Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents

[valis]

Rachel Rogers, a single mother of four in upstate New York, did not worry about the presence of National Guard recruiters at her son's high school until she learned that they taught students how to throw hand grenades, using baseballs as stand-ins. For the last month she has been insisting that administrators limit recruiters' access to children.

Orlando Terrazas, a former truck driver in Southern California, said he was struck when his son told him that recruiters were promising students jobs as musicians. Mr. Terrazas has been trying since September to hang posters at his son's public school to counter the military's message.

Meanwhile, Amy Hagopian, co-chairwoman of the Parent-Teacher-Student Association at Garfield High School in Seattle, has been fighting against a four-year-old federal law that requires public schools to give military recruiters the same access to students as college recruiters get, or lose federal funding. She also recently took a few hours off work to stand beside recruiters at Garfield High and display pictures of injured American soldiers from Iraq.

"We want to show the military that they are not welcome by the P.T.S.A. in this building," she said. "We hope other P.T.S.A.'s will follow."

Two years into the war in Iraq, as the Army and Marines struggle to refill their ranks, parents have become boulders of opposition that recruiters cannot move.
More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/03/nyregion/03recruit.html?ei=5094&en=7488119338909c3e&hp=&ex=1117857600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

[atommom]

1. Good for the parents! I know I wouldn't let them recruit my own sons

(especially knowing what I know about this administration!)

[driver8]

2. Promising jobs as musicians??? That's funny...

If playing the skin flute in the middle of an Iraqi desert makes you a musician...these recruiters are unbelievable.

[Career Prole]

9. Army musicians...it's a growth industry.

[AllegroRondo]

10. As a former military musician....

Every Division has its own band, and they do a lot more than just play music. During peace times, it was mostly ceremonies and parades, but during war (I was in the first Gulf war) we did DTOC security, POW security, and lots of morale concerts.

I still have lots of friends in the Army band field, some of them are in Iraq right now.

[valis]

11. LOL, morale concerts...

Do they really boost morale?

[AllegroRondo]

12. You'd be surprized

we play more than just Sousa marches.

During the first Gulf War, my unit had a rock band, a country band, and salsa/latin band. For the guys stuck in the desert for months after the shooting stopped, it was a welcome break to the monotony.

[KurtNYC]

3. How do people look at a headline like that and still think the media

is liberal?

In fact, who thinks from the angle reflected in the headline? It is not the reality of the quagmire, the poor way that vets are treated, the fact that the Iraq invasion was based on a "pack of lies." It is not that 18 year-olds may have friends and brothers who were lied to by recruiters, not the much publicized lack of armor or the extension of tours. The problem is that these potential soldiers have mothers?!

[SmileyBoy]

5. To the freepers...

If anything in the news makes even an implied suggestion that things are not going well in Iraq, then they'll take that to be liberal.

And they are idiots.

[earthside]

4. Very Encouraging

This report is very encouraging to those of us who want an end to this illegal and immoral war.

When average American moms and dads say 'NO' to the military, it is the beginning of the end for the Bush ordered occupation of Iraq.

[artfan]

6. I was reading

a similar thread on FR last night and they were doing the usual frothing at the mouth against anyone who would be against their kids joining the military. After I got past the typical hippie/liberal/commie/single women destroying Murika crap I could not help but notice what they did not say. They did not talk about their own kids joining or their own service. I am going to begin leaving recruiting flyers at anyplace young republicans can be found.

My oldest will be 16 this week and is being targeted by recruiters at school. It drives me wild but she has the advantage of a dad who did 22 yrs in the Navy and is no fool to how it really is.

enough ranting

[formerrepuke]

7. Bonus for parents: If you lose a child to military action, you get a

free flag- in a neatly folded triangular shape. (sour and sarcastic, I know.. but it's true)

[slackdude]

8. Coming soon...

The War Against Parents!