"Does Anybody Know What Posthumous Means?"

According to Bob Herbert, The Army Times (May 30th) quotes this rhetorical question Staff Sgt. Andre Allen asked recruits in week seven of basic training. Allen continued:

"It means after death. Some of you are going to get medals that way,' he said matter-of-factly, underscoring the possibility that some of them would be sent to combat and not return."

Before week seven, though--indeed, before enlistees literally sign away their lives, a recruiter's approach is slightly less, um, honest:

The approach recommended by the recruiting handbook is somewhat different. It's much softer. Recruiters trying to sign up high school students are urged to schmooze, schmooze, schmooze.

"The football team usually starts practicing in August," the handbook says. "Contact the coach and volunteer to assist in leading calisthenics or calling cadence during team runs."

"Homecoming normally happens in October," the handbook says. "Coordinate with the homecoming committee to get involved with the parade."

Recruiters are urged to deliver doughnuts and coffee to the faculty once a month, and to eat lunch in the school cafeteria several times a month. And the book recommends that they assiduously cultivate the students that other students admire: "Some influential students such as the student president or the captain of the football team may not enlist; however, they can and will provide you with referrals who will enlist."

It's not known how aware parents are that recruiters are inside public high schools aggressively trying to lure their children into wartime service. But not all schools get the same attention. Those that get the royal recruitment treatment tend to be the ones with students whose families are less affluent than most.

Schools with kids from wealthier families (and a high percentage of collegebound students) are not viewed as good prospects by military recruiters. It's as if those schools had posted signs at the entrances saying, "Don't bother." The kids in those schools are not the kids who fight America's wars...

The sense of desperation is palpable: "Get involved with local Boy Scout troops. Scoutmasters are typically happy to get any assistance you can offer. Many scouts are [high school] students and potential enlistees or student influencers."

One of the many problems here is that adolescents should not be hounded by military recruiters under any circumstances, and they shouldn't be pursued at all without the full knowledge and consent of parents or guardians.

Let the Army be honest and upfront in its recruitment. War is not child's play, and warriors shouldn't be assembled through the use of seductive sales pitches to youngsters too immature to make an informed decision on matters that might well result in their having to kill others, or being killed themselves.

War isn't homecoming, and it's certainly not the Boy Scouts. The tactics noted above are simply sleazy and dishonest.

Before Operation-Send-More-Cannon-Fodder, the military didn't have a problem meeting their recruitment quotas. Of course, back then, enlistees were under the assumption they were defending their country. These days, it doesn't take a valedictorian to know that the military is nothing more than a prop for George W. Bush's game of fantasy wartime pResident. As so many others have noted, Bush doesn't think getting rid of Saddam Hussein is worth the lives of HIS kids. Maybe they'll decide that having Bush as pResident isn't worth the lives of theirs.