexed by a generation of more activist parents who have no qualms about projecting their own views onto their children.
Lawrence S. Wittner, a military historian at the State University of New York, Albany, said today's parents also had more power.
"With the draft, there were limited opportunities for avoiding the military, and parents were trapped, reduced to draft counseling or taking their children to Canada," he said. "But with the volunteer armed force, what one gets is more vigorous recruitment and more opportunities to resist."
Some of that opportunity was provoked by the very law that was supposed to make it easier for recruiters to reach students more directly. No Child Left Behind, which was passed by Congress in 2001, requires schools to turn over students' home phone numbers and addresses unless parents opt out. That is often the spark that ignites parental resistance.
Recruiters, in interviews over the past six months, said that opposition can be fierce. Three years ago, perhaps 1 or 2 of 10 parents would hang up immediately on a cold call to a potential recruit's home, said a recruiter in New York who, like most others interviewed, insisted on anonymity to protect his career. "Now," he said, "in the past year or two, people hang up all the time. "
2005-06-03
[Rachel Rogers, a single mother of four in upstate New York, did not worry about the presence of National Guard recruiters at her son's high school until she learned that they taught students how to throw hand grenades, using baseballs as stand-ins. For the last month she has been insisting that administrators limit recruiters' access to children.]
[ Orlando Terrazas, a former truck driver in Southern California, said he was struck when his son told him that recruiters were promising students jobs as musicians. Mr. Terrazas has been trying since September to hang posters at his son's public school to counter the military's message. ]
Meanwhile, Amy Hagopian, co-chairwoman of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Garfield High School in Seattle, has been fighting against a four-year-old federal law that requires public schools to give military recruiters the same access to students as college recruiters get, or lose federal funding. She also recently took a few hours off work to stand beside recruiters at Garfield High and display pictures of injured American soldiers from Iraq.
"We want to show the military that they are not welcome by the P.T.S.A. in this building," she said. "We hope other P.T.S.A.'s will follow."
Two years into the war in Iraq, as the Army and Marines struggle to refill their ranks, parents have become boulders of opposition that recruiters cannot move.
Mothers and fathers around the country said they were terrified that their children would have to be killed - or kill - in a war that many see as unnecessary and without end.
Around the dinner table, many parents said, they are discouraging their children from serving.
At schools, they are insisting that recruiters be kept away, incensed at the access that they have to adolescents easily dazzled by incentive packages and flashy equipment.
A Department of Defense survey last November, the latest, shows that only 25 percent of parents would recommend military service to their children, down from 42 percent in August 2003.
"Parents," said one recruiter in Ohio who insisted on anonymity because the Army ordered all recruiters not to talk to reporters, "are the biggest hurdle we face."
Legally, there is little a parent can do to prevent a child over 18 from enlisting. But in interviews, recruiters said that it was very hard to sign up a young man or woman over the strong objections of a parent.
The Pentagon - faced with using only volunteers during a sustained conflict, an effort rarely tried in American history - is especially vexed by a generation of more activist parents who have no qualms about projecting their own views onto their children.
Lawrence S. Wittner, a military historian at the State University of New York, Albany, said today's parents also had more power.
"With the draft, there were limited opportunities for avoiding the military, and parents were trapped, reduced to draft counseling or taking their children to Canada," he said. "But with the volunteer armed force, what one gets is more vigorous recruitment and more opportunities to resist."
Some of that opportunity was provoked by the very law that was supposed to make it easier for recruiters to reach students more directly. No Child Left Behind, which was passed by Congress in 2001, requires schools to turn over students' home phone numbers and addresses unless parents opt out. That is often the spark that ignites parental resistance.
Recruiters, in interviews over the past six months, said that opposition can be fierce. Three years ago, perhaps 1 or 2 of 10 parents would hang up immediately on a cold call to a potential recruit's home, said a recruiter in New York who, like most others interviewed, insisted on anonymity to protect his career. "Now," he said, "in the past year or two, people hang up all the time. "
Desperate measures by a 'resident in chief' who did not have the integrity to show up for his military obligation.
BUSH is:
a liar
a coward
a war monger who was afraid to get his hands dirty
a poor excuse for a leader
BUSH is:
a liar
a coward
a war monger who was afraid to get his hands dirty
a poor excuse for a leader
QUOTE
Military recruiter accused of sex assaults
Counts against guardsman involve six young women
Recruiter faces 31 criminal counts
A grand jury indictment filed in Hamilton Superior Court charges Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy with 31 criminal violations as a recruiter for the Indiana National Guard between May 2002 and November 2003. According to the indictment, Vetesy:
• Forced himself on a woman inside a National Guard recruiting center in Castleton in June 2003, resulting in a charge of rape, a Class B felony.
• Engaged in a pattern of criminal activity in which he used his position as the victims' recruiting sergeant, resulting in a charge of corrupt business influence, a Class C felony.
• By force or threat of force, touched six women in a criminal act to arouse his sexual desires, resulting in a charge of sexual battery, a Class D felony.
• Tried to kiss a woman who crossed her arms over her chest and bent her head, resulting in a charge of attempted sexual battery, a Class D felony.
• Committed criminal acts prohibited as a recruiter and sergeant in the Indiana National Guard, resulting in a charge of official misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor.
• Rubbed a woman's thigh after she had pushed his hand away, resulting in a charge of battery, a Class B misdemeanor.
Other cases linked to recruiters
High schools were required to grant military recruiters closer access to high school juniors and seniors -- including their names, addresses and phone numbers -- through the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
College recruiters receive the same type of information. The federal legislation took effect July 1, 2002.
A search of national news articles turned up these incidents in the past two years:
• July 2003: A former U.S. Army recruiter based in Moreno Valley, Calif., was sentenced to 16 months in prison for the statutory rape of a 17-year-old girl who was joining the Army. He pleaded guilty to having sex with the girl in a back room of the Army's recruiting station and in a government-issued sedan. The girl told authorities the sex acts happened when the man was her recruiter. She later decided not to join the Army.
• January 2004: A former Marine recruiter in the Baltimore area who was convicted of fondling a teenage recruit was sentenced to probation and ordered to seek counseling. The judge was quoted: "You may have misinterpreted the actions of an outgoing, flirting teenager. She was a kid. You were her recruiter. You were her mentor. She looked up to you. She may have worshipped you from afar, but that doesn't mean she intended to act on it or wanted you to act on it."
• May 2004: A 34-year-old Marine recruiter in Blooming Grove, N.Y., was charged with six counts of rape, accused of having sex several times with a 16-year-old girl who wanted to enlist. The school superintendent said the man apparently got to know the student while recruiting at Washingtonville High School.
• June 2004: A military jury sentenced a Marine Corps recruiter to five years in prison for raping a 17-year-old high school student in a Riverside recruiting office. The recruiter asked the teenager, who was interested in joining the Corps and was participating in an after-school Marine exercise program, to enter a back room at the recruiting station, where he raped her, the girl testified.
• November 2004: An Army recruiter in Riverside, Calif., was arrested on suspicion of having sex with two 17-year-old Paloma Valley High School students. The 24-year-old recruiter was charged with four felony counts of having sex with and giving alcohol to minors. He met the two girls at an Army recruiting seminar at the high school.
James Gillaspy and Dan McFeely
Indianapolis Star
March 1, 2005
NOBLESVILLE, Ind. -- Investigators say he picked out teens and young women with backgrounds that made them vulnerable to authority. As a military recruiter, he had access to personal information, making the quest easier.
Indiana National Guard Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy, 36, Westfield, was jailed Monday, accused of sexually assaulting six female recruits -- most of them Noblesville High School students -- he met during his 18 months as a full-time recruiter. Hamilton County investigators said Monday he is accused of raping at least one recruit.
Nationwide, military recruiters reportedly have been linked to at least a half-dozen sexual assaults during the past few years, since the creation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This broad education law requires, among other things, that high schools give military recruiters greater access to students.
The 31-count indictment filed in Hamilton Superior Court implicates Vetesy in a pattern of sexual misconduct during a period from May 2002 to November 2003. Authorities said the incidents occurred after his assignment as a recruiter in August 2001.
The six women identified in the indictment as his victims ranged in age from 17 to 21 at the time of the alleged assaults.
"These were very young women who were being recruited out of high school classes," said Hamilton County Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp. "Most of these activities took place either before they signed up as an actual recruit for the National Guard, or just after their recruitment."
Leerkamp said investigators suspect there may be more victims.
Counts against guardsman involve six young women
Recruiter faces 31 criminal counts
A grand jury indictment filed in Hamilton Superior Court charges Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy with 31 criminal violations as a recruiter for the Indiana National Guard between May 2002 and November 2003. According to the indictment, Vetesy:
• Forced himself on a woman inside a National Guard recruiting center in Castleton in June 2003, resulting in a charge of rape, a Class B felony.
• Engaged in a pattern of criminal activity in which he used his position as the victims' recruiting sergeant, resulting in a charge of corrupt business influence, a Class C felony.
• By force or threat of force, touched six women in a criminal act to arouse his sexual desires, resulting in a charge of sexual battery, a Class D felony.
• Tried to kiss a woman who crossed her arms over her chest and bent her head, resulting in a charge of attempted sexual battery, a Class D felony.
• Committed criminal acts prohibited as a recruiter and sergeant in the Indiana National Guard, resulting in a charge of official misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor.
• Rubbed a woman's thigh after she had pushed his hand away, resulting in a charge of battery, a Class B misdemeanor.
Other cases linked to recruiters
High schools were required to grant military recruiters closer access to high school juniors and seniors -- including their names, addresses and phone numbers -- through the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
College recruiters receive the same type of information. The federal legislation took effect July 1, 2002.
A search of national news articles turned up these incidents in the past two years:
• July 2003: A former U.S. Army recruiter based in Moreno Valley, Calif., was sentenced to 16 months in prison for the statutory rape of a 17-year-old girl who was joining the Army. He pleaded guilty to having sex with the girl in a back room of the Army's recruiting station and in a government-issued sedan. The girl told authorities the sex acts happened when the man was her recruiter. She later decided not to join the Army.
• January 2004: A former Marine recruiter in the Baltimore area who was convicted of fondling a teenage recruit was sentenced to probation and ordered to seek counseling. The judge was quoted: "You may have misinterpreted the actions of an outgoing, flirting teenager. She was a kid. You were her recruiter. You were her mentor. She looked up to you. She may have worshipped you from afar, but that doesn't mean she intended to act on it or wanted you to act on it."
• May 2004: A 34-year-old Marine recruiter in Blooming Grove, N.Y., was charged with six counts of rape, accused of having sex several times with a 16-year-old girl who wanted to enlist. The school superintendent said the man apparently got to know the student while recruiting at Washingtonville High School.
• June 2004: A military jury sentenced a Marine Corps recruiter to five years in prison for raping a 17-year-old high school student in a Riverside recruiting office. The recruiter asked the teenager, who was interested in joining the Corps and was participating in an after-school Marine exercise program, to enter a back room at the recruiting station, where he raped her, the girl testified.
• November 2004: An Army recruiter in Riverside, Calif., was arrested on suspicion of having sex with two 17-year-old Paloma Valley High School students. The 24-year-old recruiter was charged with four felony counts of having sex with and giving alcohol to minors. He met the two girls at an Army recruiting seminar at the high school.
James Gillaspy and Dan McFeely
Indianapolis Star
March 1, 2005
NOBLESVILLE, Ind. -- Investigators say he picked out teens and young women with backgrounds that made them vulnerable to authority. As a military recruiter, he had access to personal information, making the quest easier.
Indiana National Guard Sgt. Eric P. Vetesy, 36, Westfield, was jailed Monday, accused of sexually assaulting six female recruits -- most of them Noblesville High School students -- he met during his 18 months as a full-time recruiter. Hamilton County investigators said Monday he is accused of raping at least one recruit.
Nationwide, military recruiters reportedly have been linked to at least a half-dozen sexual assaults during the past few years, since the creation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This broad education law requires, among other things, that high schools give military recruiters greater access to students.
The 31-count indictment filed in Hamilton Superior Court implicates Vetesy in a pattern of sexual misconduct during a period from May 2002 to November 2003. Authorities said the incidents occurred after his assignment as a recruiter in August 2001.
The six women identified in the indictment as his victims ranged in age from 17 to 21 at the time of the alleged assaults.
"These were very young women who were being recruited out of high school classes," said Hamilton County Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp. "Most of these activities took place either before they signed up as an actual recruit for the National Guard, or just after their recruitment."
Leerkamp said investigators suspect there may be more victims.
http://www.notinourname.net/youth/recruite...sult-1mar05.htm
QUOTE
Schools and Military Face Off
Privacy Rights Clash With Required Release of Student Information
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 19, 2005; A03
GREECE, N.Y. -- When Capt. Larry Dibble wanders into Greece Olympia High School, just outside Rochester, he is greeted with smiles and handshakes. Teachers invite him into their classrooms to talk to students about joining the Marine Corps. The school provides an almost-complete list of student names and telephone numbers.
In another suburb, at Fairport High School, Dibble is barred from setting up a recruiting table. Appointments are required to talk to students, and interviews are allowed only in the guidance office. The school will release student contact details only with written parental approval.
The different receptions reflect the twin poles of a nationwide debate about military recruiting in high schools that has heated up with the war in Iraq and the increasing demand for military manpower. As pressure mounts on recruiters to meet their monthly targets, principals across the country are grappling with difficult decisions over how much access to provide the military.
A little-noticed clause in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to hand over students' names, addresses and telephone numbers to military recruiters as a condition of receiving federal aid. But some school districts are challenging the military's interpretation of the law, arguing that they are obliged to protect the privacy rights of their students.
"We're not going to give out information about our students unless we absolutely have to," said David Paddock, principal of Fairport High, who placed strict limits on the activities of military recruiters after a verbal confrontation between a Marine sergeant and a student peace activist. He describes the school's policy as "pro-kid, not anti-military."
Developments in Fairport, a largely white school district in an affluent suburb of Rochester, are being closely watched by other school districts unsure about their obligations under the Bush administration's signature education initiative. Some previously recalcitrant districts have begun to provide student information to the military after being threatened with retaliation by the Department of Defense, while others are reevaluating their access policies after reports of misconduct by military recruiters.
In one well-publicized case in Colorado, Army recruiters were tape-recorded encouraging a student journalist posing as a high school dropout to create a diploma from a non-existent school to comply with military enlistment requirements. They also were heard giving him advice on how to disguise a chronic "marijuana problem" and how to pass a mandatory drug test. The head of Army recruiting in Denver, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Brodeur, described the practices as "completely unacceptable."
The Army Recruiting Command declined to permit a reporter to observe its operations in Rochester, referring questions to the Pentagon. But the Marine Corps, which has been more successful in meeting its monthly recruiting targets, allowed a reporter to spend a day with its recruiters as they sought enlistees in Rochester area high schools.
The day begins at 8 a.m. in the Marine Corps recruiting office in downtown Rochester, one of several dozen recruiting stations in New York state. The drive is planned like any other military operation, with color-coded pins on maps denoting "target schools," clearly defined objectives and a strategy for achieving them. The Rochester region is expected to "ship" -- military jargon for "deliver" -- 101 new recruits to boot camp every year, part of a nationwide total of about 40,000.
It is a labor-intensive, frequently frustrating business. An average of 10 telephone calls is required to produce a single "contact" with a prospective recruit. Five or six contacts are needed to gain an "appointment." It takes two or three appointments to set up an "interview," a three-hour session that tests the persuasive powers of the recruiter. One in five interviews results in a "contract," or a commitment to join the Marine Corps.
"You can't expect immediate results," says Dibble, who oversees high school recruiting efforts in western New York state. "It's very hard work."
After morning strategizing, the Marines head to Greece, a bedroom community on the outskirts of Rochester. This is prime recruiting territory: middle-class, conservative, economically depressed. Several large companies in the Rochester area, including Kodak and Xerox, have cut back in recent years. Other than the military, there are few jobs for high school graduates.
A former Olympia student, Lance Cpl. Brian Schramm, was killed in Iraq last year while serving with the Marines, but his death does not appear to have hurt recruiting at the school. Sgt. Charles Ray exudes confidence as he delivers his sales pitch to an automotive repair class. He starts with the "tangibles" -- excellent health care, subsidized college tuition, a secure job -- before moving on to the "intangibles" cherished by the Marine Corps: pride, a sense of belonging, leadership skills.
"Just think about it," he tells the class. "Former Marines account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. But 30 percent of the heads of America's top companies are run by ex-Marines." Dibble is pleased with the sergeant's performance, though he notes that the "stats were a bit off."
At Fairport High School, the Marines head to the student guidance office to "establish rapport." With more than 1,600 students, the school remains a top priority for Marine recruiters, despite the lack of access to students. Over the past five years, 28 Fairport graduates have joined the Marines. This school year, only one student has signed a contract.
According to William Cala, superintendent of the Fairport school district, the "aggressiveness" of Marines and other military recruiters has "increased dramatically" because of the war in Iraq. "The recruiting goals have been set very high. The recruiters have to meet them, or they will be held accountable."
Cala cited an incident last November in which a Fairport High student peace activist and a Marine recruiting sergeant got into a verbal altercation in a hallway. Although there are differing accounts of what took place, the sergeant later left a message on the student's home answering machine threatening to report him to the police for "destroying government property." The student went to the principal in tears, and the principal asked the military to leave the building.
"If there's a confrontation in my school between a student and recruiters, and the kid ends up crying, I am going to side with the kid," said Paddock, the principal.
Fairport High School is in the only school district identified by recruiters as being in "non-compliance" with the information-sharing requirement of No Child Left Behind, Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke said. The Defense Department is working with the district to fashion a solution, she said.
The law permits families to withhold student contact information from military and college recruiters, and stipulates that schools "notify" parents of that option.
How the opt-out form is worded can make a crucial difference. Last year, only 80 families gave Fairport High School permission to turn over student contact information to the military. The remaining 1,500 families asked for contact information to be withheld or failed to return the form, which was interpreted by the school district as non-consent. In nearby schools, including Olympia, only a few dozen parents objected to the release of information. The majority failed to return the forms, which was considered consent.
Other school districts are coming under pressure from networks of anti-war activists and parents concerned with privacy issues to limit their cooperation with military recruiters. The Rochester City School District is one of dozens across the country reviewing its policies after complaints from parents and students about the lack of adequate information about the opt-out choice. The parent-teacher-student association at Garfield High School in Seattle voted 25 to 5 last month to adopt a largely symbolic resolution that "public schools are not a place for military recruiters."
Over the past few weeks, Washington area schools have reported increased interest from parents in withholding student information from recruiters. Montgomery County school spokesman Brian Edwards said that the school system was considering revising the permissions process to provide families with a better understanding of what happens to student contact information.
Currently, Edwards said, information published in school directories is automatically available to military recruiters under No Child Left Behind.
A Fairfax County school system spokeswoman, Kitty Porterfield, said that schools there provide "several written communications" to parents outlining opt-out procedures.
The controversy over military recruiting in high schools has spawned half a dozen Web sites calling on families to sign forms asking that student information be withheld from recruiters. The founder of one such site, rock musician Justin Sane, said that more than 7,000 people had signed a petition on militaryfreezone.org to request the withholding of contact information.
Dibble said that manpower demands caused by the Iraq war are forcing recruiters to work "harder and smarter."
The opt-out movement comes as the military is struggling to meet its recruitment targets. The Army Recruiting Command reported at the end of April that it was 16 percent below its year-to-date recruiting target for the active Army and 21 percent below target for the reserves. The Marines slightly exceeded "shipping" targets during the same period but were down 2 percent in signed contracts, which represent a commitment to join the Marines at a future date.
Critics of the recruitment provision of No Child Left Behind argue that an opt-in policy on sharing contact information might be more beneficial. "We are providing the military with a list of those students most interested in joining the military," superintendent Cala said. "That's very valuable. It eliminates the need for huge numbers of cold calls."
Marine recruiters disagree. They say that they need comprehensive lists because many students become interested in the military only after being contacted by recruiters. If they do not get the lists from the school districts, they must build them from other sources, including yearbooks and other students.
"Getting a list from a high school makes our life a little easier," Dibble said. "But whether or not they give us a list, we will get the information one way or another. We want to provide all students with the Marine Corps option."
Privacy Rights Clash With Required Release of Student Information
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 19, 2005; A03
GREECE, N.Y. -- When Capt. Larry Dibble wanders into Greece Olympia High School, just outside Rochester, he is greeted with smiles and handshakes. Teachers invite him into their classrooms to talk to students about joining the Marine Corps. The school provides an almost-complete list of student names and telephone numbers.
In another suburb, at Fairport High School, Dibble is barred from setting up a recruiting table. Appointments are required to talk to students, and interviews are allowed only in the guidance office. The school will release student contact details only with written parental approval.
The different receptions reflect the twin poles of a nationwide debate about military recruiting in high schools that has heated up with the war in Iraq and the increasing demand for military manpower. As pressure mounts on recruiters to meet their monthly targets, principals across the country are grappling with difficult decisions over how much access to provide the military.
A little-noticed clause in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to hand over students' names, addresses and telephone numbers to military recruiters as a condition of receiving federal aid. But some school districts are challenging the military's interpretation of the law, arguing that they are obliged to protect the privacy rights of their students.
"We're not going to give out information about our students unless we absolutely have to," said David Paddock, principal of Fairport High, who placed strict limits on the activities of military recruiters after a verbal confrontation between a Marine sergeant and a student peace activist. He describes the school's policy as "pro-kid, not anti-military."
Developments in Fairport, a largely white school district in an affluent suburb of Rochester, are being closely watched by other school districts unsure about their obligations under the Bush administration's signature education initiative. Some previously recalcitrant districts have begun to provide student information to the military after being threatened with retaliation by the Department of Defense, while others are reevaluating their access policies after reports of misconduct by military recruiters.
In one well-publicized case in Colorado, Army recruiters were tape-recorded encouraging a student journalist posing as a high school dropout to create a diploma from a non-existent school to comply with military enlistment requirements. They also were heard giving him advice on how to disguise a chronic "marijuana problem" and how to pass a mandatory drug test. The head of Army recruiting in Denver, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Brodeur, described the practices as "completely unacceptable."
The Army Recruiting Command declined to permit a reporter to observe its operations in Rochester, referring questions to the Pentagon. But the Marine Corps, which has been more successful in meeting its monthly recruiting targets, allowed a reporter to spend a day with its recruiters as they sought enlistees in Rochester area high schools.
The day begins at 8 a.m. in the Marine Corps recruiting office in downtown Rochester, one of several dozen recruiting stations in New York state. The drive is planned like any other military operation, with color-coded pins on maps denoting "target schools," clearly defined objectives and a strategy for achieving them. The Rochester region is expected to "ship" -- military jargon for "deliver" -- 101 new recruits to boot camp every year, part of a nationwide total of about 40,000.
It is a labor-intensive, frequently frustrating business. An average of 10 telephone calls is required to produce a single "contact" with a prospective recruit. Five or six contacts are needed to gain an "appointment." It takes two or three appointments to set up an "interview," a three-hour session that tests the persuasive powers of the recruiter. One in five interviews results in a "contract," or a commitment to join the Marine Corps.
"You can't expect immediate results," says Dibble, who oversees high school recruiting efforts in western New York state. "It's very hard work."
After morning strategizing, the Marines head to Greece, a bedroom community on the outskirts of Rochester. This is prime recruiting territory: middle-class, conservative, economically depressed. Several large companies in the Rochester area, including Kodak and Xerox, have cut back in recent years. Other than the military, there are few jobs for high school graduates.
A former Olympia student, Lance Cpl. Brian Schramm, was killed in Iraq last year while serving with the Marines, but his death does not appear to have hurt recruiting at the school. Sgt. Charles Ray exudes confidence as he delivers his sales pitch to an automotive repair class. He starts with the "tangibles" -- excellent health care, subsidized college tuition, a secure job -- before moving on to the "intangibles" cherished by the Marine Corps: pride, a sense of belonging, leadership skills.
"Just think about it," he tells the class. "Former Marines account for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. But 30 percent of the heads of America's top companies are run by ex-Marines." Dibble is pleased with the sergeant's performance, though he notes that the "stats were a bit off."
At Fairport High School, the Marines head to the student guidance office to "establish rapport." With more than 1,600 students, the school remains a top priority for Marine recruiters, despite the lack of access to students. Over the past five years, 28 Fairport graduates have joined the Marines. This school year, only one student has signed a contract.
According to William Cala, superintendent of the Fairport school district, the "aggressiveness" of Marines and other military recruiters has "increased dramatically" because of the war in Iraq. "The recruiting goals have been set very high. The recruiters have to meet them, or they will be held accountable."
Cala cited an incident last November in which a Fairport High student peace activist and a Marine recruiting sergeant got into a verbal altercation in a hallway. Although there are differing accounts of what took place, the sergeant later left a message on the student's home answering machine threatening to report him to the police for "destroying government property." The student went to the principal in tears, and the principal asked the military to leave the building.
"If there's a confrontation in my school between a student and recruiters, and the kid ends up crying, I am going to side with the kid," said Paddock, the principal.
Fairport High School is in the only school district identified by recruiters as being in "non-compliance" with the information-sharing requirement of No Child Left Behind, Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke said. The Defense Department is working with the district to fashion a solution, she said.
The law permits families to withhold student contact information from military and college recruiters, and stipulates that schools "notify" parents of that option.
How the opt-out form is worded can make a crucial difference. Last year, only 80 families gave Fairport High School permission to turn over student contact information to the military. The remaining 1,500 families asked for contact information to be withheld or failed to return the form, which was interpreted by the school district as non-consent. In nearby schools, including Olympia, only a few dozen parents objected to the release of information. The majority failed to return the forms, which was considered consent.
Other school districts are coming under pressure from networks of anti-war activists and parents concerned with privacy issues to limit their cooperation with military recruiters. The Rochester City School District is one of dozens across the country reviewing its policies after complaints from parents and students about the lack of adequate information about the opt-out choice. The parent-teacher-student association at Garfield High School in Seattle voted 25 to 5 last month to adopt a largely symbolic resolution that "public schools are not a place for military recruiters."
Over the past few weeks, Washington area schools have reported increased interest from parents in withholding student information from recruiters. Montgomery County school spokesman Brian Edwards said that the school system was considering revising the permissions process to provide families with a better understanding of what happens to student contact information.
Currently, Edwards said, information published in school directories is automatically available to military recruiters under No Child Left Behind.
A Fairfax County school system spokeswoman, Kitty Porterfield, said that schools there provide "several written communications" to parents outlining opt-out procedures.
The controversy over military recruiting in high schools has spawned half a dozen Web sites calling on families to sign forms asking that student information be withheld from recruiters. The founder of one such site, rock musician Justin Sane, said that more than 7,000 people had signed a petition on militaryfreezone.org to request the withholding of contact information.
Dibble said that manpower demands caused by the Iraq war are forcing recruiters to work "harder and smarter."
The opt-out movement comes as the military is struggling to meet its recruitment targets. The Army Recruiting Command reported at the end of April that it was 16 percent below its year-to-date recruiting target for the active Army and 21 percent below target for the reserves. The Marines slightly exceeded "shipping" targets during the same period but were down 2 percent in signed contracts, which represent a commitment to join the Marines at a future date.
Critics of the recruitment provision of No Child Left Behind argue that an opt-in policy on sharing contact information might be more beneficial. "We are providing the military with a list of those students most interested in joining the military," superintendent Cala said. "That's very valuable. It eliminates the need for huge numbers of cold calls."
Marine recruiters disagree. They say that they need comprehensive lists because many students become interested in the military only after being contacted by recruiters. If they do not get the lists from the school districts, they must build them from other sources, including yearbooks and other students.
"Getting a list from a high school makes our life a little easier," Dibble said. "But whether or not they give us a list, we will get the information one way or another. We want to provide all students with the Marine Corps option."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1800957_pf.html
The elimination of the draft has caused Americans to be less invested in the war because the military is all volunteer, but this is also an opportunity to take control. If parents, kids and college students actively did anti-recruitment at the grass roots level, we could further reduce the ability of the government to wage war. This is not some fantasy, either, this is their achilles heel, it is far easiier for local people to oppose the intrusion of outside recruiters than it is for them to succeed. Already, with little effort the desired results are partially achieved. With a bit of activism, we could do far more. Set a goal that recuiters targeting your children dont meet theirs. One parent, one student, one community at a time we can deny them what the last election could never have denied them. I believe this is the post powerful tool the antiwar movement has, and we should use it. Recruit the anti-recruiters in your town, high school and college and give 'em hell.
Good awarness posting guys!Here's another angle to brainwash kids minds into 'being all they can be' to later be recruited and sign up into the BushForce military. Video games! Check this out....
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...180514#continue
While publishers must artfully dodge those fine lines of international relations, one game developer must be extrasensitive. “Since [America’s Army] is made by contractors for the U.S. Army, we’re well aware of the implications of creating real-world scenarios,” says Christopher M. Chambers, deputy director for America’s Army. That’s why they “avoid using actual places or people, and we’re extracareful not to implicate foreign governments.”
The next big battle
The U.S. Army’s solution: create wartime scenarios in hotspots all over the globe. If they happen to look like the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or some unnamed Asian nation, so be it. That, according to Chambers, is how the next U.S. Army game—titled Overmatch—will play when it comes out next spring. This single-player game will focus on smaller, better-trained, and better-equipped forces taking on a much larger foe (think Black Hawk Down). Considering that the game will be free, it sure makes a good advertisement—or, as Tongil categorizes it, “propaganda”—for the U.S. Army.
“Actually,” Chambers says, “we are extremely pleased with these games. We’re opening up a whole new way to communicate with younger people.” With more than 3 million registered users and hundreds of millions of hours of online gameplay, it’s an easy way to convey the message of being a soldier. It is, according to Chambers, “one of the best sources for positive awareness of the Army.” An independent survey confirmed this: When asked how they had heard about the U.S. Army in the past six months, 29 percent of young adults aged 16 to 24 mentioned America’s Army. Same goes for 19 percent of parents with children aged 16 to 24. This trails behind TV coverage of the war in Iraq and the war on terror as a source for positive press for the military.
“The America’s Army game might be doing a little too good a job of recruiting,” says Ramirez. For starters, online performance is monitored on leader boards. Then, tournaments are held at recruiting stations around the country. It could be a simple matter to induct gamers from there, right? Chambers is quick to shoot that theory down: “We’re very concerned about people’s privacy. There are no unwanted spam e-mails or cold calls from recruiters.”
There’s no direct study showing how many people have enlisted because of these games, but it’s hard to dismiss the reality of these subliminal recruiting tactics. Heck, there’s a semi (called the Adventure Van) that rolls across the country, letting people hop into the virtual cockpit of an Apache helicopter or M1 Abram tank to play “war.” It’s all about mindshare—and the current crop of military games has it in spades.
Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.
Isn't that game give out free to all young males?
That is just sick sick sick.
http://www.americasarmy.com/
That is just sick sick sick.
http://www.americasarmy.com/
I am truly convienced if our military reaches it's goal in 2005 of 80,000 new recruitments, this will give cause and support to invade Syria next. I am again convienced that since early spring and due to the missed recruitment expectations, plans to either invade Iran or Syria was postponed due to these lower recruitment numbers to date.
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7...%7D&language=EN
June 25
The American GI death toll in Iraq, now admitted to be at least two-a-day, continues to climb, and while this is overlooked by Bush and his warmongers, ordinary citizens are becoming restive and anti-war groups are taking action.
Besides planning ongoing demonstrations against the war and counseling GIs and reservists who are disenchanted with the idea of being sent to die in Afghanistan or Iraq [see part I], organizations are working against the latest gigantic push by the military in US schools.
As reported in an Associated Press story by Robert Burns on June 8, for the first time since 1999 the Army is likely to fall short of its full-year recruiting goal this year.
The Army fell 25 percent short of its May goal, signing up only 6,700 recruits. This was after having lowered the objective by 1,350 due to shortfalls in February, March and April, each gap worse than the preceding one.
Only at 50 percent of its goal, Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for the Army´s chief of personnel, said the Army remains optimistic despite the recent setbacks and intends to make up the lost ground and reach the full-year goal. "The Army´s fiscal 2005 goal was, is and remains 80,000 recruits," Hilferty said.
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7...%7D&language=EN
June 25
The American GI death toll in Iraq, now admitted to be at least two-a-day, continues to climb, and while this is overlooked by Bush and his warmongers, ordinary citizens are becoming restive and anti-war groups are taking action.
Besides planning ongoing demonstrations against the war and counseling GIs and reservists who are disenchanted with the idea of being sent to die in Afghanistan or Iraq [see part I], organizations are working against the latest gigantic push by the military in US schools.
As reported in an Associated Press story by Robert Burns on June 8, for the first time since 1999 the Army is likely to fall short of its full-year recruiting goal this year.
The Army fell 25 percent short of its May goal, signing up only 6,700 recruits. This was after having lowered the objective by 1,350 due to shortfalls in February, March and April, each gap worse than the preceding one.
Only at 50 percent of its goal, Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for the Army´s chief of personnel, said the Army remains optimistic despite the recent setbacks and intends to make up the lost ground and reach the full-year goal. "The Army´s fiscal 2005 goal was, is and remains 80,000 recruits," Hilferty said.
QUOTE
Online Army Recruiting Game Reaches Top 5 List
from Army News Service
Oct 22 2004
By Kelli R. Petermeyer
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Oct. 22, 2004) – After two years, the official U.S. Army game has registered more than 4 million users and is now one of the top five games in the world.
The creative minds behind “America’s Army” said they take every opportunity to explore ways to improve the realism of the game to keep up with its growing popularity, including the Serious Games Summit held in the nation’s capital Oct. 18-19.
The summit gave the Army game developers, based out of the Office of Economic Manpower Analysis at the United States Military Academy, an opportunity to meet with other Serious Games developers and showcase the Army program.
The number of Serious Games being developed has been increasing rapidly in recent years, according to the Serious Games Summit Web site. These interactive games go beyond the traditional video game, and include applications focused on training, education, visualization, health and therapy.
Game virtually tells Soldier story
“America’s Army is a communications tool which is designed for free download on the Internet, and it’s a tool that kids can use to try on being a Soldier – virtually,” said Col. Casey Wardynski, director of the OEMA, project director of America’s Army and associate professor of economics at the USMA.
QUOTE(Cloudy @ Jun 25 2005, 12:15 PM)
Isn't that game give out free to all young males?
That is just sick sick sick.
http://www.americasarmy.com/
That is just sick sick sick.
http://www.americasarmy.com/
I imagine that these games are free to both young genders Cloudy. I see it as heartless heartless heartless driven by evil evil evil just to promote this sick sick sick BushCon regime in it's profiteering crusade.
These current recruitment tactics puts the 'active' into the 'active hustling' dept. There was another article that refered to these military hustlers as 'pimps'. Preying on desperate young minds to pursue death under this corrupt govt's lies.... yeah, sounds like lowlife pimpin' to me when this intentional inflating Bush ecnomics pushes more ppl into desperation to pay their bills and survive, they have only the military to turn to. Trust me, this is all by design. Desperate times equates military times.
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/.../506100352/1006
June 10, 2005
There's more pressure on recruiters now, when soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But recruiters aren't giving up, especially when the Navy and Air Force are still meeting their recruitment goals.
"Who knows, I think we'll pull it off," said Sgt. 1st Class Michael Forcier, commander of the Army recruiting station on New Haven Avenue in Melbourne. "We should be looking better through summer."
Summer is traditionally a peak time for recruitment.
Enticements increased
To boost its recruitment effort, the Army has added hundreds of recruiters, raised the enlistment bonus for four-year commitments to $20,000, and targeted more advertising at parents. It raised the maximum enlistment age from 34 to 39. It now offers a three-year reserve enlistment instead of the previous six-year string. Then there are education bonuses, the Army college fund and a college loan repayment program.
"People think we go out and snatch them off the streets," Essinger said. "What's most difficult is the new way we have to recruit. It's a transition from recruiter to counselor. It used to be, 'What can you do for the Army?' Now it's, 'How can we help you do what you want to do?' "
It didn't take much for Nicole Santos.
The 20-year-old moved to Brevard County from Miami two years ago. She knew she wanted to serve in the military but never made the move until now.
"I've lived on my own for two years," she said. "I woke up one morning and I was swamped in bills. I couldn't make it on my own anymore. I was tired of running and not getting anywhere."
On Thursday, Santos signed initial paperwork. There's still more to do and tests to take before she begins training.
from the Miami Times:
Posted on Fri, Jun. 24, 2005
U.S. MILITARY
Recruiting tactics could invade privacy, critics claim
BY JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Privacy advocates are objecting to the Pentagon's use of a database with files on millions of young people that the military says it needs for recruiting to help fill its ranks.
The data could be abused by the government or the private company that keeps it, the advocates contend. They also say there is no need for the information to include Social Security numbers, which could be used to steal someone's identity. The military says the information will help steer it to potential recruits. Officials said the Social Security numbers are scrambled to prevent abuse and that the database only has been used for recruiting purposes.
''The program is very important because it helps the recruiters be more effective to target qualified candidates for specific missions,'' Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said Thursday.
According to a Federal Register notice, the data includes high-school students age 16 to 18, college students, and people who have registered with the Selective Service, which would manage a military draft if it were reinstituted.
American men age 18 to 25 are required to register with Selective Service and provide their Social Security numbers.
The information kept on each person includes name, gender, address, birthday and, if available, the Social Security number, e-mail address, ethnicity, telephone number, high school, college, graduation dates, grade-point average, education level and military test scores, the register notice said. The arrangement has many problems, said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, a director with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Hoofnagle was one of nine privacy advocates who filed a protest in the Federal Register notice.
For one, the military provides no guarantees it will not turn over the information to law enforcement, counterintelligence and other agencies, Hoofnagle said in an interview. Krenke said the Pentagon does not do this; the register notice says the military retains the right to do so.
''Without your consent the Defense Department can take data out of the system and share it with other agencies,'' Hoofnagle said.
Posted on Fri, Jun. 24, 2005
U.S. MILITARY
Recruiting tactics could invade privacy, critics claim
BY JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Privacy advocates are objecting to the Pentagon's use of a database with files on millions of young people that the military says it needs for recruiting to help fill its ranks.
The data could be abused by the government or the private company that keeps it, the advocates contend. They also say there is no need for the information to include Social Security numbers, which could be used to steal someone's identity. The military says the information will help steer it to potential recruits. Officials said the Social Security numbers are scrambled to prevent abuse and that the database only has been used for recruiting purposes.
''The program is very important because it helps the recruiters be more effective to target qualified candidates for specific missions,'' Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said Thursday.
According to a Federal Register notice, the data includes high-school students age 16 to 18, college students, and people who have registered with the Selective Service, which would manage a military draft if it were reinstituted.
American men age 18 to 25 are required to register with Selective Service and provide their Social Security numbers.
The information kept on each person includes name, gender, address, birthday and, if available, the Social Security number, e-mail address, ethnicity, telephone number, high school, college, graduation dates, grade-point average, education level and military test scores, the register notice said. The arrangement has many problems, said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, a director with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Hoofnagle was one of nine privacy advocates who filed a protest in the Federal Register notice.
For one, the military provides no guarantees it will not turn over the information to law enforcement, counterintelligence and other agencies, Hoofnagle said in an interview. Krenke said the Pentagon does not do this; the register notice says the military retains the right to do so.
''Without your consent the Defense Department can take data out of the system and share it with other agencies,'' Hoofnagle said.
link for above post, paper is Miami HERALD:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/...miherald_nation
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/...miherald_nation
military to use temps job agency to recruit
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...ruiting25m.html
QUOTE
Army National Guard enlists job agency
By LISA CHIU
Seattle Times staff reporter
Faced with nationwide recruitment challenges, the Army National Guard has partnered with Labor Ready, a provider of temporary jobs for unskilled workers, in the hopes the Tacoma-based company's 700 branches across the nation can help boost the dwindling number of recruits.
Dressed in Army fatigues yesterday afternoon, Sgt. Nicholas Grossenbacher of the Washington Army National Guard was at the Renton branch of Labor Ready explaining the GI Bill and the National Guard's time commitment of "two days a month, two weeks a year" to a small group. He said he hopes to visit the branch at least once a month.
In return for such recruitment stops, Labor Ready hopes to do some recruiting of its own by targeting National Guardsmen and spouses seeking temporary work while they await deployment, or have just returned from duty.
At 44, Labor Ready construction worker Denise Tapscott is too old for the National Guard, which has an age-range limit of 17 (with parental consent) to 39. But she said just before the start of yesterday's event: "If I were still young enough, I would go."
Tapscott's co-worker, Eddie Savannah, 47, added that the partnership would benefit young people who come to Labor Ready for temporary jobs.
"Young people can get a career, a trade. If they're down on their luck, they have an opportunity to get up, to see something new, to see the world," Savannah said of serving in the Guard. "Some people here are only lucky enough to go around the block."
But others object to the partnership. Todd Boyle, founder of Washington Truth in Recruiting, said it's an example of an "economic draft."
"Many people are vulnerable and need jobs and have no choice but to go into the military," Boyle said. While he prefers this type of adult recruitment to recruitment in high schools, he added that recruiters still omit information regardless of the age of the target audience.
"The presentation is completely oriented around the listener's propensities, so they begin with your need for income and training," he said. "All those things are incidental to military service. The real character of military service is killing and being killed."
Across the country, the Army National Guard was down in recruitment by 24 percent, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report.
Grossenbacher said it hasn't been harder to find recruits, just different.
"With the war, some do shy away because they think they will be going to Iraq," he said. "And if they sign up for six years, they will probably go somewhere. We can't guarantee they won't."
As one of the few workers at yesterday's event of age to join the Guard, 20-year-old Swayne Hoflack said he was undecided, though he said he saw nothing wrong with Guard recruitment at Labor Ready.
"I'm trying my own way first, like community college," Hoflack said. "You see what you can do with what you have first. Joining should be a last resort."
By LISA CHIU
Seattle Times staff reporter
Faced with nationwide recruitment challenges, the Army National Guard has partnered with Labor Ready, a provider of temporary jobs for unskilled workers, in the hopes the Tacoma-based company's 700 branches across the nation can help boost the dwindling number of recruits.
Dressed in Army fatigues yesterday afternoon, Sgt. Nicholas Grossenbacher of the Washington Army National Guard was at the Renton branch of Labor Ready explaining the GI Bill and the National Guard's time commitment of "two days a month, two weeks a year" to a small group. He said he hopes to visit the branch at least once a month.
In return for such recruitment stops, Labor Ready hopes to do some recruiting of its own by targeting National Guardsmen and spouses seeking temporary work while they await deployment, or have just returned from duty.
At 44, Labor Ready construction worker Denise Tapscott is too old for the National Guard, which has an age-range limit of 17 (with parental consent) to 39. But she said just before the start of yesterday's event: "If I were still young enough, I would go."
Tapscott's co-worker, Eddie Savannah, 47, added that the partnership would benefit young people who come to Labor Ready for temporary jobs.
"Young people can get a career, a trade. If they're down on their luck, they have an opportunity to get up, to see something new, to see the world," Savannah said of serving in the Guard. "Some people here are only lucky enough to go around the block."
But others object to the partnership. Todd Boyle, founder of Washington Truth in Recruiting, said it's an example of an "economic draft."
"Many people are vulnerable and need jobs and have no choice but to go into the military," Boyle said. While he prefers this type of adult recruitment to recruitment in high schools, he added that recruiters still omit information regardless of the age of the target audience.
"The presentation is completely oriented around the listener's propensities, so they begin with your need for income and training," he said. "All those things are incidental to military service. The real character of military service is killing and being killed."
Across the country, the Army National Guard was down in recruitment by 24 percent, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report.
Grossenbacher said it hasn't been harder to find recruits, just different.
"With the war, some do shy away because they think they will be going to Iraq," he said. "And if they sign up for six years, they will probably go somewhere. We can't guarantee they won't."
As one of the few workers at yesterday's event of age to join the Guard, 20-year-old Swayne Hoflack said he was undecided, though he said he saw nothing wrong with Guard recruitment at Labor Ready.
"I'm trying my own way first, like community college," Hoflack said. "You see what you can do with what you have first. Joining should be a last resort."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...ruiting25m.html
QUOTE(shawneedaughter @ Jun 25 2005, 12:47 PM)
For one, the military provides no guarantees it will not turn over the information to law enforcement, counterintelligence and other agencies, Hoofnagle said in an interview. Krenke said the Pentagon does not do this; the register notice says the military retains the right to do so.
''Without your consent the Defense Department can take data out of the system and share it with other agencies,'' Hoofnagle said.
''Without your consent the Defense Department can take data out of the system and share it with other agencies,'' Hoofnagle said.
Good exposure shawneedaughter.... this makes me think our corrupt wall street market operated by 'insider trading' .... the power to manipulate and control..... false reporting .... invasion of ppl's privacy and rights.......... right into Big Brother BushWorld.
QUOTE(Cloudy @ Jun 25 2005, 01:05 PM)
military to use temps job agency to recruit
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...ruiting25m.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...ruiting25m.html
WOW.... I never considered that one Cloudy.... temp agencies luring desperate ppl right into BushForce. Good article! I suppose these agencies get their healthy cut/fee for sending such desperate bodies to these recruiters. I wonder if those fees comes out of any of the new sign ups 'bonues'?
Another article added to what shawneedaughter posted earlier.
Uncle Samual creeps closer and closer into our private lives... just as planned by this BushCon regime for the future BushWorld
http://ktla.trb.com/news/nationworld/natio...oll=ktla-news-1
THE NATION
Military to Amass Data on Students
The Pentagon has enlisted a direct marketing firm to help it compile a database for use in recruiting.
By Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writer
June 23, 2005
WASHINGTON -- With the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan making it increasingly hard for the U.S. military to fill its ranks with recruits, the Pentagon has hired an outside marketing firm to help compile an extensive database about teenagers and college students that the military services could use to target potential enlistees.
The initiative, which privacy groups call an unwarranted government intrusion into private life, will compile detailed information about high school students ages 16 to 18, all college students, and Selective Service System registrants. The collected information will include Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages and ethnicities.
The program, run by the Pentagon's Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies office, is the latest effort to jump-start a recruiting mission hampered by violent images broadcast daily from Iraq.
BeNow Inc., a Massachusetts direct-marketing firm that compiles and analyzes masses of data, will manage the program.
According to the Pentagon's official notice of the program, the new initiative's aim is "to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service."
"The information will be provided to the services to assist them in their direct marketing recruiting efforts," read the notice in the Federal Register, published last month.
The No Child Left Behind Act allows the Pentagon to gather the home addresses and telephone numbers of public-school students. The new Pentagon initiative would be far more extensive, drawing from government databases compiled by state motor vehicle departments and similar agencies.
The program has angered privacy groups, which contend that the Pentagon is risking the misuse of data by handing over such sensitive material to a private firm.
"We think it's a mistake that violates the spirit of the Privacy Act," said Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group based in Washington.
The privacy center's official response to the initiative — also signed by eight representatives of similar organizations — called the database "an unprecedented foray of the government into direct marketing techniques previously only performed by the private sector."
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the arrangement with BeNow, which was first reported in today's Washington Post, was critical to the military's effort to increase the pool of potential recruits.
"The database is another tool for recruiters to use to find candidates for military service," Air Force Lt. Col Ellen Krenke said late Wednesday.
Krenke pointed out that any students who did not want to be contacted by recruiters could have their names added to a "suppression list" that would keep the information private.
Uncle Samual creeps closer and closer into our private lives... just as planned by this BushCon regime for the future BushWorld
http://ktla.trb.com/news/nationworld/natio...oll=ktla-news-1
THE NATION
Military to Amass Data on Students
The Pentagon has enlisted a direct marketing firm to help it compile a database for use in recruiting.
By Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writer
June 23, 2005
WASHINGTON -- With the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan making it increasingly hard for the U.S. military to fill its ranks with recruits, the Pentagon has hired an outside marketing firm to help compile an extensive database about teenagers and college students that the military services could use to target potential enlistees.
The initiative, which privacy groups call an unwarranted government intrusion into private life, will compile detailed information about high school students ages 16 to 18, all college students, and Selective Service System registrants. The collected information will include Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages and ethnicities.
The program, run by the Pentagon's Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies office, is the latest effort to jump-start a recruiting mission hampered by violent images broadcast daily from Iraq.
BeNow Inc., a Massachusetts direct-marketing firm that compiles and analyzes masses of data, will manage the program.
According to the Pentagon's official notice of the program, the new initiative's aim is "to provide a single central facility within the Department of Defense to compile, process and distribute files of individuals who meet age and minimum school requirements for military service."
"The information will be provided to the services to assist them in their direct marketing recruiting efforts," read the notice in the Federal Register, published last month.
The No Child Left Behind Act allows the Pentagon to gather the home addresses and telephone numbers of public-school students. The new Pentagon initiative would be far more extensive, drawing from government databases compiled by state motor vehicle departments and similar agencies.
The program has angered privacy groups, which contend that the Pentagon is risking the misuse of data by handing over such sensitive material to a private firm.
"We think it's a mistake that violates the spirit of the Privacy Act," said Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a public interest research group based in Washington.
The privacy center's official response to the initiative — also signed by eight representatives of similar organizations — called the database "an unprecedented foray of the government into direct marketing techniques previously only performed by the private sector."
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the arrangement with BeNow, which was first reported in today's Washington Post, was critical to the military's effort to increase the pool of potential recruits.
"The database is another tool for recruiters to use to find candidates for military service," Air Force Lt. Col Ellen Krenke said late Wednesday.
Krenke pointed out that any students who did not want to be contacted by recruiters could have their names added to a "suppression list" that would keep the information private.
Help is on the way.
Hope is on the way.
The mmob (mainstreet moms oppose Bush) have a new pgm called, "Leave my child alone"
http://www.themmob.com/lmca/about.html
Hope is on the way.
The mmob (mainstreet moms oppose Bush) have a new pgm called, "Leave my child alone"
http://www.themmob.com/lmca/about.html
Now here's a good examples of some marine hustlers.... pouncing on a mom's 17 yr old boy and using a xbox for a prize at an event to draw kids to it. When you see marines, think brainwashing machines!
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynter/227497_paynter08.html
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call
By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"
Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.
With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.
But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.
Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"
"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.
The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynter/227497_paynter08.html
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call
By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"
Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.
With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.
But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.
Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"
"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.
The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."
http://www.gazette.net/200522/silverspring...s/277602-1.html
June 1, 2005
Rochelle said the Army is investigating seven alleged instances of recruiting violations across the country. While Rochelle wouldn't get into specifics, he did give a general description of abuses in the areas of pre-qualification: drug use and high school diplomas, according to a transcript from the briefing.
Elder and his DC Antiwar Network list alleged transgressions: concealing recruits' mental-health histories and police records; giving the military aptitude test without parental consent; enlisting recruits with criminal records and encouraging recruits to falsify drug use; threatening to arrest potential recruits if they refuse to appear for meetings; deceptive advertising; encouraging recruits to manufacture fake diplomas; and deception regarding the Delayed Entry Program.
June 1, 2005
Rochelle said the Army is investigating seven alleged instances of recruiting violations across the country. While Rochelle wouldn't get into specifics, he did give a general description of abuses in the areas of pre-qualification: drug use and high school diplomas, according to a transcript from the briefing.
Elder and his DC Antiwar Network list alleged transgressions: concealing recruits' mental-health histories and police records; giving the military aptitude test without parental consent; enlisting recruits with criminal records and encouraging recruits to falsify drug use; threatening to arrest potential recruits if they refuse to appear for meetings; deceptive advertising; encouraging recruits to manufacture fake diplomas; and deception regarding the Delayed Entry Program.
QUOTE(ghostgovt @ Jun 27 2005, 04:59 PM)
http://www.gazette.net/200522/silverspring...s/277602-1.html
June 1, 2005
Rochelle said the Army is investigating seven alleged instances of recruiting violations across the country. While Rochelle wouldn't get into specifics, he did give a general description of abuses in the areas of pre-qualification: drug use and high school diplomas, according to a transcript from the briefing.
Elder and his DC Antiwar Network list alleged transgressions: concealing recruits' mental-health histories and police records; giving the military aptitude test without parental consent; enlisting recruits with criminal records and encouraging recruits to falsify drug use; threatening to arrest potential recruits if they refuse to appear for meetings; deceptive advertising; encouraging recruits to manufacture fake diplomas; and deception regarding the Delayed Entry Program.
June 1, 2005
Rochelle said the Army is investigating seven alleged instances of recruiting violations across the country. While Rochelle wouldn't get into specifics, he did give a general description of abuses in the areas of pre-qualification: drug use and high school diplomas, according to a transcript from the briefing.
Elder and his DC Antiwar Network list alleged transgressions: concealing recruits' mental-health histories and police records; giving the military aptitude test without parental consent; enlisting recruits with criminal records and encouraging recruits to falsify drug use; threatening to arrest potential recruits if they refuse to appear for meetings; deceptive advertising; encouraging recruits to manufacture fake diplomas; and deception regarding the Delayed Entry Program.
Gosh GG, why are you only posting snipets from the article?
Protesters criticize military recruiting tactics
E-Mail This Article
by Fred Lewis
Staff Writer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 1, 2005
Parents, others call for reform in system
Seeking to shed light on what they call unfair tactics by military recruiters targeting high school students nationwide, about 75 protesters gathered outside the Silver Spring military recruiting office on Georgia Avenue Friday afternoon for a demonstration aimed at reforming the system.
"We're preaching to a general audience," said Pat Elder, a Bethesda resident and member of DC Antiwar Network, one of two groups coordinating the demonstration. "I believe we have to reform the system."
Protesters lining the southbound side of Georgia Avenue where the recruiting office is located held signs and stood in front of mock coffins draped in American flags. While some signs condemned the war in Iraq, protesters specifically targeted a provision in the No Child Left Behind Act, in which school districts that receive federal funding must provide names of high school students to military recruiters or lose those federal funds.
Students are able to opt out by singing a form at the beginning of the school year that tells the school system and the military that they don't want to be contacted by recruiters. But Elder and others said students should be able to opt in instead.
"It's a dangerous militarization of society and I don't think recruiters should be given that access to schools," Elder said, noting that a federal bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) seeks to amend the No Child Left Behind Act to eliminate opt-out and require opt-in instead.
"A lot of them [students] aren't 18 and they're being strenuously lobbied to consider signing a contract that is extremely complex and one of the major provisions of that contract stipulates that the military can do pretty much anything they want to do to you regardless of what's in the contract," Elder said.
Brian Edwards, a spokesman for Montgomery County Public Schools, said the provision in the No Child Left Behind Act is law and as such, county schools comply. He also noted that he's not aware of any recruiting abuses in county schools.
Elder also said he wasn't aware of any wrongdoing by recruiters at the Silver Spring office on Georgia Avenue, which covers Albert Einstein, Bethesda-Chevy Chase, James Hubert Blake, John F. Kennedy, Montgomery Blair, Paint Branch, Springbrook and Wheaton high schools. But he did note deceptive or unethical recruiting practices elsewhere in the United States.
The U.S. Army is attempting to address those problems, starting with the Army Values Stand Down Day May 20, during which recruiters renewed their oath of office, reviewed recruiting policies and procedures, and vowed to do their jobs "with the utmost integrity," said Major Gen. Michael D. Rochelle, recruiting commander of the U.S. Army, during a national press briefing May 20.
Rochelle said the Army is investigating seven alleged instances of recruiting violations across the country. While Rochelle wouldn't get into specifics, he did give a general description of abuses in the areas of pre-qualification: drug use and high school diplomas, according to a transcript from the briefing.
Elder and his DC Antiwar Network list alleged transgressions: concealing recruits' mental-health histories and police records; giving the military aptitude test without parental consent; enlisting recruits with criminal records and encouraging recruits to falsify drug use; threatening to arrest potential recruits if they refuse to appear for meetings; deceptive advertising; encouraging recruits to manufacture fake diplomas; and deception regarding the Delayed Entry Program.
Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command based in Ft. Knox, Ky., said there have been investigations, or investigations are under way, into each of the categories DC Antiwar Network listed.
"We investigate any allegation of recruiting impropriety," Smith said, noting that the Army Recruiting Command has a program aimed at catching recruiting violations. "So it's not like we're sitting around waiting for someone to complain."
He said violators, depending on the recruiting abuse, could face sanctions ranging from counseling to a court-martial.
But Smith also said the opt-in method DC Antiwar Network supports "would be a disservice to recruiters" and "would result in the recruiter contacting fewer recruits."
"The kind of people we want to talk to are intelligent and know the vast majority of recruiters will deal with them in a straightforward manner," Smith said. "And when they speak to a recruiter, they get honest answers to their questions."
Recruiters at the Silver Spring office could not be reached for comment for this story. Protesters Friday said they were not aware of any recruiting violations in Montgomery County, but noted that recruiters were persistent in contacting their children.
"They're all very vulnerable to lies, but none [of his children] are interested" in talking to a recruiter or joining the military, said Takoma Park resident Mike Tabor, whose children are in their late teens and early 20s. "They know not to get sucked in by a recruitment story."
Adrian Brown, a Chevy Chase resident, said her son, a student at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, has been contacted at home.
"They've called many times and finally we had to tell them to stop," said Brown, who also objects to the opt-out method. "Nobody knows about that and no one expects them to call at home."
She added that while some kids plan to go to college, others might not and, without many opportunities, might find what the military offer attractive.
"I think there are lots of young people in Iraq who thought they were getting job opportunities and came back [from the battlefield] without legs."
The Rev. Graylan Hagler of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C., said many potential recruits are from minority neighborhoods, where recruiters "perceive us as having less resources and information, training and education."
"They prey on those communities promising jobs, training and offering bonuses to sign," he said, noting that what the military offers can sound seductive when potential recruits don't have many other opportunities.
"In the volunteer military, they're still taking in poor kids. We're not seeing the great disparity of people of color, but young people without a lot of resources go into the military and didn't count on war."
well lets try this again.
you have 2 choices. click on the article and read it... as it appears that you have. that way you get to enjoy all the wonderfull reading of your choice.
or... start a thread, choose which sections that you wish to copy and paste into your thread and be happy.
see... that really solves all your problems over how I selected what I did for my own thread.
you have a nice cgcs day now.
you have 2 choices. click on the article and read it... as it appears that you have. that way you get to enjoy all the wonderfull reading of your choice.
or... start a thread, choose which sections that you wish to copy and paste into your thread and be happy.
see... that really solves all your problems over how I selected what I did for my own thread.
you have a nice cgcs day now.
QUOTE(ghostgovt @ Jun 27 2005, 06:14 PM)
well lets try this again.
you have 2 choices. click on the article and read it... as it appears that you have. that way you get to enjoy all the wonderfull reading of your choice.
or... start a thread, choose which sections that you wish to copy and paste into your thread and be happy.
see... that really solves all your problems over how I selected what I did for my own thread.
you have a nice cgcs day now.
you have 2 choices. click on the article and read it... as it appears that you have. that way you get to enjoy all the wonderfull reading of your choice.
or... start a thread, choose which sections that you wish to copy and paste into your thread and be happy.
see... that really solves all your problems over how I selected what I did for my own thread.
you have a nice cgcs day now.
Apparently you have a third option though, clip and paste just what supports your agenda,eh?
QUOTE(ghostgovt @ Jun 27 2005, 06:14 PM)
well lets try this again.
you have 2 choices. click on the article and read it... as it appears that you have. that way you get to enjoy all the wonderfull reading of your choice.
or... start a thread, choose which sections that you wish to copy and paste into your thread and be happy.
see... that really solves all your problems over how I selected what I did for my own thread.
you have a nice cgcs day now.
you have 2 choices. click on the article and read it... as it appears that you have. that way you get to enjoy all the wonderfull reading of your choice.
or... start a thread, choose which sections that you wish to copy and paste into your thread and be happy.
see... that really solves all your problems over how I selected what I did for my own thread.
you have a nice cgcs day now.
What's "a nice cgcs day" like?
That cracked me up.
QUOTE(big sky brad @ Jun 27 2005, 09:06 PM)
What's "a nice cgcs day" like?
That cracked me up.
it's when one gets to express themselves ... freedom of speech and expression and having lots of chit chat fun
QUOTE(Marine @ Jun 27 2005, 07:16 PM)
Apparently you have a third option though, clip and paste just what supports your agenda,eh?
apparently you must have something against freedom of choice. ya think?
QUOTE
June 27, 2005
Senators Call on Rumsfeld to Abandon Recruiting Database
CounterRecruiter.net has learned that seven Democratic senators have called on the Pentagon to stop using a massive database to target potential recruits. Last week it was revealed that the Pentagon had hired the private marketing firm BeNOW to run the database that keeps track of millions of high school and college students.
Signing the letter were Senators John Corzine (D-NJ), Hillary R. Clinton (D-NY), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The letter reads:
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:
We are writing in response to recent reports that the Pentagon has retained a private marketing firm to gather and to analyze extensive personal information from high school students between the ages of 16 and 18 for the purpose of identifying potential military recruits. We ask that you immediately cease these efforts.
We are particularly troubled by the fact that you plan to rely on commercial data and have hired a private marketing firm to assist with the collection and analysis of this sensitive information. As you know, this private company is being given the responsibility to collect, and to disseminate to the Pentagon, personal information of students such as birth dates, social security numbers, ethnicity, grade-point averages, address and telephone information, and areas of study. This personal information, which would be obtained from schools as well as from commercial data brokers, state drivers’ license records, and other sources, could then be used to formulate and execute a targeted “marketing” campaign to identify and recruit individuals based on these personal factors.
We recognize the need for a strong military and support the efforts undertaken by the Pentagon to recruit individuals to serve in our Armed Forces. However, we can not condone the hiring of a private company to collect and disseminate the most private information about our youth. We are concerned both with the potential violation of privacy interests and with the potential for identity theft and other misuses of this personal information. We fail to see a legitimate need for the creation of a database containing such personal information and are concerned that it may be an inappropriate effort to profile students based on ethnicity and other personal factors. We are certain that you share this concern and are not in favor of a private marketing campaign conducted on behalf of the military that could improperly use personal information to do just that.
Again, we ask that you immediately cease the creation of this database and stop this private company from collecting and disseminating students’ personal information. We also ask that you immediately post, on the Department of Defense website, a standard “opt out” letter that students may execute to stop military recruiters from using their personal information to contact them at home. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Senators Call on Rumsfeld to Abandon Recruiting Database
CounterRecruiter.net has learned that seven Democratic senators have called on the Pentagon to stop using a massive database to target potential recruits. Last week it was revealed that the Pentagon had hired the private marketing firm BeNOW to run the database that keeps track of millions of high school and college students.
Signing the letter were Senators John Corzine (D-NJ), Hillary R. Clinton (D-NY), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The letter reads:
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:
We are writing in response to recent reports that the Pentagon has retained a private marketing firm to gather and to analyze extensive personal information from high school students between the ages of 16 and 18 for the purpose of identifying potential military recruits. We ask that you immediately cease these efforts.
We are particularly troubled by the fact that you plan to rely on commercial data and have hired a private marketing firm to assist with the collection and analysis of this sensitive information. As you know, this private company is being given the responsibility to collect, and to disseminate to the Pentagon, personal information of students such as birth dates, social security numbers, ethnicity, grade-point averages, address and telephone information, and areas of study. This personal information, which would be obtained from schools as well as from commercial data brokers, state drivers’ license records, and other sources, could then be used to formulate and execute a targeted “marketing” campaign to identify and recruit individuals based on these personal factors.
We recognize the need for a strong military and support the efforts undertaken by the Pentagon to recruit individuals to serve in our Armed Forces. However, we can not condone the hiring of a private company to collect and disseminate the most private information about our youth. We are concerned both with the potential violation of privacy interests and with the potential for identity theft and other misuses of this personal information. We fail to see a legitimate need for the creation of a database containing such personal information and are concerned that it may be an inappropriate effort to profile students based on ethnicity and other personal factors. We are certain that you share this concern and are not in favor of a private marketing campaign conducted on behalf of the military that could improperly use personal information to do just that.
Again, we ask that you immediately cease the creation of this database and stop this private company from collecting and disseminating students’ personal information. We also ask that you immediately post, on the Department of Defense website, a standard “opt out” letter that students may execute to stop military recruiters from using their personal information to contact them at home. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
http://rncwatch.typepad.com/counterrecruit...ors_call_o.html
Oh how our govt and paper pushing military speaks with a forked tongue. Always remember, it's propaganda being what they do best.
http://www.mikehersh.com/printer_Stop_Abus...ecruiting.shtml
Stop Abusive Recruiting
By Mike Hersh, May 9, 2005
It's bad enough recruiters are using sneaky access to trick teenagers behind their parents' backs. The military keeps making misleading promises about benefits while denying it condones deception by its recruiters. Slick TV commercials persuade potential recruits by making empty promises and by making military combat look like a video game.
The military runs deceptive inducements on networks teens watch like MTV. The Air Force - apparently without irony - sponsored a Comedy Central show called "Con" in which a self-professed conman tricks people into doing things for him by lying to them. I doubt many 17 year-olds question this connection - or the exciting enticements in the glitzy Air Force ads. The military uses what works. Their advertising experts know promises of college tuition attract new recruits. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:
The tuition perk offered as part of the Montgomery GI Bill, passed in 1985, is the No. 1 reason that young people enlist in the military, and it has become even more useful to recruiters as they have attempted to reverse declining enlistment numbers by signing up high-school students. But that benefit covers only about 60 percent of the average cost of college, according to the College Board. And while the majority of active-duty troops sign up for the benefit, during the last decade just 8 percent of eligible veterans used their full benefit and 30 percent failed to use it at all.
Even officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs warn potential enlistees that money for tuition should not be their motive for joining the U.S armed forces. Their message may not be getting through, though, because military recruiters, who report to the Department of Defense, have a different agenda.
See: "What the Recruiter Never Told You - Your Guide to U.S. Military" http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/recruiter.htm Also see: "Education Benefits and Enlisted College/Commissioning Programs" http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/recruiter8.htm
Not even $11 grand for six years risking life and limb for the USA? With the cost of college tuition that's a rather paltry reward. Keep in mind this is from a pro-military expert, a veteran whose own daughters serve in the Air Force.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports: "[C]ritics of the GI Bill, including many veterans, say it does not come close to meeting the financial needs of the modern soldier, and the benefits are often difficult to obtain.... 'It's inadequate, and well short of what is needed to pay for the cost of education at a state institution,' says Steve Robertson, legislative-affairs director for the American Legion."
But misleading promises work because "'Students hear the amount, and it's a big number, and they can't imagine that it wouldn't pay the full amount,' says Phillip Gainous, principal of Montgomery Blair High School, in Silver Spring, Md., where the percentage of students who enlist in the armed services right after high school is 1.5 times as high as the county average. 'Their mindset is that it's nothing to worry about, that they'll have it covered by the time college comes around.'"
See: "Military recruiters promise 'money for college,' but recent veterans find that tuition benefits fall short" http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i36/36a03101.htm
http://www.mikehersh.com/printer_Stop_Abus...ecruiting.shtml
Stop Abusive Recruiting
By Mike Hersh, May 9, 2005
It's bad enough recruiters are using sneaky access to trick teenagers behind their parents' backs. The military keeps making misleading promises about benefits while denying it condones deception by its recruiters. Slick TV commercials persuade potential recruits by making empty promises and by making military combat look like a video game.
The military runs deceptive inducements on networks teens watch like MTV. The Air Force - apparently without irony - sponsored a Comedy Central show called "Con" in which a self-professed conman tricks people into doing things for him by lying to them. I doubt many 17 year-olds question this connection - or the exciting enticements in the glitzy Air Force ads. The military uses what works. Their advertising experts know promises of college tuition attract new recruits. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:
The tuition perk offered as part of the Montgomery GI Bill, passed in 1985, is the No. 1 reason that young people enlist in the military, and it has become even more useful to recruiters as they have attempted to reverse declining enlistment numbers by signing up high-school students. But that benefit covers only about 60 percent of the average cost of college, according to the College Board. And while the majority of active-duty troops sign up for the benefit, during the last decade just 8 percent of eligible veterans used their full benefit and 30 percent failed to use it at all.
Even officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs warn potential enlistees that money for tuition should not be their motive for joining the U.S armed forces. Their message may not be getting through, though, because military recruiters, who report to the Department of Defense, have a different agenda.
See: "What the Recruiter Never Told You - Your Guide to U.S. Military" http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/recruiter.htm Also see: "Education Benefits and Enlisted College/Commissioning Programs" http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/recruiter8.htm
Not even $11 grand for six years risking life and limb for the USA? With the cost of college tuition that's a rather paltry reward. Keep in mind this is from a pro-military expert, a veteran whose own daughters serve in the Air Force.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports: "[C]ritics of the GI Bill, including many veterans, say it does not come close to meeting the financial needs of the modern soldier, and the benefits are often difficult to obtain.... 'It's inadequate, and well short of what is needed to pay for the cost of education at a state institution,' says Steve Robertson, legislative-affairs director for the American Legion."
But misleading promises work because "'Students hear the amount, and it's a big number, and they can't imagine that it wouldn't pay the full amount,' says Phillip Gainous, principal of Montgomery Blair High School, in Silver Spring, Md., where the percentage of students who enlist in the armed services right after high school is 1.5 times as high as the county average. 'Their mindset is that it's nothing to worry about, that they'll have it covered by the time college comes around.'"
See: "Military recruiters promise 'money for college,' but recent veterans find that tuition benefits fall short" http://chronicle.com/free/v51/i36/36a03101.htm
QUOTE(ghostgovt @ Jun 28 2005, 04:30 AM)
apparently you must have something against freedom of choice. ya think?
Well, I'm glad you finally admitted to it.
It's deceitful to clip and paste just what agrees with your agenda. If a story says stuff you like and don't like why clip out the parts you don't like unless your case is so weak you got to deceive people to get your point across.
I hope some intelligent parents and school councilors inform those youth considering a military career, that they have the option to wait, oh say 4 years, before enlisting, when AWOL coke-sniffing Bush, "I have better things to do"Cheney, and the Marquis de Rumsfeld won't be in office. Why would any soldier,sailor,marine,guard or Air Force personnel want to serve under such dangerous idiots as the three I've mentioned baffles me. You can add pro-torture Attorney General Gonzales, and the nests of lying Neo-Cons like Wolfowitz and Pearl, cuz God knows what other wars those nuts are planning.
QUOTE(Marine @ Jun 28 2005, 07:07 AM)
Well, I'm glad you finally admitted to it.
It's deceitful to clip and paste just what agrees with your agenda. If a story says stuff you like and don't like why clip out the parts you don't like unless your case is so weak you got to deceive people to get your point across.
It's deceitful to clip and paste just what agrees with your agenda. If a story says stuff you like and don't like why clip out the parts you don't like unless your case is so weak you got to deceive people to get your point across.
Are you even on the same planet????
Suggestion. You should try reading your own words sometimes. The one thing I will admit to is how you are suffering from chronic board control and actually trying to make something out of nothing. My articles and clips here all pertain to the topic of this thread. The reason it may not seem to work well for you is probably because of your regularity with posting off topic often ... and subject matter that stays on topic may seem extremely strange to you.
I'll suggest again that for anyone who does not like what a certain thread has to offer, that they would be best to move on to the 'many' other threads available in this fine forum.
You have another nice cgcs day.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/06/319073.shtml
07.Jun.2005
A CALL AGAINST ARMS: RECRUITERS OUT IN FORCE AT ROSE FESTIVAL
author: James Gang
Military recruiters are out in force at the entrance to the Rose Festival where mostly young people and children gather to play in the fountain.
With military recruitment at an all time low, local recruiting offices are seeing an opportunity to recriut young people (mostly boys and young men) at the entrance to the Rose Festival via the Salmon Street Springs Fountain entrance. You have to walk past the military booths to get into the Rose Festival. In the time I was there, they lured young people over to the "chin-up bar" taunting those who did not answer their challenge to beat them in push ups, chin-ups, sit ups etc. showing videos etc and then they had them fill out "information requests" for info about the military, but I believe they were appointment schedules and the people filling them out were not aware of that fact. I did NOT see any parents around the young men filling out these "requests".
ROSE FESTIVAL SHOULD NOT BE A RECRUITING GROUND!!! PLEASE LET'S SEE A LITTLE BALANCE TO THESE LIES!
I would suggest a silent protest with pictures of the war dead to show both sides of war, not just the glory of enlistment. Don't forget, they fooled football star Pat Tilman, then lied to his parents about his death by friendly fire all for profit. I won't even go into the economic draft, stop loss, enlistment lies etc.
LET'S NOT LET THESE RECRUITERS GO UNCHALLENGED OR UNANSWERED! Especially since they strategically set up their booths at the one entrance where our recruitment aged young folks are going just to have some fun.
If you can't take a stand, try praying for rain, that might help slow them down a little, but if you are outraged about this, go down to Rose Festival and complain, organize a protest etc.
GET THE RECRUITERS OUT OF THE ROSE FESTIVAL AREA! LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD, CALL THE ROSE FESTIVAL OFFICE.
Organize a peaceful response to this attempt to steal the next generation.
SEND IN THE TWINS!!!
07.Jun.2005
A CALL AGAINST ARMS: RECRUITERS OUT IN FORCE AT ROSE FESTIVAL
author: James Gang
Military recruiters are out in force at the entrance to the Rose Festival where mostly young people and children gather to play in the fountain.
With military recruitment at an all time low, local recruiting offices are seeing an opportunity to recriut young people (mostly boys and young men) at the entrance to the Rose Festival via the Salmon Street Springs Fountain entrance. You have to walk past the military booths to get into the Rose Festival. In the time I was there, they lured young people over to the "chin-up bar" taunting those who did not answer their challenge to beat them in push ups, chin-ups, sit ups etc. showing videos etc and then they had them fill out "information requests" for info about the military, but I believe they were appointment schedules and the people filling them out were not aware of that fact. I did NOT see any parents around the young men filling out these "requests".
ROSE FESTIVAL SHOULD NOT BE A RECRUITING GROUND!!! PLEASE LET'S SEE A LITTLE BALANCE TO THESE LIES!
I would suggest a silent protest with pictures of the war dead to show both sides of war, not just the glory of enlistment. Don't forget, they fooled football star Pat Tilman, then lied to his parents about his death by friendly fire all for profit. I won't even go into the economic draft, stop loss, enlistment lies etc.
LET'S NOT LET THESE RECRUITERS GO UNCHALLENGED OR UNANSWERED! Especially since they strategically set up their booths at the one entrance where our recruitment aged young folks are going just to have some fun.
If you can't take a stand, try praying for rain, that might help slow them down a little, but if you are outraged about this, go down to Rose Festival and complain, organize a protest etc.
GET THE RECRUITERS OUT OF THE ROSE FESTIVAL AREA! LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD, CALL THE ROSE FESTIVAL OFFICE.
Organize a peaceful response to this attempt to steal the next generation.
SEND IN THE TWINS!!!
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=813575
Military Services Tap NASCAR Market
Jun 2, 2005 — Sr. Master Sgt. Thomas Kichline sees "a tremendous amount of similarities" between NASCAR and the Air Force. Both have high-powered vehicles run by highly efficient teams who can pack up and relocate in a hurry.
Hugely popular among young men, NASCAR has become a recruiting tool used by all the military services. The Air Force, Navy, Marines and Army all sponsor either Nextel Cup or Busch racing teams, blending in with the racing world's corporate staples of laundry detergents, cereals and beers. Ditto for the Coast Guard and Army National Guard.
They set up booths to reach and educate potential recruits and their "influencers," or parents and guardians, and often bring newcomers to the ranks to races.
"NASCAR, in general, is highly popular, and that's why all the miltary brands are involved," said Joe Nemechek, who drives the Army's No. 1 Chevrolet. "NASCAR fits their demographics."
The Army is the biggest spender, while the Marines have the longest stint as primary sponsor of a NASCAR team among the military services at six years. The Army spends $16 million a year on everything from its sponsorship of NASCAR and Nemechek's team to running an interactive area at races that draws 35,000-40,000 leads per year, according to Col. Thomas Nickerson, the Army's national advertising director.
It's not just business to Martha Nemechek, Joe's mother. The 65-year-old comes to his races decked out in Army combat fatigues adorned with "That's my boy, GI Joe" signs, patches given her by soldiers and a drill sergeant's hat.
Military Services Tap NASCAR Market
Jun 2, 2005 — Sr. Master Sgt. Thomas Kichline sees "a tremendous amount of similarities" between NASCAR and the Air Force. Both have high-powered vehicles run by highly efficient teams who can pack up and relocate in a hurry.
Hugely popular among young men, NASCAR has become a recruiting tool used by all the military services. The Air Force, Navy, Marines and Army all sponsor either Nextel Cup or Busch racing teams, blending in with the racing world's corporate staples of laundry detergents, cereals and beers. Ditto for the Coast Guard and Army National Guard.
They set up booths to reach and educate potential recruits and their "influencers," or parents and guardians, and often bring newcomers to the ranks to races.
"NASCAR, in general, is highly popular, and that's why all the miltary brands are involved," said Joe Nemechek, who drives the Army's No. 1 Chevrolet. "NASCAR fits their demographics."
The Army is the biggest spender, while the Marines have the longest stint as primary sponsor of a NASCAR team among the military services at six years. The Army spends $16 million a year on everything from its sponsorship of NASCAR and Nemechek's team to running an interactive area at races that draws 35,000-40,000 leads per year, according to Col. Thomas Nickerson, the Army's national advertising director.
It's not just business to Martha Nemechek, Joe's mother. The 65-year-old comes to his races decked out in Army combat fatigues adorned with "That's my boy, GI Joe" signs, patches given her by soldiers and a drill sergeant's hat.
We anti recruitment forces do not need to vilify military service to achieve the aim of giving Bush and his thugs fewer recruits, we should only ask young men and women to consider waiting to enlist, until Bush is out of office. We vilify Bush's incompetence, NOT military service. For young gays and lesbians the anti recruitment arguements are simpler, since we merely have to point out the military's hipocracy of NOT drumming out queers until AFTER they've left a war zone, but when they're wounded and broke that's when the compassionate military will (cheneying) dump them on over burdened Medical Assistance and city welfare programs.
QUOTE
we should only ask young men and women to consider waiting to enlist, until Bush is out of office.
Aren't you politicizing a personal decision?
Would you also agree then that it's ok for anti abortionists to stand outside of clinics and counsel young women that there are other choices?
I know! Apples and Oranges, but you see my point.
Aren't you politicizing a personal decision?
ABSOLUTELY, politics are personal, and it doesn't get much more personal than recruiters lying and using heavy handed tactics to get youth to fight and die for a needless war, run by incompetent leaders, who keep changing the reason for this war, first WMDs and immenient threat to the USA, then democracy for Iraqis, now it's the latest battelfield in the war on terrorism, all are (cheneying) lies!
As for anti abortion forces outside clinics, as long as they aren't impeding women from entering or threatening the phycisians and nurses, I have no problem with their demonstrations , that is as long as pro-choice demonstrtors can also be there, telling them to (cheney) off and keep their filthy laws off women's bodies!
I support more free speech not less, even when it's neo-nazis and klansmen at Gay Days at Dollywood, or Disney, or Fred Phelps at AIDS funerals.
btw. Last weekend, Phelp's klan just protested a STRAIGHT Wisconsin soldier's funeral,(killed in Iraq) saying the Iraq War was God's punishment against the USA's decadence....uh good luck with that publicity stunt Phelps, that's going to win you lots of straight supporters!
ABSOLUTELY, politics are personal, and it doesn't get much more personal than recruiters lying and using heavy handed tactics to get youth to fight and die for a needless war, run by incompetent leaders, who keep changing the reason for this war, first WMDs and immenient threat to the USA, then democracy for Iraqis, now it's the latest battelfield in the war on terrorism, all are (cheneying) lies!
As for anti abortion forces outside clinics, as long as they aren't impeding women from entering or threatening the phycisians and nurses, I have no problem with their demonstrations , that is as long as pro-choice demonstrtors can also be there, telling them to (cheney) off and keep their filthy laws off women's bodies!
I support more free speech not less, even when it's neo-nazis and klansmen at Gay Days at Dollywood, or Disney, or Fred Phelps at AIDS funerals.
btw. Last weekend, Phelp's klan just protested a STRAIGHT Wisconsin soldier's funeral,(killed in Iraq) saying the Iraq War was God's punishment against the USA's decadence....uh good luck with that publicity stunt Phelps, that's going to win you lots of straight supporters!
QUOTE
ABSOLUTELY, politics are personal
That's true, but your personal politics may not be theirs.
"That's true, but your personal politics may not be theirs. "
the optimum word was ASK young men and women to wait to enlist, they have freewill to decide, but someone needs to value their lives enough to at least ASK!
the optimum word was ASK young men and women to wait to enlist, they have freewill to decide, but someone needs to value their lives enough to at least ASK!
QUOTE(Sandra @ Jun 29 2005, 10:33 AM)
Can we agree that we need to do a better job of educating our own children about what it really means to join the military?
The military should not be seen as yet another social program (college education, travel around the world, sign up to receive a free X-Box, etc.)
The military should not be seen as yet another social program (college education, travel around the world, sign up to receive a free X-Box, etc.)
Exactly...
There is no problem for anyone who wishes to receive information from the many available counslers starting with high school to college levels. Everyone else can pick up a phone or ask any civil service office where they can find a recruiter's office or phone number to contact them by. All this extra hustling and baiting of young minds is totally wrong.
Upon anyone joining, and as I have previously stated, there should also be a (independent-non military agency) mandatory (many hrs) presentation (visual) of what wars does to ppl during and after the destruction and death that it brings. Also visually show prospect recruits our hospitals full of injured vets.... along well as the glorified GI benefits that sometimes fall short of some promised expectations. Nothing is 100% guaranteed and that should be stressed at all times!
I think Democrats should draft a bill wich causes would be recruits fo the Armed Forces to tour a Veterans Hospital with severe war injured patients and speak to widows/widowers of fallen soldiers for a 24 hour period, the same as women seeking an abortion are forced to view pro-life films and literature.
So that's what they meant: No Child Left Behind... 
I always wondered.
I always wondered.
QUOTE(underbear1 @ Jun 29 2005, 04:18 PM)
I think Democrats should draft a bill wich causes would be recruits fo the Armed Forces to tour a Veterans Hospital with severe war injured patients and speak to widows/widowers of fallen soldiers for a 24 hour period, the same as women seeking an abortion are forced to view pro-life films and literature.
I support this suggestion as well. It's time to stop painting rosey pictures when in fact real life produces bloody thorns that infects and kills.
Another interesting fact that comes into play with such recruiting tactics displays how the military now begins to load up it's ranks with more uncertain and unstable personnel. This seems to lend more to AWOLs and desertions. Recruiters give promises that only baits many into signing up without realizing what awaits them in reality. What new sign-ups must know, is once you take that oath, 'they' own you and it's on their ground rules and regulations (laws) that you shall do as you are ordered. Changing your mind is 99.9% not an option.
http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/051905_world_stories.shtml
The deserters: Awol crisis hits the US forces
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent
16 May 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...sp?story=638635
Campaigners say recruits who decide they want to leave the military are the most vulnerable to pressure from sergeants and officers who try to force them to stay. Some are told they will go to jail, others are told they will never be able to get a job if they receive a "less than honourable discharge", they say. They also face intense peer pressure and abuse, as they try to get out and after they manage to do so.
Campaigners have also drawn attention to the often scurrilous tactics used by US military recruiters, who for three months have failed to meet their targets for recruits. After several cases where recruiters had illegally covered up recruits' criminal and medical records, threatened one prospect with jail for failing to meet an appointment and provided another with laxatives to help him lose weight and pass a physical, the Pentagon is halting all recruiting on 20 May for a day of retraining.
JE McNeil, who heads the Centre for Conscience and War in Washington DC, a Christian group whose members also staff the GI Rights Hotline, said many troops she spoke with had been lied to by recruiters. "I had an 18-year-old who was told he did not have to serve in Iraq. 'I was told I'd get a job where I would not be sent', he told me," said Ms McNeill, a lawyer. "He was recruited to be an military policeman. They are the people they are sending to Iraq. People all the time are told [by recruiters] 'I can get you a job where you will not have to go to war'."
Mr Adler begged to be sent home and even pretended to be gay to be discharged. Eventually, he and another recruit fled in the night and rang the hotline, which advised him to turn himself in to avoid court-martial. He will now be given an "other than honourable discharge".
From southern Germany where he is on holiday before starting college in the autumn, Mr Adler told The Independent: "It was obviously a horrible experience but now I'm glad I went through it. I was expecting to meet a whole lot of different types of people; some had noble reasons. I also met a lot of people who [wanted] to kill Arabs." In one letter home to his family, Mr Adler wrote that when he arrived he was horrified by the things he heard other recruits talking about, things that in civilian life would result in someone being treated as an outcast. In another letter he said he could hear other recruits crying at night. "You can hear people trying to make sure no one hears them cry under their covers," he wrote.
Mr Adler now provides advice to other recruits who have decided the military is not for them. "When people contact me I tell them go Awol; it's the quickest way to get out," he said. "I was told I would be facing 20 years hard labour at Fort Leavenworth [military prison] because that is what the sergeant will tell you. I learnt that was not the case."
http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/051905_world_stories.shtml
The deserters: Awol crisis hits the US forces
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent
16 May 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...sp?story=638635
Campaigners say recruits who decide they want to leave the military are the most vulnerable to pressure from sergeants and officers who try to force them to stay. Some are told they will go to jail, others are told they will never be able to get a job if they receive a "less than honourable discharge", they say. They also face intense peer pressure and abuse, as they try to get out and after they manage to do so.
Campaigners have also drawn attention to the often scurrilous tactics used by US military recruiters, who for three months have failed to meet their targets for recruits. After several cases where recruiters had illegally covered up recruits' criminal and medical records, threatened one prospect with jail for failing to meet an appointment and provided another with laxatives to help him lose weight and pass a physical, the Pentagon is halting all recruiting on 20 May for a day of retraining.
JE McNeil, who heads the Centre for Conscience and War in Washington DC, a Christian group whose members also staff the GI Rights Hotline, said many troops she spoke with had been lied to by recruiters. "I had an 18-year-old who was told he did not have to serve in Iraq. 'I was told I'd get a job where I would not be sent', he told me," said Ms McNeill, a lawyer. "He was recruited to be an military policeman. They are the people they are sending to Iraq. People all the time are told [by recruiters] 'I can get you a job where you will not have to go to war'."
Mr Adler begged to be sent home and even pretended to be gay to be discharged. Eventually, he and another recruit fled in the night and rang the hotline, which advised him to turn himself in to avoid court-martial. He will now be given an "other than honourable discharge".
From southern Germany where he is on holiday before starting college in the autumn, Mr Adler told The Independent: "It was obviously a horrible experience but now I'm glad I went through it. I was expecting to meet a whole lot of different types of people; some had noble reasons. I also met a lot of people who [wanted] to kill Arabs." In one letter home to his family, Mr Adler wrote that when he arrived he was horrified by the things he heard other recruits talking about, things that in civilian life would result in someone being treated as an outcast. In another letter he said he could hear other recruits crying at night. "You can hear people trying to make sure no one hears them cry under their covers," he wrote.
Mr Adler now provides advice to other recruits who have decided the military is not for them. "When people contact me I tell them go Awol; it's the quickest way to get out," he said. "I was told I would be facing 20 years hard labour at Fort Leavenworth [military prison] because that is what the sergeant will tell you. I learnt that was not the case."
The military says it met its Army recruiting goals last month. But they didn't give details. I heard the other day that the military has adjusted its goals downward. That may be why they met the goal. Just another PR event to say things are rosier than they are.
QUOTE(Sandra @ Jun 30 2005, 09:33 AM)
Seems to me that should be considered a huge national security problem.
Not only that, but for those who can remain a little sane while pulling their time in the military, especially in combat zones, some of those cherry recruits around you can get a little scarier when they already were in their own hairy scary life and now they sport weapons, knives, and all sorts of ammo, salivating to kill something and get a little thrill from it ... and sometimes that someone just might become you. Take those with some mental problems, they do tend to snap quicker in combat situations. Been there, seen that. Not only that, when these folks returns home, they are nothing be a re-enforced destruction machine turned loose back into society. Don't let some of your friends play this factor down, because what they will say is "O that's only about 2% or 10% of those that this happens to and it's nothing to worry about." Well when you look at the overall amount of folks who makes it into combat over the years and back home, then what we may be looking at is 2%-10% of 500,000 or more who will be walking on the edge here back in society who sees nothing wrong with slicing and dicing a few bodies once in awhile not to mention some few disposed of 'friendlies' that they encountered during their combat gig.
National security problem? You bet your bippy it is.... and some.
QUOTE(heritage @ Jun 30 2005, 10:08 AM)
The military says it met its Army recruiting goals last month. But they didn't give details. I heard the other day that the military has adjusted its goals downward. That may be why they met the goal. Just another PR event to say things are rosier than they are.
Hey if anybody can play with the numbers more than anyone else, it's Politicians/CEOs and our Govt/Military hacks. We are in one HUGE plastic world with all of it's fake numbers!!
Below looks like the new revised primer for recruting practices as of June. It just makes your heart all fuzzy warm.
My own comments are added to each tactic listed inside the brackets [ ]http://www.erexchange.com/articles/db/D84F...82AB29A59DA.asp
U.S. Army Recruiting Needs Your Help!
Best recruiting practices that could help the military — or any organization
Monday, June 13, 2005 | by Dr. John Sullivan
In case you are unaware, the U.S. military in general — and the Army in particular — is having a great deal of difficulty in meeting its recruiting quotas. No matter what your position is on the issue of the military, I think we can all agree that a severe shortage in any one branch is certainly not good for the security of the country.
And that brings out the primary reason for this article. I believe, as professional recruiters, there is a role that we can play in helping the Army and the military better learn the latest recruiting strategies and tools. After reviewing their approach, their website and their strategy, it is clear to me that they could use some professional recruiting device.
So I'm calling on both corporate and third-party recruiters to contact their local recruiting center (they're listed in the yellow pages) or the Army recruiting command (its leaders can be found at this website) and offer your ideas and support.
* Take advantage of referrals.
Referrals are always the foundation for great recruiting results, but unfortunately the Army seems to under-utilize them. Current members of the military should be routinely approached and asked to provide names of relatives and friends who would make good soldiers. They should be encouraged to go through their address books for potential prospects.
[man, talk about stabbing a friend or relative in the back... trick them to sign up in this lie war to be killed or maimed]
* Focus on parents.
The current effort should be increased so that information is provided to parents with children of military age.
[ nothing too new here, trageting parnets has become more of the norm now, especially parents who are desperate and struggling themselves, can shovel their kids off to the military and be kept or sometimes those kids will send back home some money to help pay the family bills]
*Advertise in movie theaters.
Corporations have been advertising at the movies for years, and the Army should learn a lesson from them. These ads would be particularly effective right before action movies, which draw the type of people that army recruiters are trying to enlist. The same approach might work at movie rental outlets and services.
[ For sure, kids loves those actions flicks... and where else better to brainwash them about signing up in the military than when they go to those flicks about every weekend]
* Hire contract recruiters.
Rather than relying exclusively on military personnel, the services should consider using more temporary contract recruiting professionals to supplement their team until quota levels are reached.
[ There's a nice slick move.... get civilians to appraoch the kids too... it's like one of us that says it's the thing to do]
* Start earlier.
Recruiters would have a better chance of convincing individuals who are currently in school to join if they started earlier in their academic career. By starting on students in their sophomore or junior years in either high school or college,
[ In fact, I would not be surprised if some of this military advertising started in the 8th grade. I do know much younger are visted in classrooms by those in the uniform]
* Drop the recruiting center name.
Continue the process of changing the names of your recruiting centers located in malls and shopping centers to career centers. Also, begin to offer a wider range of services. By providing a wider range of career services, the military will attract some individuals who might not have even considered the military.
[ Sounds like camouflage to me. Lets kind of look like something or someplace else]
* Deemphasize sign-on bonuses.
The current approach of offering bonuses of up to $40,000 is expensive — and it's the wrong way to attract the best people. Bonuses can backfire and actually cause people to delay joining until they think the bonuses have reached their maximum.
[ Maybe they are now also being found about not being able to pay out all that bonus money... and or, however it is stated in the fine print for dispersement that could cause some problems later on]
* Focus on employment branding.
The military has done a horrible job in branding itself as an excellent place to work. A major effort should be undertaken to demonstrate the great management and business processes within the military, as well as how the benefits compare to private, award-winning firms.
[ more camoufage I'd say]
* CEO testimonials on "how it really helped me."
Have high-level, successful businesspeople like CEOs provide testimonials on how the military helped prepare them for an executive career and how their companies target ex-military professionals for hiring. Well-known diverse individuals can also be utilized to give testimonials, and having sexy Hollywood types say how "sexy" soldiers look in uniform will certainly get a lot of press attention.
[ More the same camouflage of using those in civilain life who are now bonified crooks (not all) and liars stealing big monies via their corporation. Still, very attrative to young minds who has nothing but money and sex (of which is normal) on their minds. Then to have the looks of wearing that uniform, and what it brings to you in life. Yeah... watch what happens when a lie war turns your military image into crap.]
* Boomerangs.
Develop a "revisit team" that specifically targets people who dropped out at the last step. In addition, just as corporations have boomerang program to recruit former employees, the military should reinvigorate its efforts to reenlist individuals who have been out of the military for one to five years.
[ Nothing like hounding ppl into submission]
Other miscellaneous suggestions include:
* Concentrate your recruiters in areas with the highest success rates.
* Develop and utilize a professional "closing team" with experts on closing the deal with reluctant recruits.
* Ask new recruits on the first day which recruiting practices and approaches worked and which didn't.
* Encourage recruiters to take sales and closing courses.
* Place ads in newspaper sports sections and other areas that teens read.
* Give every recruiter a subscription to ERE.
* Involve military suppliers and contractors in the recruiting process.
* Recruit at flight schools and gun clubs.
* Recruit sports teams to join together.
* Utilize video games as recruiting tools. Encourage companies to place reminders in their war and action games.
* Provide a video streaming "day in the life" of a soldier on the website in order to show what an average day looks like.
* Reward candidates for attending an interview and change interview times and locations to better fit their needs.
* Encourage ministers to help refer members.
[ I could respond to most of these listed above, but the last one is one that is so very important to notice which is covered up by the religious community. As church and state has joined hands, while they support their big business interests via BushCo, do understand that church has played a huge role in politics and military actions. I'm sure a many of a teen has been lured into signing up via the church.]
"Well-known diverse individuals can also be utilized to give testimonials, and having sexy Hollywood types say how "sexy" soldiers look in uniform will certainly get a lot of press attention."
Even though they don't want openly gay/lesbians in the Armed Forces, we could do our part to aid in the diverse hollywood types mentioning how terrific the people in uniforms look. We are also unsurpassed in advertising and knowing fashion.
Can't you just see Ellen saying how sexy a woman in a uniform is, or the queer eye guys modeling the new and improved uniforms, that show a man to the height of sexual attractiveness.
Maybe the cast of the L-Word could calm the anxiety of men leaving their wives and girlfriends at home, they could say,"we'll keep an eye on them and comfort their loneliness."
Even though they don't want openly gay/lesbians in the Armed Forces, we could do our part to aid in the diverse hollywood types mentioning how terrific the people in uniforms look. We are also unsurpassed in advertising and knowing fashion.
Can't you just see Ellen saying how sexy a woman in a uniform is, or the queer eye guys modeling the new and improved uniforms, that show a man to the height of sexual attractiveness.
Maybe the cast of the L-Word could calm the anxiety of men leaving their wives and girlfriends at home, they could say,"we'll keep an eye on them and comfort their loneliness."
QUOTE(ghostgovt @ Jun 30 2005, 10:32 AM)
Another interesting fact that comes into play with such recruiting tactics displays how the military now begins to load up it's ranks with more uncertain and unstable personnel. This seems to lend more to AWOLs and desertions. Recruiters give promises that only baits many into signing up without realizing what awaits them in reality. What new sign-ups must know, is once you take that oath, 'they' own you and it's on their ground rules and regulations (laws) that you shall do as you are ordered. Changing your mind is 99.9% not an option.
An excerpt from the article:
QUOTE
The Pentagon says it does not keep records of how many try to desert each year. A spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke, said the running rally had declined since 9/11 from 8,396 to the present total of 5,133.
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