A friend of mine just watched her oldest son ship off to Iraq. Her emotions over seeing him leave run the gamut from pride to fear to anger. I admire her courage.
Prior to his departure, the two of them went to a tattoo parlor. Now S is not exactly the ink and piercing type, so a tattoo is very much out of character. On her left shoulder, she got inked with “Proud Mother of a Marine.” His ink was the U.S.M.C. logo.
S has opposed the Iraq war from the start. Her husband ran for the Georgia Senate as a Democrat in 2004, narrowly losing to a well-funded Gingrich clone. Her son L was the victim of predatory recruiting. The dissonance of risking her son to Bush’s war crime in Mesopotamia is wrenching, but she is doing her best to support her son.
S has every reason to be angry. Her son is 21 and has struggled to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Two years ago, he was taking classes at the local community college when he got a call from a Marine recruiter. The recruiter had a wealth of personal information about this young man, including his name, address, cell phone number, and high school grades and activities. The pitch began with an invitation to have a cup of coffee. During that meeting the recruiter learned that L was considering law enforcement as a career.
Over several weeks, the recruiter maintained frequent contact, but steered clear of the house and home phone. S had signed the opt-out forms prohibiting disclosure of personal information to military recruiters during L’s junior and senior years. I have to wonder if the recruiter knew to keep a very low profile around a potentially troublesome parent because of those opt-out forms.
The recruiter hooked L using seductive, but misleading promises. He was told that police departments around the country are clamoring for individuals with military police experience. Understandably, the subject of Iraq came up. The recruiter said not to worry; he could request assignment to guard U.S. embassies around the world. The closing punch was to ask about the classes he was taking at the community college. As a freshman, he was obviously taking introductory English, math and science classes that would transfer to a four-year college. The recruiter pointedly asked him if he felt the course material was relevant to law enforcement. In the Marines, he would be given military police training after he completed basic training.
Although S did everything in her power (you will have to take my word that she is a very passionate and persuasive individual), L enlisted with the Marines. Of course, none of the seductive reassurances given by the recruiter proved to be true. After basic training, L did not receive law enforcement training and assignment to a military police unit. Instead, he was trained for an IED detection and demolition unit. I suppose in some perverse universe that training might be valuable if you want to eventually join the bomb squad of a local or federal law enforcement agency.
As an aside, L is not exactly the macho type. He is tall and stick thin. He lacks upper body strength and had trouble passing the basic training chin-up requirement. It took several additional months at Parris Island for him to finally pass the physical requirements and earn his stripes. L has always been the emotionally sensitive type. The last thing I ever envisioned him to be was a Marine.
Now, L is in Iraq as a fresh cog in the Bush meat grinder. S is left holding her breath, trying to think about anything else but what her son will face on the streets around Baghdad. Her opposition to the war has been replaced by constant hope that it will end before her precious son is harmed psychologically or physically by the senseless violence. I try to imagine being in her place, but it is incomprehensible on some level. My son is 18 and I would be one anxious and angry son of a bitch if he were caught up in this insanity.
My nephew just graduated from high school and started taking classes at a local community college. He too was called out of the blue by a Marine recruiter. What I find disturbing are the similarities to L's experiences. Bear in mind that my nephew lives in Northern Virginia and L grew up in the Atlanta area, so I doubt chance as an explanation for the similarities. My sister signed the opt-out forms that prevent disclosure of personal information of a secondary school student to military recruiters. Within a month of starting classes at the community college, the recruiter showed up. He knew too much. He had all the personal contact information and academic experiences. He knew my nephew lettered in track and cross-country for four years. The story has a different outcome. My nephew has a habit of tossing everything on the kitchen table when he comes home. My sister saw the slick pamphlet from the Marines and confronted him. She all but threatened to disown him if he enlisted without discussing it with her first. As she put it, "I don't have the emotional bandwidth for this crap."
I am sure it was pure coincidence that the Republicans cooked up No Child Left Behind as one of the first legislative initiatives of the Bush administration. I would have to be wearing a tinfoil hat to think they created the provision to require secondary schools to disclose personal information to recruiters because of anticipated demand. After all, NCLB was passed in the House on May 23, 2001, well before the "war on terror." It is not like they could have anticipated needing so many recruits to fight protracted wars under the inexpert guidance of Lord Rumsfeld.
Here are the relevant passages on disclosure in the N.C.L.B. act of the 2001.
(1) ACCESS TO STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION- Notwithstanding section 444(a)(5)(B) of the General Education Provisions Act and except as provided in paragraph (2), each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings.
(2) CONSENT- A secondary school student or the parent of the student may request that the student's name, address, and telephone listing described in paragraph (1) not be released without prior written parental consent, and the local educational agency or private school shall notify parents of the option to make a request and shall comply with any request.
It is unclear is what happens after graduation to the personal information of students that have been opted out of disclosure. I also wonder if recruiters are specifically targeting students that do not have the grades or financial resources to attend a four year university. Certainly students attending a community college are likely to fall into one or both of those categories. Is the personal information being released from the community college, from the secondary school after graduation, or both, even for those students that were opted out of disclosure to recruiters while attending high school?
Update: Just to be clear. I come from a military family and respect those who serve in uniform. My concern is about the need for slick marketing and questionable recruiting tactics. I have no respect for civilian leaders that dishonor the service and sacrifice of military personnel by putting them in harm's way for anything but unequivocal necessity.