Beware of Child Predators

by Laurence M. Vance

There is a new breed of child predator on the loose. You won’t find him featured on America’s Most Wanted or appearing on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Up until now parents who were concerned about child predators could check their state’s Sex Offender Registries or the Child Predator Watch List. But now we can thank Ladies Home Journal magazine for informing parents about this dangerous new predator in an article that appears in the latest issue (February 2007) called "This Man Wants Your Children."

I don’t normally read Ladies Home Journal. In fact, I don’t think I had ever read a single copy until I happened recently to look through the latest issue. Unfortunately, Ladies Home Journal has enlisted in the service of the state. The purpose of its thirteen-page child predator article was not to warn parents about predators at all – it was to promote them.

You see, "This Man Wants Your Children" was not about sex offenders – even though some of them are sex offenders – it was about Army recruiters; specifically, Sergeant First Class Chad Christenson, one of the top Army recruiters in the country. Indeed, Sgt. Christenson was the Army’s "Recruiter of the Year" in 2005.

We learn a number of things in this article about recruiters and recruiting. The 2005 military recruiting budget was about $4 billion. Since the recruiting numbers were way down in 2005, "the Army added 1,000 new recruiters, doubled the maximum sign-in bonus from $20,000 to $40,000, relaxed standards and raised the maximum-age limit." Then there was the new $200 million ad campaign for 2006. We are also told that "in 2005 the Army officially investigated 836 allegations of recruiter misconduct." The Army now accepts lower entrance scores on aptitude tests, grants more "moral waivers" to allow convicted criminals to enlist, and allows non-citizens to gain their citizenship after only one year of active duty. The enlistment age has been raised from 35 to 40 to 42. Older women who want to enlist will find that the physical fitness requirements are now less rigorous – they must now be able to do three push-ups. Oh, and the Army now has a MySpace profile.

Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which mandates that "public high school administrators are required to allow military recruiters access to students or risk losing federal funding," Christenson preys on high school students. He is stationed in Texas, "the state that contributed more 2005 and 2006 Army enlistees than any other." He is paid about $64,000 to "show young Texans how the Army can enrich their lives." I know public high school teachers that make half of that and private high school teachers who make less than half of that. Christenson says the Army changed his life – "It made me who I am." But who he is?

We read in this article about some of the people Christenson persuades to join the Army. One recruit tells him that he wants to serve in the infantry. His reason: "It’s a moral thing with me. After what happened on 9/11, I can’t live with myself if I don’t go to war." Does Christenson tell the young man that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11? Why not? "We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th," said Christenson’s commander in chief in answer to a reporter’s question on September 17, 2003, after hundreds of U.S. soldiers had already died for a lie. Another recruit is a forty-one-year-old mother of five. Does Christenson tell her that it would better if she stayed home with her family? Does he tell her about the female U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq? Why not? I have posted their names and pictures here.

What else is Christenson not telling young men and women about the U.S. military? Is he telling them that the military does very little to actually defend the country? Is he telling them that the military is not defending our freedoms? Is he telling them that the military is protecting the shores, guarding the borders, and patrolling the coasts of other countries instead of our own? Is he telling them that the military is garrisoning the planet with its military bases? Is he telling them that the war in Iraq has lasted longer than the war against Nazi Germany? Is he telling them that the military has troops in over 150 different regions of the world?

Why not?

Sgt. Christenson is supposed to be an honest man. We are told in the Ladies Home Journal article that he is "familiar with the dark side of recruiting, of course – the improprieties brought on by the pressure to meet quotas," but that "he scrupulously avoids the sorts of ethical lapses – such as misleading potential recruits (or their parents) about the chances of going to Iraq – that have tripped up other recruiters." This means that he doesn’t tell students that the war in Iraq is over in order to get them to enlist – like some Army recruiters did. So why doesn’t he tell young men and women the whole story?

I wonder how many people would join the Army if the gentleman in this picture were a recruiter? Since he left his legs in Iraq – or what was left of them – for what will go down in history as the lie of the century, perhaps he would be more inclined to give a little more information to potential recruits than Sgt. Christenson. Instead of talking about the amount of a sign-in bonus, he could talk about the more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers that have been killed in Iraq. Instead of speaking about the free health care that the military provides, he could speak about the hundreds of disabled soldiers who are missing body parts like he is. Instead of discussing the amount of money available from the military for college, he could discuss the costs of the war in Iraq – now over $200 million a day. Instead of mentioning the structure and stability that the military provides, he could mention the tens of thousands – and perhaps hundreds of thousands – of Iraqis who have been killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq almost four years ago. Instead of conversing about how the military has lowered enlistment standards, he could converse about the evils of an interventionist U.S. foreign policy that sends young men to die for a lie. And instead of informing potential soldiers about the variety of positions available in the military, he could inform them about the animosity that exists between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims that has now erupted – thanks to the United States – into a civil war.

Perhaps some disabled soldiers who now realize that they gave their limbs in vain should sue the U.S. military under the Americans with Disabilities Act for the right to be a recruiter. I wonder what employing handicapped soldiers would do for enlistment quotas?

Protect your children and the children of everyone you know: Warn them about child predators – and especially those in uniform.

January 29, 2007

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. He is also the director of the Francis Wayland Institute. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State. His latest book is King James, His Bible, and Its Translators. Visit his website.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

How Teens Frustrate Military Recruiter's (and School Collaborators') ASVAB Scam

Teens Frustrate Military Recruiter's ASVAB Scam

With MySpace.com bulletins and a handful of homemade flyers, two teens have struck a blow against the American Warfare State, Lindale, Georgia Division.On a Friday afternoon the 17th of November, 17-year-old high school seniors Robert Day and Samuel Parker decided to act after Day overheard some teachers at Pepperell High School saying that first thing Monday morning the school’s juniors would be made to take the ASVAB military aptitude test.

Often administered under the guise of a career aptitude test, the ASVAB’s purpose is to better equip the State to prey on young people tricked or pressured into taking the test. According to Debbie Hopper of Mothers Against the Draft, it is often given under the pretext of being a “career placement” test. (In some cases it has in fact been used that way, no doubt in an attempt to legitimize what many Americans regard as not legitimate: the use of government schools as military recruiting grounds.)

The school board answered a concerned email from Parker’s mother with a suggestion that the test is not mandatory but “customary.” Sane Americans might ask, “Where, in Prussia?”
Though he would not be made to take the test, Day confronted the high school principal, Phil Ray, in defense of students younger than himself, and was told that the test was mandated by federal law. Day says he already believed that to be false, since he remembered the test being given only to the kids actually trying to join the military the year before. Regardless, the principal dismissed his objections. The juniors who were to be tested for their military “aptitude” were not to be told before the weekend.

Principal Ray did not return repeated calls to his office.

Not easily deterred, Day and Parker decided they would do what they could to “warn” the juniors themselves. They talked to a few kids at the end of school Friday afternoon, and over the weekend sent out more than 20 messages to MySpace bulletin boards discouraging cooperation. Arriving early Monday morning, Day and Parker picked out spots soon to be populated with kids waiting for the bell to ring, and with the help of some others who quickly volunteered, rapidly distributed their 200 homemade fliers to some and also spoke to many others, encouraging all to refuse to report to the cafeteria or to sabotage the test – either by ripping it up or filling in false information.

One of the military recruiters present attempted to snub their efforts, claiming the No Child Left Behind Act allows access to all of their information anyway, and so they might as well take the test.

Journalist and author James Bovard says the NCLB does indeed “roll out a red carpet” in terms of empowering the military to demand school records, but says that the ASVAB is far beyond what even it allows. The pushing of this military aptitude test, Bovard says, is “typical of how government guides kids – to an early funeral.”

Despite the recruiter’s interruption, Parker says that he, Day and their volunteers made sure every junior who may not have wanted to take the test had a chance to hear them explain its purpose and to understand that it was not mandatory.

They estimate that about half of the school’s juniors refused to even leave their regular classes to report to the testing site in the school’s cafeteria. Some of the teachers, apparently learning about this at the last minute like most everyone else, and confused as to the nature of the proceedings, insisted that their students at least go to the cafeteria even if they did not mean to cooperate with the military. Once they were there, the kids were informed that anyone who showed up in the cafeteria would be made to take the test.

The old lunch room Catch-22.

Some of the students decided to deliberately fill in faulty information. Perhaps that will go on their permanent record instead. “Look kid, we’re looking for test-refusers just like yourself. Do you have what it takes?”

The soldiers told the students that if anyone ripped up their test, then all the tests, including those belonging to the one-third or so of the kids who actually wanted to take it and receive their scores, would be thrown out. This bit of blackmail apparently worked on the kids who had reluctantly taken it, as no one physically destroyed their tests. Day and Parker estimate that less than a third of Pepperell’s juniors went along with their government’s scheme.
The high school counselor, Ms. Nixon, made it clear to the juniors that she was very disappointed in them for embarrassing principal Ray, but so far, no punishments have been handed down.

All in all, Parker and Day said they were pleasantly surprised by the help and encouragement of kids who they thought would not have cared at all.
We could all learn from their example.

Posted by Scott Horton

http://thestressblog.com/2006/11/24/teens-frustrate-military-recruiters-asvab-scam/#comments