Defend the Country? - Not From MY Back Yard!

The increasing furor about military recruiters contacting high school students is really getting on my nerves. More and more parents are up in arms, frightened and angry because military recruiters have set up a table at Career Day, or called their child, or sent them an information packet. They are trying to block recruiters’ access to the schools. They are trying to change the law on releasing student information from an “opt-out” policy to an “opt-in” system. They really appear to want to keep their children from even seeing a soldier, much less talking to one.

Of course, it isn’t that they don’t like us. A spokesman for the National PTA said "We don't have anything against what the military is trying to do. We're just concerned about student privacy." The principal of Louisville's Eastern High says "Certainly we want to support military, but we don't want to be part of the recruitment effort." The sentiment is nearly universal - "We support the soldiers, but we don't want them to contact our children."

Other people are upset about who the recruiters try hardest to contact. Ann Kutay, from a parents' group in Seattle worries "...kids who may not be doing as well in school are targeted by a military recruiter, who tells them they can be a helicopter pilot.” Dustin Washington, a Seattle community activist, believes recruiters target students with lower incomes and minorities.

I understand your fears. I’m a parent of two teen-aged boys – prime targets for military recruiters. I don't want them to join up, and I've told them so. But when you say that you don’t want recruiters talking to your kids, that hurts me. It sounds a lot like someone saying, “Thanks for volunteering to defend my country and protect me from my enemies – I’ll leave your pay on the nightstand, and don’t call me at home, I don’t want my wife to find out.” It sounds like you think my chosen career is “beneath” your children.

It also sounds like you want something for nothing. Nobody likes war, soldiers least of all – we’re the ones who get shot at. But we’re by far the richest country in the world. Without a strong military to defend us, someone will be more than happy to take those riches. And without new recruits every year, we don’t have a military at all. You’re not willing to even let your child HEAR about joining the military, but you expect your neighbors to let theirs join up, so you can continue to live your peaceful life, undisturbed by the sacrifices that keep this nation alive. Or not your neighbors, but those lesser-privileged children down the street, or across town, where the other-colored people live.

That part of the accusation is true, of course. Naturally Recruiters seem to target lower-income and minority teens – those are the ones who are likely to join. People selling second mortgages call home-owners; people selling car insurance look for people who drive; and people who sell careers that don’t require college look for people who can’t afford college, or who won’t succeed there. Who’s to blame for that? The Recruiter? Better look again. Believe me, if a rich kid, or a child on an athletic scholarship, or even an MIT graduate wants to join up, we’ve got room for them…but strangely, not very many of them do. At least when that underprivileged youth joins up, he has a good chance to succeed on his own merits, no matter what color his skin is. Can the civilian world make that same claim?

Oh, and by the way, you’ve had 16, 17, even 18 years to raise your child right, teach them that war is bad, teach them that the military is bad, teach them that they’re too good to defend their country. Are you afraid that a Recruiter can reverse all that in a one-hour conversation? Well, if he can, then maybe he’s saying something YOU should hear, too. An honest Recruiter will be happy to talk to both of you – and if you’re listening, then a dishonest Recruiter (yes, I admit we have some) will have to stay honest around your child. Remember I said I don't want my boys to join? I didn't opt them out of the list the Recruiters will see - and if my sons make informed decisions to join up, I'll try to talk them out of it. If I fail, then I'll worry about them, and lie awake nights wondering if they're safe...and support their decision proudly.

So, all you parents who want to keep Recruiters completely out of your schools and away from your children – you have my utmost contempt. And you have made it quite obvious that I and every other member of the Armed Forces has yours.

Quotes and other information are from the following sources:

Washington Post

Louisville Courier-Journal

ABC News Nightline

Legal Victims

It amazes me how many laws seem to be designed to hurt the victims. Let’s take a look at three examples.

Medically assisted suicide – Clearly the victim of a suicide is the person who wants to die. Most laws that specifically cover assisted suicide, though, provide punishment to those who assist, in an attempt to keep them from doing so. This takes away the last option from a terminally ill patient. A patient who has no chance for long-term survival and who is in constant pain is told that he must continue to suffer indefinitely. A person who can see his own mind slipping away day by day is told he must continue to the end, so his loved ones can experience the pain of his lack of recognition, so they can see him lose all that makes him a person. We don’t do such things to our pets – when they are beyond hope, when they can no longer live without pain, we end their lives. But we are not allowed to ask for such service for ourselves.

Prostitution – The only reasonable candidate I can find for a victim of prostitution is the prostitute herself. After all, most prostitutes give up all or most of their money to a pimp or madam. They are often the victims of violence from their customers, and cannot pursue legal remedies against them. They risk disease and unwanted pregnancy. Many of them are virtual slaves, kept in line through drug addiction, fear of deportation or abandonment in a foreign country, or simply the threat of violence, a threat that is often carried out. It seems to me, though, that all of these problems are the result of making the act illegal. If prostitution was legal, it could be licensed, inspected, controlled. The prostitute would keep the money she earned. They could receive medical care, and be legally protected from violence. There would be less financial benefit to enslaving women, so it would happen less. I don’t see prostitution becoming a respected profession anytime soon, but if it were legal, they would no longer have to be victims.

Illegal drug use – The victim here is the general public. Drug dealers have made inner-city streets into low-grade war zones. People die because they happened to be walking down the wrong street, or were standing near a window at the wrong time. People are robbed by addicts who need money to support their thousand-dollar-a-day habit – and sometimes killed by the addicted robber. As long as there is a demand for intoxicating drugs, though, there will be someone willing to supply them. Making it illegal makes it much riskier to provide that supply, but that merely causes the price to rise until someone is willing to take the risk. These days, the various criminal organizations have worked out ways to protect themselves – the only people really at risk of prosecution are the low-level distributors. Above that level, the criminals make incredible fortunes, with virtually no risk. I have heard it said, in fact, that these criminal groups provide financial support to candidates who promise to be “tough on drugs”; they keep the prices, and profits, high. If drugs become legal, then legitimate suppliers will enter the market. Production prices are comparatively low, and distribution networks are already in place – every corner drug store can be a supplier, or perhaps we could use liquor stores or tobacco shops. And the Mafia and other criminal groups instantly lose their greatest source of income, cutting back their ability to buy weapons, hire crooked lawyers, bribe police officers and judges, and even to pay their huge bands of low-level criminals. Obviously, there would be problems – but performing dangerous activities (like driving) while intoxicated is ALREADY illegal, so amending the laws to cover new intoxicants should not be difficult. Just as with alcohol, children should not be allowed to use drugs – but right now it is easier for a child to get marijuana than wine. Making marijuana legal allows us to use the same enforcement system already in place for alcohol. And so on…

There is, of course, one common thread among these laws. All of them are the result of translating religious restrictions into law. They were not enacted to protect the public from criminals; they were enacted to “protect” people from their own base urges – to protect people from themselves. As long as we keep legislating morality, we will continue to pay the price.

Subtlety

Whatever happened to subtlety and discretion in politics? President Bush’s administration seems to have completely lost the ability to camouflage the fact that their policies come straight from their personal prejudices, opinions, and whims. You can find three separate examples just by looking in this week’s papers.

First, of course, the war in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan seems to me to be a clear and appropriate result of Al Qaida’s attack on our nation. There’s really no question that they received substantial support from Afghanistan. It is unfortunate that we haven’t caught Osama, but we’ve clearly damaged that source of support, and we certainly had sufficient cause to do so. The war in Iraq, though, has only the slimmest of theoretical connections to the “War on Terror.” There’s not a lot of solid proof that Saddam was directly supporting Al Qaida, and the whole issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction seems to have been an error. I do feel that we’ve accomplished a good thing over there, and I CERTAINLY believe that we have to finish what we started. But I can easily imagine the real beginnings in a conversation between President Bush and his advisors…”Dick, Don, Condi…Dad left something unfinished over there. It wasn’t his fault; our allies just couldn’t handle us taking that Iraqi nutcase all the way out. But I think we’ve got an opportunity to fix that, now. Get out there and find me the proof that he’s supporting terrorists and making chemical weapons, so we’ll have a reason to stop him. Oh, and Don, while we’re waiting, get your boys to work up some plans and options for us to go in.” And so we did. Not because Saddam was a real threat to us, but because his continued reign was an ongoing insult to the Bush Family.

More recently, the Judith Miller debacle is just beyond my understanding. She didn’t expose Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA agent to the public – that was Robert Novak. She didn’t publish anything about it. She apparently got into the whole Plame issue pretty late in the game. And yet she was bullied into revealing her source through a contempt of court citation. I’m neither a lawyer nor a judge, but that sure seems like a violation of the First Amendment to me. We already knew Karl Rove was one major source for the leak. Now that Ms. Miller has finally given in, we know that Vice-President Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby was the second major source. The Administration’s insistence on persecuting Ms. Miller very much seems to be an attempt to shift the blame away from the Administration officials who leaked the information in the first place!

And now, apparently, the Federal Government is trying to take away the right of the people and of the States to make their own decisions. Oregon’s voters have determined that Assisted Suicide should be legal. There are stringent requirements that must be met before the doctor can prescribe the fatal overdose of barbiturates, but if the patient is determined, the doctor will help him take his own life. Apparently, though, that offends the “pro-life” sensibilities of the President and his staff. Again, I can almost hear the conversation…”Gang, we’ve got to put a stop to this. We all know suicide is wrong, we’ve been taught that in Sunday School since we were kids. There’s got to be some way to override this law. Ashcroft, they’re using drugs to do it, so maybe you can come up with something.” And so he did – suicide is apparently not an approved medical use for barbiturates. That argument makes a superficial sort of sense, but is transparently an excuse to override the clearly expressed intent of the people of the State of Oregon in a situation that falls under the powers reserved for the States under the U. S. Constitution. (Those of you who don’t remember your Government classes…the Federal Government was given specific powers in the Constitution. Any power not specifically granted to the Feds was reserved for the States.) Whether you support Oregon’s law or not, I hope you can see the horrible precedent that could be set here.

I realize that it is only to be expected that a President’s personal values will affect his decisions. I just wish he could be subtle enough to let us pretend he’s an objective decision-maker, rather than an emotional hothead ready to do whatever it takes to make his dreams a reality.

Family Business

When I started this blog, I really intended it as a place to update my extended family on the life of my nuclear family. After all, I hate writing letters - I can't even keep up an e-mail correspondence over the long run. It’s even worse when I try to tell several different people the same things. The sheer repetition gets on my nerves, and I end up shortcutting it, or just not writing at all. With this blog, though, I can write everything once, and any of my family who has an interest can check it out at their convenience.

For some reason, though, it has turned into more of an editorial page. Well, that’s been a lot of fun, and I will no doubt continue the same sorts of entries…but I also want to carry out my original purpose from time to time. Even when there’s not all that much to say. For my new friends who have connected based on our blogs and comments, you may want to skip this one and tune in next time.

So anyway, Rita is doing much better. Her incision is pretty completely healed, and she’s walking a little bit farther every day. She’s been able to do more around the house, too. It takes a bit longer, as she has to do a little, then sit a little, but she manages to get it done. Best of all, she’s lost over 110 pounds. We’ll probably have to buy new clothes soon, as even her smallest stuff is looking pretty baggy.

Michael is now officially a theatre critic for WashingtonPost.com. Admittedly, he’s one of several dozen throughout the city, and his “beat” is restricted to high school plays, but it is still pretty cool. He is participating in the “Cappies” program, where a few students from each participating high school review and rate several productions at other participating schools. These reviews and scores provide each school an independent evaluation of what they’re doing well or badly. They also provide the reviewers a wider exposure to different theatrical ideas and experiences, as well as training them on what to look for when rating a show. That gives them a better way to judge their own work in the future. And at the end of the year, the best shows receive awards in several categories. Best of all, those awards are presented in a gala at the Kennedy Center.

Michael is very excited about it. He’s really looking forward to seeing all the different plays, especially since one school plans to put on Little Shop of Horrors. He also likes the opportunity to get a review published – the best reviews will appear in the Washington Post. I think what he’s most excited about, though, is the chance to express his opinions and affect the awards. He can’t rate his own school, of course, but he can certainly decide which play he thinks is the best, and root for his choice to come in second behind his school!

David is still enjoying his Creative Writing class. He’s got about two chapters done in a fantasy novel – he plans to complete the novel by the end of the year. They’re both gone a lot visiting friends, or monopolizing the phone for hours at a time. It’s hard for me to say anything, since I remember doing the same thing when I was their age…didn’t I, Dad? And stop laughing!

Me? Pretty much same old, same old. Under the Army Chief of Staff’s guidelines for public web sites, I can’t talk much about work, but nothing much has changed there anyway. It does seem to be wearing me down a bit, but in two more years, I should be able to quit and get a real job…and after 18 years, I’m pretty sure I can manage another two!

Anyway, that’s about it for news from here. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get upset about some other political issue…

Why Can't PVT Johnny Write?

In my current employment, I receive e-mails from a large number of young soldiers. Under current recruiting rules, they either graduated from high school or successfully completed a GED program. They were then screened for aptitude for a highly technical field. They have completed intensive training for that technical specialty to a level that would probably rate at least three separate industry certifications and around 10 semester hours of college credit. These are not stupid people. Why can’t they write?

It is rare for me to go an entire day without receiving an e-mail that completely lacks punctuation, capitalization, spelling and other grammatical rules. I’m not referring to a missing comma and a few misspelled words – I mean no punctuation whatsoever. I mean more than half of the words longer than five letters spelled wrong. They cannot correctly spell the abbreviation for my rank, even though it is shown on the web page where they get my e-mail address. In some cases, they cannot correctly abbreviate their own rank! Lesser examples of such ignorance are even more common, and are not exclusive to the younger soldiers.

We now call it Elementary School, but the first few grades were once called Grammar School. You were expected to learn basic grammar by the time you left the sixth grade. That, in fact, should have been enough to get by and avoid embarrassment throughout adult life. The next six years were supposed to extend the depth and expand the breadth of your knowledge of the English language. So how did these people complete that last six years without being competent? And if they could not manage at least some level of competence in English, what are we to assume about all the other subjects they were supposedly taught?

In the book Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein postulates a society in which the vote is given only to veterans of national service. The theory is that people who have voluntarily risked their lives to support their county will, on average, vote for what is best for the country, rather than what is best for them personally. It worked well in the book. I even agree with the theory behind it. If we tried it in real life, though, there would be a very dangerous transition period, because the people we have in national service right now are not up to the intellectual challenge.

There are three points, though, that make it even more frightening. One, in Starship Troopers, you had to complete your service to earn the vote – these soldiers already have it, and are already affecting our elections. Two, the soldiers are a reflection of our society at large, so you can assume there are other people out there equally ignorant. They still have the vote. Three, there are people out there that were turned down because they fell below our enlistment standards. And they still have the vote.

If I Was The President

Sometimes, when I’ve nothing better to do, I daydream about what I would do in various unlikely situations. For example, how would I spend $150 million if I won the lottery? That would be a little more likely if I bought a ticket. Or how would I remodel my house on one of those remodeling shows? I suspect my landlord would not be happy with my plans, though, so maybe I should wait until I own my own house.

After re-reading Tom Clancy’s Executive Orders recently, then watching “Commander in Chief” this week, I started thinking about what I’d do as the President. I can’t really imagine a set of circumstances that would get me there, but sometimes realism isn’t that important in fantasy. Naturally, there’d be a lot I’d like to do politically, but I’ll save that for other blogs. I was thinking more about what I would do for fun in between crises.

For starters, I think I could make the media happy by skipping vacations altogether. After all, I haven’t had a real vacation apart from family visits and day-trips since I got married. When I was in Italy for three years, I didn’t even have family visits! I did spend a week in England, but that was as a Boy Scout Leader for summer camp – not all that relaxing. Of course, I also spent time in at least seven other countries on business trips, but it looks to me like the President gets to do that sort of thing, too. Most of our Presidents have spent a few weeks going “back home,” wherever that might be, such as Crawford, Texas for President Bush. After 18 years in the Army, though, I don’t really have a home I’m desperate to go back to. I figure a weekend at Camp David now and again would be plenty, and during my term of office, my family can come visit me! Maybe the Secret Service can show them around downtown…

There are some other recreation possibilities, though. Kennedy Center is basically the government’s private theatre. I think if the President mentioned he’d like to see a certain group, arrangements could be made. Maybe a Renaissance Faire Music Festival, featuring the Minstrels of Mayhem and the O’Danny Girls? I bet getting tickets isn’t a problem the President would have.

For that matter, it would be the perfect opportunity to meet people. How many of your favorite movie stars, TV stars, musicians, and authors do you think would turn down an invitation to dinner at the White House? I’d like to invite Geena Davis and Martin Sheen to discuss dramatic portrayals of the Presidency, after I’ve done the real thing for a few months. That might be a good excuse to invite Harrison Ford, too, even though Air Force One is not the real reason I’d want to meet him – I’d much rather meet Han Solo and Indiana Jones. The President can’t exactly go down to the pub on a whim, but I could invite Spider Robinson and bring Callahan’s Bar to the White House, metaphorically at least. In fact, I suspect that every living author on my Yahoo 360 Favorites list would get an invitation sooner or later. If only it had happened in time for me to meet Robert Heinlein…

The one meeting I’d most like to set up, though, is a working lunch with Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and the Administrator of NASA. I’m just certain that those two authors have a number of workable suggestions on improving the Space Program, and I’d very much like to hear the Administrator’s response to their ideas. In fact, his response might determine how long he’d stay Administrator…because I just bet Paul Allen would be interested in the job, even if he had to give up his stake in SpaceShipOne.

Yes, I can definitely see some opportunities for fun as the President. All in all, though, I can’t help thinking that it would be more fun to win the lottery.

Commander-in-Chief

Anybody watch the premiere of "Commander-in-Chief" last night? I did. If you taped it, then the rest of this entry may contain spoilers, so go watch your tape first.

I'm not sure I'm going to like the show. Of course, anything that has Geena Davis in it will keep my attention for at least a few episodes. And I enjoyed some of the moral, ethical, and political questions the first hour raised - if they keep that up, I'll keep watching.

For instance, if the President asks his Vice-President to resign rather than take over, does the Vice-President have a moral obligation to agree? After all, the President chose her for the job, he should be able to fire her. On reflection, though, I find I agree with the show's answer - the Vice-President has every right to maintain her office and ascend to the Presidency. The situation rather reminded me of one of my military pet peeves - people who join the military (to include the Reserves and National Guard) for the paycheck, or the college money, or whatever, then try to back out when they find out they've been picked to go to war. President Bridges picked Mrs. Allen to be the Vice-President as a stunt, sure. But if he didn't give at least some thought to the possibility of his own death in office, well, then his judgement isn't all that good, anyway!

Another moral question that came up - is it right for the President to use the threat of military force to save the life of a woman who is going to be stoned to death for adultery? Let's ask that another way. Is it proper for the President to threaten a friendly (or at least neutral) nation with an act of war to save the life of a criminal convicted of a capital crime under the due process of her own country? It's amazing how much the wording of the question changes the answer, isn't it? I think she was wrong, there. I don't believe we have the automatic right to use our superpower might to dictate all forms of justice in another country. There is a difference between genocide and execution of an individual. However mild we believe her crime was, the woman did know the penalty for her act before she committed it. Using our military force in such a way makes us little more than a bully.

On the other hand, I don't believe we have any obligation to maintain diplomatic or trade relations with countries that we feel are barbaric. We're a capitalist nation, and business is business. Just like any businessman or customer, we have every right to decide who we choose to do business WITH. Cutting off foreign aid and trade to a given country and to those who continue to support them might well do more damage in the long run than an extended bombing campaign, and certainly more than an invasion consisting of three helicopters. The moral and ethical principles involved, though, make that option the better choice, in my opinion.

A related question. If Nigeria was not only executing the woman, but the man as well, would that change the moral principle? Would President Allen still have wanted to go rescue her? Or should she rescue both of them, or neither? I tend to believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander...and if the same law applied to both genders, then we'd really have nothing to complain about.

There were some problems with the show, though. Worse than making the wrong decision about the Nigerian woman, I don't think President Allen thought through the consequences of that decision, and the show made no mention of them. As if we could do such a thing and not have a huge backlash against us in the international press, especially in the Muslim countries! That might be covered in later episodes, though, so I'll withhold judgement on that one.

The worst problem was the believability of the basic premise. I just can't conceive of any party politician choosing an Independent as his running mate. Surely there was a female member of his own party that would have sufficed! I understand the dramatic necessity here - they need the conflict between the party warhorse, Speaker Templeton, and the Independent President. But couldn't they have managed much the same with a hardline Conservative President selecting a moderate from his own party? She could even have made public statements that disagreed with the party platform. We could still have had the conflict between the late President's beliefs and those of his VP, and thus between the new President and the Speaker of the House, but it would have been mch more believable within the political structure we know.

My biggest concern, though, is one I got from my dad, that this will turn out to be an extended campaign ad for Hillary Clinton. As long as President Allen stays independent, doing things to outrage each party in turn, or even both at once, I can enjoy it. If it turns into a mouthpiece for either party, though, I'm done.