Soldier who got parents' OK to enlist at 17 killed in Iraq

[TransitJohn]

Source: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune

Soldier who got parents' OK to enlist at 17 killed in Iraq

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. - A teen who got his parents' permission to join the Army at 17 has been killed in the blast of an improvised explosive device in Iraq.

Pfc. Christopher D. Kube, 18, of Macomb County's Shelby Township died Saturday in Baghdad. He was one of two Michigan soldiers reported killed in Iraq last week.

Kube was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Carson, Colo., the Defense Department said.

"He volunteered for that mission," his mother, Debbie Krupski, said Monday from the family's home, about 15 miles north of Detroit. "My son wasn't even supposed to be there."

Kube was a gunner and the only soldier killed in the explosion, Krupski told The Detroit News.

Read more: http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/07/17/ap-state-wy/d8qe4cp00.txt

[saigon68]

1. Another useless death

For Halliburton Corporate profits

[corbett]

34. Exactly Right

And doubly sad because he was unusually young.

Out of Iraq!

[tom_paine]

41. Tragic and true. What a waste of a promising young life.

n/t

[zanne]

2. That's just so frigging sad. nt

[cboy4]

3. I know these soldiers dying are 18, but it still seems like

child abuse to me.

And who would send their kid off to Iraq at 17?

:(

[jelly]

5. You got it. The American media pounces on stories

about kids taking up arms in the middle east and Africa, but how is this any different? I think about me at 17/18 -- I was still a baby for crying out loud, so naive. Not much different than when I was, say, 14. As usual, hypocrisy and double standards rule the day.

[atreides1]

7. His parents didn't send him

They gave their permission for him to enlist, anything that happened after that is on the military command structure.

Besides if this is a form of child abuse, I guess the air force now holds the title for abusing Iraqi and Afghan children!

My question is why was an artillery man on a combat patrol in the first place, it's not ike they get the same kind of training as an infantryman. This just represents the fact that the army does not have the personnel that they need to break even much less win this fight.

[TransitJohn]

9. Yep.

I think you nailed it. I'm surprised cooks aren't out on patrols....maybe they are.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Naw, the cooks are all Halliburton contractors, these days. nt

[saigon68]

12. Yes !!! see #1 above

[TransitJohn]

17. Sheez.

I forgot that the Rumsferatu-led Pentagon has outsourced all support functions to for profit companies. I should amend my statement to "I'm surprised we don't have supply clerks and mechanics out on patrol." Although while typing, I was wracking my brain for a job that isn't potentially outsourced. Are supply clerks and mechanics outsourced to KBR?

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. I've been out of it for decades, but my understanding is

yes.

There still are clerks and mechanics and other 'service' MOS's, but my understanding is that in many places the common clerical jobs, not needing clearances, are handled by local hires, and that skilled jobs, like mechanics, are often contracted.

I'm surprised they haven't disbanded the military bands in favor of contracting mariachis (the final scene from "Mars Attacks" comes to mind.

[cboy4]

10. His parents didn't send him, they "only" gave their permission?

That's semantics.

I stand behind my question why any parent would send their child off to this war, knowing the soldiers have been in an impossible situation from day 1.

[Igel]

28. I once tried that line with my advisor.

He pointed out that the difference in meaning between the word "dog" and "amoeba" was also semantics. As is the word "respect" and "rape". After all, a word's semantics is just a word's meanings.

So, yeah. The difference between "send" and "permit" is simply one of meaning. Semantics.

Now, you can claim that they're playing games with trivial shades of meaning. Then, of course, when they send a drug dealer to jail or an inmate in death row to receive his lethal injection, it's really just that they're permitting him to do what he wants. All the complaints from some soldiers being *sent* to Iraq are false; "send" and "permit" are so close in meaning that they're really just *permitting* the soldiers to go and get killed.

Is the difference clear enough now? Or do we continue to claim that the soldiers that we permit to go to Iraq want to die? That the parents in this case forced their kid to Iraq? As if they needed more all-knowing strangers sitting in judgment over them?

[cboy4]

30. Anyone who allows their 17 year old child to join the military

is indirectly sending their kid to Iraq or Afghanistan.

But most likely Iraq because that's where they're needed.

You know, it's a great strawman premise you've whipped up.

Nowhere did I say they permitted them to go to Iraq to die

And nowhere did I say they {i]forced their kid to Iraq.

That's embellishment on your part.

I think you know exactly what I meant in my initial post.

And as I also wrote in another post, my questioning of their judgment does not mean I don't feel deeply sorry for them over what's happened.

Disagree with me on my questioning of their judgment.

That's fair.

But please don't exaggerate my words.

[jelly]

39. Yeah, and besides, at least in my case,

it's not so much the parents' judgment that I am faulting but our government for allowing a 17 year old into combat in the first place, with or without his parents' permission. It's unconscionable.

[Megahurtz]

35. People Who are Ignorant

and gullible enough to believe all the lies fed to them about this phony War.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. What were these parents thinking?

[Sonicmedusa]

6. Maybe they thought they were sending him off to summer camp.

incredibly sad

[peace13]

8. What a sad story.

My heart goes out to these parents. Their flawed thinking up front will not diminish the pain of losing a child. Peace, Kim

[gratuitous]

13. Mom says "My son wasn't supposed to be there"

Yup, and you gave your permission for him to be there. Too soon a grieving mother, too late smart.

The militarization of our civil society is so infectious, so pernicious, and such a part of the warp and woof of our culture that we only just barely recognize it when the bloodiest red threads sometimes poke up through the fabric.

[thereismore]

14. WTH? "My son wasn't even supposed to be there?" Where the hell did

she think he was going? Going to Iraq is OK but getting killed is not? She is looking for excuses. She OK'd it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. The recruiters probably told him he wouldn't go to Iraq

They have been known to lie.

[Botany]

15. Blessings and prayers for his spirit, family, and friends

Pfc. Christopher D. Kube :patriot:

:cry:

How many more George, how many?

Forever Young

May the good lord be with you
Down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness
Surround you when youre far from home
And may you grow to be proud
Dignified and true
And do unto others
As youd have done to you
Be courageous and be brave
And in my heart youll always stay
Forever young, forever young
Forever young, forever young

May good fortune be with you
May your guiding light be strong
Build a stairway to heaven
With a prince or a vagabond

[Demit]

16. Seems like the thrust of this story is to blame the parents, get people to focus their dismay

somewhere else, other than the sheer waste of this young man's life. He only answered the call to be patriotic, which 3 and 4 years ago was all the rage in the media. And his parents let him have his head, which all parents have to do at one point or another in a child's life. But now—as witnessed here by all this bitter opprobrium heaped on the parents, as if parents have a leash on their children they can yank whenever they wish—we are diverted from the manic, heavy, all-pervasive patriotism promoted all around this young man in this culture in the last few years, and encouraged by this shameless story to focus our anger and helpless rage on those poor parents. Their son answered the call. Now not only do they have the lifetime grief the loss of their son, they have to be exposed to people saying that it is somehow their fault. You people doing that here should be ashamed.

[cboy4]

24. Don't put words in people's mouths. I don't think anyone is

blaming the parents....people are questioning their judgment.

Naturally, the blame goes to the Bush administration and everyone else who lied to pave the way for the war.

I hold nothing but the deepest sympathies for his parents and family, as I'm sure everyone here does.

[Demit]

29. Oh? See posts # 3,4,6,10,13,14,19. Their words. Full of blame.

As if the parents had done something wrong. As if they could have locked the kid up in his room. As if, if they had prevented him from going till he was 18, he wouldn't have gone anyway. And died anyway. And died knowing his parents disapproved of him. At least he died knowing his parents backed him in his decision.

Somehow the "deepest sympathies" of these posters aren't stopping them from expressing their deep disapproval. And I think they should be ashamed of that.

[trogdor]

19. I don't think I could live with myself.

Having had an opportunity to stop this act of insanity, at least temporarily, and choosing not to.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I find it interesting that our DU soldiers

stay out of these threads. I for one would like to hear their comments.

[razors edge]

33. I joined the Marines at 17 and 2 months.

One thing here no one seems to have though about, his coming from an economically depressed area, just as myself.

Joe Bageant says it better than I ever could...

About half of the Americans killed in Iraq come from communities like Winchester, Virginia or Romney, West Virginia or Fisher, Illinois or Kilgore, Texas or ... About forty-five percent of the American dead in Iraq come from communities of less than 40,000, even though these towns make up only twenty-five percent of our population. These so-called volunteers are part of this nation's de facto draft -- economic conscription -- the carrot being politically preferable to the whip. The carrot does not have to be very big out here where delivering frozen food wholesale to restaurants out of your own car entirely on commission is considered a good self-employment opportunity. I’m serious. One of my sons did it for a couple of months.

Once you grasp the implications of such an environment regarding the so-called American Dream, the U.S. Army at thirteen hundred bucks a month, a signing bonus and free room and board begin to look pretty good. Even a nice long ass kicking tour of the tropics killing brown guys becomes attractive. Especially compared to competing with other little brown guys at home, humping “big-roll sod” across ever-expanding MacMansionland. In the process, we mutt people learn worldly lessons that the post graduate set raving about the jobless economy cannot know. For instance we know firsthand that there is no way to beat little brown sod balling guys willing to sleep in their cars and live on canned beans and store brand soda. Better to go “volunteer” for the Army.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2006/01/revenge_of_the_.html

[coalition_unwilling]

36. It's otherwise known as "the poverty draft". Been in operation ever

since the Reagan recession of 1982 started knocking the stuffing out of the American working class.

[razors edge]

38. I hit Paris Island

in late September of 81, buy the time I got out of boot camp Rayguns was about to be sworn in.

Probably never would have joined had I know what he was all about, but as an aircraft mechanic I was luck and didn't have to go waste Panamanian civilians to arrest the President's drug dealer for raising his prices.

99.9% of the guys I knew had no real alternatives for gainful employment, and if you can fix a jet but can't get a job fixing a lawn mower, you go fix jets.

[5thGenDemocrat]

40. I joined the Army at 17 years, three months

But that was in January 1974, as the US was extricating itself from Vietnam. My dad (an Army Korean War vet) noted that America only got itself into a war "every five years or so" and suggested that then would be as good a time as any to get military service out of the way.
He also mentioned that January was a really stupid time to go through basic training in Kentucky. He was right about both points, as it turned out.
John
But I still learned more from the Army than I would have had I stayed in high school -- rather than graduating GED and getting on with life. That was 1974-76, however. I wouldn't recommend it today.

[Javaman]

22. Sorry, but ma'am, none of our children are "supposed" to be there. nt

[Highway61]

23. I know what it is to loose a child

suddenly from an illness at 19 with no time to say good by. It's been 4 years and I have simply learned to live with the pain. You NEVER get past it. For this mother to "give permission" is beyond my comprehension. WTF...If my child even asked for permission I would have fucking left the country with him at 17 and not return. Call me old fashioned but fighting for this country is one thing....for corporate greed is another. Hindsight....I feel sorry for his parents as they are part of a club they never wanted to join.

[Ilsa]

25. You have my deepest sympathy, even though it has been four years because

I've seen how it affects a family. I have been blessed with two beautiful little boys, one of which is autistic ad disabled, but I still have them to love every day. My heart goes out to you because I believe you when you say that the pain is still there. Big hug to you.

[Highway61]

27. Thankyou n/t

[Voltaire99]

26. Parenting 101

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be war fodder!

[leftchick]

31. I wonder if they will encourage the rest of the kids to become

cannon fodder....

<snip>

He was the oldest of five children. Other survivers include father David Kube, brothers John and Jason, and sisters Jessica and Jennifer.

[Theduckno2]

32. I'm impressed that the Casper Star-Tribune ran this story.

Although it could be that they are syndicated with The Detroit News, I don't know, it would still have been easy to pass over the story for something else.

Sgt. Allen A. Greka was the other soldier from Michigan to be killed last week in Iraq.

So sad.

[superconnected]

37. His poor parents.

hindsight is always 20/20. I bet the kid talked them into this.

[fbahrami]

42. reasons

- mass brainwashing
You trust the system all the time
(by sending your kids to school, paying taxes, standing behind your country/leader, etc.)
until they take your kid to die.

- individual freedom
Freedom means you don't have to listen to your parents (though you still have to listen to the police).
Even if parents don't permit their kids to go to war at 17 (making them dictator parents in our youth culture) they can go at 18.

- arbitrary limits
16 to drive
18 to go to war
21 to drink beer