This isn't necessarily news, but nearly two-thirds of Army recruits in 2004 came from counties in which median household income is below the U.S. median. Forty-four percent came from rural areas, forty percent from the South, 20 percent from the West. These people are dying to get out, and willing to risk dying if that's their ticket to escape.
Read today's Washington Post article and you don't get the impression these recruits are stupid. They know the score. They're not brimming with patriotism, although they're patriotic enough. Mostly they're just stuck, with no money for college and home towns with nothing to offer beyond climbing the ladder into a fast food managerial position. The military provides money, a way to college if they choose, and/or the chance for a life-long career that people respect.
They could get their heads blown off in Iraq, but if they don't, the military will give them a big step up in life. They fantasize about seeing the world, flying jets. In a few months they may be seeing Iraq, which is part of the world, and in a few years they may be completely disillusioned with the military — but they're already disillusioned with life in general.
It's easy to sit back with an education and work that requires mostly sitting on your ass and think that these people are blinded by the patriotic words of Republicans who want to chew them up and spit them out as part of their war machine. But someone has to make up our military. Someone has to be willing to go and fight. I'm not planning on doing it. You're not planning on doing it (are you?).
For those of us who don't plan to pick up a gun, the best we can do is continually question why these rural recruits looking for a way out are being sent off to war, to continually say we don't want them to die, even if we've never known them or even known anyone that knows them. We have to continually pressure the leaders in this country to think very long and very hard before committing troops, and to be very sure they are doing it for the right reasons.
Article comments
1 - tommyd
There's nothing wrong with the soldiers who sign up for military service....they are to be commended for their willigness to serve the country and better themselves and their prospects for a fulfilling life.
The problem is the sinister politicians who use the goodwill service of the enlisted for nefarious and illegal adventures, such as the War on Iraq. To the corrupted warmongering coporate bought politician, a GI is akin to a pawn on a chessboard....expendable and quickly forgotten in the quest for gold. The same politicians also destroyed the working class in middle America by allowing their corporate buddies to ship millions of manufacturing jobs to China, creating very little opportunities for midwestern boys after high school or college. So naturally, these guys are going to gravitate towards the military.....they're the only ones hiring these days!
It's so sickening.