From: psytrancekid@yahoo.co.uk 
  
       Deceptions in Military Recruiting: 
       An ex-Insider Speaks Out 
  
       By: Chris White - 01/06/03 
  
       The points in this essay concerning the dark side of military 
 recruiting largely inform my decision to work incessantly to dissuade young 
 men and women from enlisting. My primary audience is every U.S. citizens 
 because it is necessary that as many people as possible understand the 
 manipulation used by the military to lure young Americans. It is important 
 to question the notion that the all-volunteer military is truly made up of 
 volunteers. If one is lied to about a profession by the people who convinced 
 them to join that profession, then is the person who was lied to a volunteer 
 in the clearest sense of the word? My research has led me to forsake the 
 ideology of "once a Marine, always a Marine", that imposes on us to refer to 
 ourselves as "former Marines" and never "ex-Marines". I condemn my past 
 Marine identity, and therefore, I proudly call myself an "ex-Marine" who is 
 against any offensive use of the U.S. military. 
  
       I am not against the men and women serving in the military per se; I 
 am against the way in which they are used by the government to promote the 
 interests of its richest constituents. My doctoral research on U.S. foreign 
 policy also convinces me that when viewed through the lens of the deceptive 
 process of military recruiting, our actions abroad are further exposed as 
 corruptly violent. Furthermore, I have learned that rarely has our military 
 been used for national defense in its 228-year history. We can remember the 
 War of 1812 and WWII as possibly the only national defense wars, but mostly 
 poor young men and women, for the cause of defending the interests of the 
 rich and the politicians, have fought hundreds of other engagements both 
 here and abroad. Every service member contributes their share, which is why 
 I work hard to dissuade anyone from joining the military. 
  
       The Bush administration's justification for waging war on Iraq is 
 permeated by a fleet of hypocritical holes. From the absence of proof, to 
 the double standards, to the erasure of history in public discussions, to 
 all of the other deceitful practices that support the military industrial 
 complex, it is clear that those who favor peace are up against a 
 simultaneously powerful and tenuous force. The force is powerful because it 
 has monetary and physical strength as well as the media to maintain power 
 over the masses. Yet, the grip of the warmongers is tenuous as long as there 
 are those who will speak out to expose the hypocrisies and lies that 
 legitimize their rule in the first place. 
  
       Military recruiters are the first line of offense in this machinery 
 that serves the interests of the power elite at the expense of the less 
 fortunate. Recruiters creep into the civilian world touting slogans to make 
 an otherwise dismal job seem appealing. Their training is largely oriented 
 toward marketing and sales techniques: on the first day at recruiting 
 school, a recruiter friend of mine was told to come up with a gimmick for 
 selling a pen. What business does the military have teaching recruiters to 
 sell anything? Are the lives of America's youth just another commodity for 
 the government to exploit? If the war is justified, then why do recruiters 
 have to exist at all? Why do they even have to sell the military to young 
 people? Why do they have to use manipulative sales techniques to convince 
 young, uneducated minds to carry out the dirty work of war? As an assistant 
 recruiter, I witnessed first hand how recruiters manipulate the poor and 
 young into fighting for the rich! 
  
       First, recruiters have every incentive to be dishonest. Speaking for 
 the Marine Corps only, recruiters have monthly quotas and, once filled, they 
 can slack off for the rest of the month. However, the more people they sign 
 up, the better their chances for promotion. Therefore, the incentive for 
 dishonesty is high indeed. Recruiters lie about college benefits, duty 
 station assignments, veterans' benefits, and countless other aspects of the 
 military in order to convince their clients to sign. Once you are in boot 
 camp, it is too late to change anything. 
  
       How do they lie about college benefits? They fail to tell you that you 
 must pay 1200 dollars in your first year of the military in order to get the 
 G.I. Bill, which is quite a chunk of money when your salary is only 700/mo. 
 You will be lucky if you get your monthly G.I. Bill check in your first 
 three months of college anyway, as the bureaucracy is so inept that you had 
 better hope to have enough money saved up before you arrive. Another point 
 recruiters leave out is that most students who are independent and over 25, 
 civilians and veterans alike, are eligible for enormous amounts of financial 
 aid anyway. That is, unless you already receive the G.I. Bill. 
  
       Wait a minute. Back up. So, if I earned the G.I. Bill for serving "my 
 country", then I may not be eligible for any financial aid? Yep, ask any 
 veteran over 25 working in college, and they will tell you that the 
 financial aid office determines one's eligibility for grants and fellowships 
 (free money) according to one's income, and then deletes one's income from 
 the amount of aid one is eligible for. Therefore, if one were eligible for 
 9,000 dollars in grants, but received 9,000 from the G.I. Bill, well, one 
 gets no grants. One can get loans though. All the loans one desires. This 
 may seem like a petty argument, but remember, recruiters use the G.I. Bill 
 to lure civilians into joining the military. So, if the G.I. Bill is not 
 necessarily a benefit, then why should one join for the college money? 
  
       How do recruiters lie about duty station assignments? Recruiters tell 
 potential reservists that they can go to college and serve one weekend a 
 month, with very little chance of being called back to active duty. However, 
 the current administration wants to call up to 300,000 reservists to the 
 Gulf alone. I can further illustrate this with the story of my neighbor's 
 daughter who had considered joining the National Guard. As an incentive to 
 get her to sign, her recruiter told her that she would be stationed in 
 Kansas, but luckily, I persuaded her not to join. Her friend was not so 
 lucky. Shortly after joining the Guard, he was called to active duty and 
 sent to Bosnia for two years. Thousands of National Guard and other 
 reservists have been called back to active duty since 9/11, and thousands 
 more will still be called to go to Iraq. 
  
       How do recruiters deceive us about veterans' benefits? I can use VA 
 medical facilities if I want to wait five months for an appointment, but my 
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)