military recruiters protested in Eureka, Ca.

You claim you are against a draft, yet you try to shut down recruitment centers were people voluntarily join the military.

Seems a bit hypocritical and ignorant.

as one of the protestors at the recruitment center, and being one of the youths to walk out of arcata high, i will explain to you the "hypocrytical" nature of those of also oppose the draft. Arcata is #1 on the priority list for Air Force recruitment, for Humboldt County. And yes, recruitment is a volunteer service, but what recruiters do is lie about benefits, risks, and other factors that change people's minds. Basically, they lie to my peers to get them to die for an illegal war. If they were obligated under law to tell the truth, and did so, i would have no problem with it. But they are not, so many people are not volunteering for the reasons all of you gung-ho war lovers like to think they are. They are getting swindled and losing their lives and livelihoods in the process.

let us help the young to see evil.

let us rescue them from the devil's handmaiden.

let us let them see a war of aggression

let us teach them of international law

let us teach them about nuremberg

let us show them the geneva conventions

let us show them a va hospital, full of dirt and neglect

let us show them how the pentagon will betray them

how they will be thrown away

don't let bush cross the rubicon

if he does the republic will fall

let them see that the enemy is bush and his victims our friends

First, the recruiters are not cowaring behind those doors! They are laughing at you. They will continue to make phone calls or just take a break and resume when you finish your protest. Once you step foot in the office you would be arrested, so what did you accomplish? NOTHING!!

I wish you would protest all recruiting stations and give the recruiters a break because most would like nothing more. I could not care if you persuaded evey person not to join, that way we could start the draft earlier. This way recruiters can just pick you up at your house with a police officer in tow.

Keep the protests alive, the less people that volunteer the quicker a draft will come about

great work. Here in Lansing, MI we are handing out anti-military recruiting zines called Through The Wire, to high schoolers. feel free to use them if you like.

they can be found at http://www.direct-action.net

Great work guys. Another example of liberals too caught up with protesting anything and everything they despise, so that they end up actually working AGAINST their efforts. Let people volunteer to military service! If protesters reduce the numbers of volunteers for the miltiary, guess what? YOU will be sent to boot camp and then to Iraq, forced by the draft.

Is that what you want? Do you want the draft? DO YOU WANT TO GO TO IRAQ? Hell no! So stop protesting recruitment centers!

"YOU will be sent to boot camp and then to Iraq, forced by the draft. "

The US public would never supporta Draft so if recruitment wont work the war will end. Its becoming increasingly clear that the US is stuck in a quagmire where even the new government of Iraq wants the US out as soon as possible (it was one of the things the UIA ran on during the election). If the US left Iraq tomorrow violence would drop and all the fears of civil war and the like would be revealed to be scare tactics used to justify a failed policy.

right now, the urgent necessity is to make the occupation of Iraq, and possible future attacks on Iran, North Korea and Venezuela impossible by starving the military of the people that it needs to carry out these actions

preemptive wars cannot be fought in the absence of the people to fight them

as for the draft, when it is proposed, we should oppose it even more vigorously, and exploit the opportunity to expose the fraudulent nature of the US political system when it is proposed with bipartisan support

if a draft is implemented, you will see the emergence of a movement to disrupt it and assist draftees, a movement that will approach the underground railroad of the 1840s and 1850s in scope

--Richard

"The US public would never supporta Draft"

The US public doesnt have to support a draft, hence the name, DRAFT.

to you who poo-poo the protest against poopy-heads:
Military recruiters are anabling war criminals and fooling innocents into becoming war criminals. What they are doing is technically illegal and OBVIOUSLY WRONG.
As for the draft, it's already here. You can go to jail for almost anything at almost anytime, and from there you can be put into a very compromising positition: a year in the war or ten years behind bars.
think about it.

If you oppose the U.S. Empire, you oppose all recruitment into the U.S. military, regardless of the combination of lies, bribes and coercion used to achieve it.

That means that you oppose the draft, you oppose better pay and benefits for soldiers, and you oppose any special treatment favoring veterans. (Disabled veterans, for instance, should get the same medical and other benefits that all disabled people get, and no more!) You also expose the lies and manipulations that are used to get young people to "voluntarily" enlist.

Also, there is no "right" for anyone to enlist in the U.S. military any more than there is a "right" for anyone to enlist in the Mafia! Both are ongoing criminal enterprises, the main difference being in the scale of their crimes.

Jack Dung said,
"a year in the war or ten years behind bars.
think about it."
What are you talking about? Think about what, how stupid a statement that was? What makes you think any branch of service would accept an applicant that is facing ten years of jail time, or any jail time at all? Also, why dont you provide proof for military recruitment being "technically illegal". Maybe you and Aarons Aarons should get together and try to come up with rational arguments instead of spouting off opinions as if they were truth.

Recruiting Teenagers as War Fodder
Sign Here, Kid

He trolled for teenagers in North Carolina high schools, barked orders at recruits in boot camp, and pulled charred civilian corpses out of cars in Iraq. Now Jimmy Massey is making good on his promise to tell the whole world what he learned as a Marine.

For the first 10 years, Massey loved being in the USMC. With a quick mind and an easy manner, he and his superiors knew he'd make a great recruiter. And by the luck of the draw, he was assigned to the area around Asheville, N.C., not far from where he grew up.

"It was an advantage being a recruiter in this area. I understand the mentality of mountain people. When we'd talk about topics like the economy and industry around here, I knew what people were talking about. And too, people here usually don't open up to strangers."

Contrary to what some believe, Marine Corps recruiters don't get paid commission for going over quota, the 32-year-old former staff sergeant explained. "My monthly quota was three in the summer and two in the winter. You could get five one month but still go from hero to zero next month when you started over again."

Recruiters are, however, "one of only three Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) in the Marines that get Special Duty Assignment (SDA) pay ­ an extra $475 a month when I was in ­ to offset the higher cost of living when you're a recruiter," he said. "An E-5 recruiter would make about $1,500 every two weeks including SDA pay. But being a recruiter is expensive. There's extra costs. When you're a recruiter, you've got to play the part."

Bling, Promises, and the "Moment of Truth"

"For example, you have to have a nice car ­ you can't go rolling down the street in some old family wagon. You can't be sittin' there talking to a kid about financial stability and driving an old Ford Ranger. That just don't get it!" He said he drove a Mustang for his personal car, and Army recruiters he knew drove "decked-out Expeditions with 20-inch rims. You have to have a little 'bling' [gold, jewelry, etc.] on you that kind of thing. I made sure I always dressed nice when I was off duty. You gotta play the part. Young kids are really materialistic minded."

Then there's the everyday expenses of recruiting, "like taking a guy to Hooters for some wings. The government gives me a credit card, but it's in my name and the bill comes to me. I have to pay it and then get reimbursed."

Often the biggest enticement a recruiter can offer young men and women trying to escape poverty is the promise of job training, even more appealing when it's for a MOS in data systems, aircraft electronics, aircraft crew chief, or other sought-after specialties. But as Massey acknowledged, "The Marine Corps can guarantee you a job all day long, but that doesn't mean you're going to actually get it."

A common way to swindle recruits out of promised jobs is the "Moment of Truth" exercise in boot camp. New recruits are taken to a room where their DI (drill instructor) tells them to "really think about it" and see if they've lied while enlisting or filling out their application.

"They'll ask the recruits if they lied about things like ever having smoked grass, or maybe how many times they've smoked, and ask them to raise their hand if they've lied any time in the recruiting process," Massey said. When the hands go up, the DI looks at them and says, "Listen. This is what's gonna happen now. You lied to us. You can either quit in disgrace now, or since you signed a contract to be a Marine, you can stay in, but we're not going to let you have the job you asked for."

"Investigations" and Private Eyes

"There's a whole network within the community to enable recruiters to make their quotas ­ the sheriff's department, police department, schools all the way up to the local congressional office."

Massey recalled that at one point, "There was a congressional investigation brought up against me. I enlisted someone who was handicapped. I should have been in deep sh*t, but the Marine Corps swept it under the rug by stating that the kid had fraudulently enlisted. I got a call from Congressman Charles Taylor congratulating me on the work I had been doing, and he sent me an autographed picture."

"A recruiter is like a private eye," Massey said. "They know everything about the kids they're recruiting."

For example, he learned the names of virtually every graduating high school senior in his seven-county district ­ about 1,000 youngsters annually in that largely rural area.

And high school students weren't the only people he got to know well. "We knew the names of the district attorneys [DAs] in every county and went to them to get certain charges reduced or dismissed on kids we were recruiting. We took flowers to the secretaries in the clerk of courts offices. The clerk of courts can make a lot of things appear and disappear. We got to know people working in hospital medical records so we could check out, say, if a certain kid had asthma or not. We'd ask other kids 'what about Johnny Smith?' to find out if he had problems or if he might be interested."

He explained the Marines' Systematic Recruiting method that includes use of a working file of Prospective Applicant Cards on which information is routinely entered. "I'd put all the information down that I knew maybe Johnny Smith had some problems with the law. That's when I'd go to the DA and ask if Johnny was salvageable. If he was, I'd tell the DA, 'well, I talked with Johnny and he's thinking of going into the Marine Corps.' More likely than not the response I got would be, 'Oh yeah? Well, that's just great!'"

Massey said three years as a recruiter taught him "the power of the English language."

"One way we used it was to identify 'tangible and intangible traits' in applicants. We would use cards with words printed on them, like 'self confidence,' or 'financial security' and ask an applicant to pick ones they were concerned about. That way, if a kid picks 'self confidence,' he's telling you he feels like he's lacking in self confidence and you can work him from that angle."

For potential recruits with a record of criminal convictions, Massey pointed out that, "Anything is pretty much waivable in the Marine Corps ­ even up to one felony."

Potentially life-threatening medical conditions were also waivable, according to Massey. "Johnny might come to see me his senior year and say, 'Sarge, I'm wondering if I might have something that might disqualify me I've got asthma.'"

"I'd ask him if he uses an inhaler. If he answered 'yes,' I'd tell him that if he controlled it with an inhaler then he really didn't have asthma. Then I'd tell him to give me 10 pushups. If he did that with no trouble, I'd say, 'See, you don't have asthma!'"

He described his time as a recruiter as progressively more and more difficult. By his last year at it, 2002, he was "tired of lying. I felt like I was close to a nervous breakdown from the stress. I started seeing a psychiatrist, was diagnosed with major depression and put on medication for it. I wrote a letter to my commanding officer about how Marine Corps recruiting should be changed to be more ethical. The Recruiter Instructor they sent out to monitor my efforts ended up telling me he thought it was one of the best statements anyone had ever written about recruiting practices."

Massey decided to quit being a recruiter but also to reenlist to get back to "the regular Marine Corps duty" he enjoyed. Leaving behind the deceit and stress of recruiting made him feel much better ­ "good enough to get off anti-depressants." But soon he got orders to northern Kuwait and within two months was invading Iraq with 130,000 other U.S. troops.

"We Just Lit 'Em Up"

As he made his way north toward Baghdad, through the towns of Safwan and Basra, "our main job was to set up roadblocks. We had permission to fire on anyone who got through them."

It was this experience, barely an instant compared with his dozen years in the Marines, that showed him a side of the military he'd not seen as an instructor at Parris Island or a recruiter.

"In one 48-hour period, we killed over 30 civilians in vehicles that got past our roadblocks. We just lit 'em up with gunfire. But when we went to pull the charred corpses out of the cars we never found any weapons. They were just civilians. I could start feeling the depression come back. I knew what it was from."

In a meeting one day, his lieutenant asked him if he was feeling OK. Massey replied no, and told the lieutenant that "we're committing genocide and leaving enough depleted uranium around to continue genocidal activity for a long time."

"Do you really believe that?" the lieutenant asked.

"Yes," replied Massey, "or I wouldn't have said it."

"I knew my career in the Marine Corps was over at that point," he added.

Sent back to the States for medical reasons, Massey returned to the Marine base at 29 Palms, Calif., and was told to report to the mental health clinic. There, the first psychiatrist he spoke with told him, "I don't deal with conscientious objectors [COs]."

"I knew right away we were going to have a problem," Massey said, "because my response to her was, 'Well, if you call not wanting to kill innocent civilians being a CO' and she came back with, 'Need I remind you that you are still in the military?'"

Refusing to back down, Massey retorted, "Woman, this isn't my military because the Marine Corps I enlisted in was run by the Geneva Conventions. We didn't kill civilians, and we damn sure didn't cover it up."

Later, in a meeting with a senior non-commissioned officer (NCO), he was asked, "What's wrong?" But when Massey responded, the NCO interrupted him so he could open a desk drawer and turn on a tape recorder. Massey told the NCO he knew he was soon on his way out of the Marines, and told him, "I don't want your money. I don't want your benefits nothin'! Not with what y'all did over there in Iraq killing civilians."

Massey said he knew he would need an attorney before talking with his superiors again, so he located one in a copy of the Marine Corps Times. "Next meeting I had with the psychiatrist, my attorney talked with her on the phone. She was completely different when she got off the phone with him."

Asked what advice he would give to a teenager thinking of visiting a military recruiter, Massey thought a moment and answered, "Take a veteran with you to the recruiter. We're never going to stop that one kid bound and determined to play Rambo, but getting the facts out, educating kids on what really goes on is important. That's why I keep speaking out."

Indeed, Massey put the Marines on notice just before he left. He informed a colonel, "The moment I get out of here I'm going to tell the whole world what I've learned."

Mike Ferner is a member of Veterans for Peace from Toledo, Ohio. He returned from a second trip to Iraq earlier this year. He can be reached at: mike.ferner (at) sbcglobal.net

The American public wont support a draft? Did the American public not just vote a republican into office or was that flawed too? Hey buddy, when your done crying about how America doesn't support this war, why don't you take a look around and see how many Americans do support the war.

I'm looking foroward to debating your false beliefs.

Yes, people are recruited into the military out of prisons, and it's nothing new.
"anonymous" warmonger asks about legality of military recruiting: response: the war is illegal in the eyes of international law, and it is illegal to help criminals commit their crimes. Any questions?

No, people are not recruited out of prisons to serve in the military, if this were fact the Army and Marines wouldnt be hurting right now. Even the Army(which has the lowest standards for entrance) does have standards. I would like to see some proof of your assertions on this matter.
So anyone that questions your ignorant comments is a "warmonger"? What comment in my last post was pro-war? People like you are the reason the left is going down in flames. Also, your rational for military recruitment being illegal is exactly what I expected, more stupidity.

During Vietnam, many were offered to go to Vietnam rather than serve time---they probably weren't recruited stratight out of prison, but were certainly coerced by being able to avoid prison. They would make that part of a plea agreement.

I know that happened during Vietnam, nearly 40 years ago. However, simpleton Jack Dung is stating it as a current fact. Come on Jack, proove it. I'm looking forward to your response, it should be quite interesting.