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Meeting a Young Marine-To-Be
At the local YMCA today, I ran into a boy who was a childhood friend of my son's. As my kid goes to a public arts high school in Philadelphia outside of our local school district, I don't see much of his old grade-school friends any more. This boy, who used to be over at our house years ago at least once a week, recognized me right away though, and said, "Hey Mr. Lindorff, I haven't seen you in years. How's Jed!"
I was impressed by how he'd grown up, tall and strong looking. He was headed for the basketball court. I asked him, since both he and my son are seniors this year, where he was applying for college, and he stunned me by saying he had signed up for the Marines. "I'm going to be going in after graduation," he said proudly. "The recruiter came to school, and he convinced me it's a good move."
I asked him what he planned to do, and he said, "Helicopter gunner! I'm really excited and proud!"
This was really shocking. This kid doesn't own a gun. I doubt if he's ever shot at anything except maybe a target with a .22 rifle at Boy Scout Camp, and now he's all excited about manning a machine gun in a helicopter, where he'll be shooting down at Afghan fighters--and inevitably at civilians, too--in a matter of months.
I really didn't know what to say. I awkwardly told him "congratulations," because I could see he was proud of his "accomplishment" and because I didn't want to have him cut me off as a possible confidante. Then I added, "You know of course that I'm not really in favor of what the Marines are doing?"
He smiled and said, "Yeah, I know."
"Well, good luck and stay safe," I said, again not knowing what else to say. How could I, standing in the hall there, tell him that he was simply signing on to be another expendable tool in the American Empire's effort to subdue an impoverished people on the far side of the world who pose absolutely no threat to America? And while I don't want to see him killing people in Afghanistan, I also want him to come home safely.
Unaware of my conflicted state of mind, and of how upset I was at his news, he ran off to play his game, at least for now still just another kid on a basketball court.
I had finished my run, so I headed for the exit to get my car and go home, when I ran into the boy's mother and older sister, both just coming into the building. I hadn't seen either of them in at least a year either.
They both greeted me and asked how my family was, and what my son's college plans were. After I had caught them up, I said, a bit hesitantly, "I ran into your son. He told me he's joining the Marines."
His mother looked upset and said, "Yes. I don't know. We were going over colleges with him, and getting ready to work on his applications, and then he told us he wanted to enlist."
"I hear he's going to be a helicopter gunner," I said.
The mother stiffened and looked at her daughter, a senior in college who looked surprised, too. "He said he was going to be a helicopter mechanic!" she said.
"Oops," I told them. "I guess I shouldn't have said anything."
"No," she said. "I'm going to have to talk with him. But the trouble is, if that's what he says he's going to do, there's nothing we can do to stop him."
Well, maybe, and maybe not. I'd certainly try if it were my son, starting with showing him that horrifying footage of a bloodthirsty US helicopter crew's joke-filled slaughter of a bunch of innocent civilians in Baghdad, including two employers of Reuters. I'd also have him read the letter of apology to the Iraqi victims' families, written by two soldiers, former Army Specialists Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord, who had appeared in that video because they came on the scene of slaughter at the end, and realized what had been done was an atrocity.
But while it may tragically be too late for my son's childhood friend, who has already signed on the dotted line, there is something we can do to stop more of this kind of thing from happening, and that is to protest the actions of Marine recruiters and recruiters from the other branches of the military in our public high schools.
The schools have been told, thanks to a law passed by Congress, that they must allow recruiters into high schools to speak with students and to try to lure them into signing up. Parents have a right to have their children's names removed from recruiting lists so they won't be personally invited to meet with a recruiter, or get recruiting literature sent to them, but they are still free when roaming the halls, to go see a recruiter on their own.
The only answer to this effort to suck our kids into service of the Empire as more cannon-fodder is to demand, and to provide, an alternative. Contact your local Veterans for Peace chapter (www.veteransforpeace.org) or Iraq Veterans Against War (www.IVAW.org) and urge them to send a representative to talk to the kids at your high school. If you're a veteran, volunteer to go yourself, and tell kids why signing up is a bad idea. If you're not a veteran, or relative of a veteran, get people with experience to go and tell what war is really about, and about why it's not what America should be doing. (Colleague John Grant, who is with VfP, says don't expect getting a counter-recruitment presence in your high school to be easy. Most schools only allow such speakers to go to a specific teacher's classroom, not to an assembly session, whereas the most appropriate thing would be to have access to match whatever the recruiters are offered. That doesn't mean VfP or IVAW activists aren't anxious to get access, so contact them and try to get them to the kids.)
If you want a good argument, check out this little film which quotes Marine Brigadier General Smedley Butler, and is addressed to parents, and particularly mothers of young children.
Stop the propagandizing of our kids into becoming soldiers for Empire. We've had enough death and killing!
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Show AllSince writing this piece, I have been told by someone working with the GI Bill of Rights organization (www.gibillofrights.org tel: 877-4774487), that students who sign up in high school are in the so-called Deferred Enlistment Program, and can actually back out right up until the day they get on the bus to go to basic training. Those who have problems doing this should contact the GI Bill of Rights experts for assistance.
Dave Lindorff
ThisCantBeHappening!
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Visit the new online alternative newspaper ThisCantBeHappening! at www.thiscantbehappening.net
Not "the GI BIll of Rights organization"--you mean the GI Rights Hotline. We should get their phone number and website out to everyone: (877-447-4487)
http://www.girightshotline.org/
Since 1994, the GI Rights Hotline has been providing free, confidential, and accurate information on US military regulations and practices to servicemembers, veterans, potential recruits, and their families. They are a consortium of more than twenty non-governmental, non-profit organizations. Some of their counselors are veterans, some are lawyers and some have decades of military counseling experience.
From their website:
Are you...
...in the military or a family member or friend of someone who is?
...confused about your rights?
...unsure of where to go for reliable answers?
The GI Rights Hotline (877-447-4487) provides accurate and helpful military counseling and information on military discharges, AWOL and UA, and GI Rights:
DEP Discharge (Delayed Entry Program Discharge)
Entry Level Separation (Entry Level Performance and Conduct Discharge)
Dependency or Hardship Discharge
Medical or Disability Discharge (including PTSD)
ODPMC or Psychological Discharge
Conscientious Objection Discharge
Homosexual Conduct Discharge (Don't Ask Don't Tell)
Reservist Unsatisfactory Participation
AWOL or UA
Reservist Mobilization
Article 138 Complaints
Harassment or Discrimination
Our trained civilian counselors are ready to help you sort out your options.
Call now - the call and the service are free and confidential.
You're absolutely correct. Thanks for fixing the information
It's the GI Rights Hotline, at www.girightshotline.org, 877-477-4487
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
I appreciate this information very much...thank you...
leaving the schools, media and military to do the talking when it comes to killing those who live elsewhere for corporate, or criminal, profit bodes ill for any susceptible, and hormone-driven, young macho...
the truth must be told at all times...what would have happened had you suggested the Marines are facilitating the production and sale of heroin for the private coffers of those leading our country? or that bankers, death merchants and oil barons were encouraging this takeover, and the resulting, ongoing murders?
why can we not call these people the criminals they are?
thanks for this article, Dave...my son is 16, shows advanced skills on the paintball field, and plays all the online games...Halo, Call Of Duty...the future is closing in fast, and is frightening...
The bigger picture is that so little opportunity exists for college graduates due to the new paradigm that is disguised as a recession or depression (depending which pundits you pay attention to), that the military is the only viable career option for most young Americans.
Nowhere is this defacto draft model more apparent than among the university engineering students that I mentor each year. During the past three years the only graduates getting jobs are the ROTC students who have more job security than any of us...as they are deployed to the Ir-Af-Pak theatre upon graduation.
I am among the millions of boomers who remain in the workforce solely for the employer-sponsored medical insurance. Obamacare, 401k collapse, pension dilution and Obama's upcoming gutting of Social Security are rapidly morphing our delayed retirement date model into a work till the day you die model.
The more boomers that are unable to retire from their family wage jobs, the more young Americans will need to chose between unemploymnent or the military.
why not choose unemployment? why is not joining not seen as more honorable than joining?
If they're going to pay my son, directly, to join, and be ruined, if not killed, by the experience, why would I not pay my son to stay out?
$10,000? great...I'll give you $500 a month for 20 months to stay out of the army, okay?
to go all the way, why is killing foreigners a valid career option, at all?
if a war is fraudulent, then we cannot call a soldier a soldier...
he is a thug...a gangsta...a mafioso...a killer...
why is this thinking, sending a young person into the military, tolerated?
is it respectable? is it moral?
how many goddamn excuses, or lives, are needed to cover a huge lie?
the whole economic system is going to collapse as the planet dies, anyway...why perpetuate the myth of individual economic responsibility, even unto the cost of human pyschological soundness, if not life, itself?
peace, ray
The "myth of individual economic responsibility" definitely needs to be discussed !
Democratic Party and Republican Party rhetoric pivots on the MORE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, LESS CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY mantra that takes the art of blaming victims to an ever higher level.
As a member of Veterans for Peace, one of the anti-recruiting tactics I highly recommend is encouraging local school boards who have already permitted recruiters to have access to high school students and to disseminate recruiting literature in the public schools to similarly enable access for antiwar peace groups.
Specifically, Veterans for Peace publishes an excellent color cartoon-style booklet entitled "Addicted to War." It relates the history of conscription, the politics of war fervor, and the popular domestic antiwar movement in the United States from the colonial era through the present (9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq). The historical narrative is patterned after Howard Zinn's "People's History", and concludes with a whole economic analysis of Pentagon overstretch. The booklets are available through Vets for Peace.
If keeping the recruiters out is not feasible in your school district, then go get on the agenda for the next Board of Education meeting, give each board member a copy of "Addicted to War", and argue that a one-sided debate is incompatible with elementary ideals of academic freedom and fully informed career choice decisionmaking. If the Pentagon can push its pamphlets to teenagers on the taxpayer dime, then the competing viewpoint regarding the vices of mindless militarism should, at a minimum, be given comparable access to those impressionable young minds.
Don't be surprized if you wind up with unexpected allies. A good number of those flag waving politician/veterans of past American wars who wear their patriotism on their sleeve also know the dangers and downside of life inside the real world war machine, and know full well it's not for everybody. Also, the biblical command "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is pretty unambiguous.
Bill from Saginaw
Obama appointed Arne Duncan Secretary of Education because Arne pioneered the military saturation of school model when he ran Chicago schools, and has had great success tying military access to schools to Federal education funding he doles out to states.
Arne's weasel clauses need to be considered in whatever strategy is applied by local school boards.
What the parents of this kid and/or Dave Lindorff can also do to help persuade him that what he is doing is folly is to have him watch two DVDs. One is the powerful Sir! No Sir! [2006] which chronicled the history of the GI movement that took place during the Vietnam war. The second DVD is a more topical look at military personnel who have said NO to American imperialism and that would be the documentary called Soldiers of Conscience [2006]. This film has four soldiers explaining why they could not in good conscience continue to be a part of the U.S. war machine in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike Sir! No Sir! Soldiers of Conscience also has conservative voices such as military personnel who claim that these soldiers do not have a right to refuse their orders [though the UCMJ says otherwise]. But I think that the viewpoints expressed by the GI resisters are persuasive enough to get their points across to this young man.
The parents of this young man and Mr. Lindorff might also consider giving this patriotic enlistee a few books which might help in counteracting the gung ho and one sided message that he was given by his recruiter, such as:
Mission Rejected is, as the subtitle states, about U.S. Soldiers Who Say NO to Iraq and which is written by Peter Laufer.
Soldiers in Revolt is, as this subtitle states, concerned with the GI Resistance During the Vietnam War. This classic work was penned by David Cortright with the newer issue which came out in 2005 containing an introduction by Howard Zinn.
It may perhaps be too soon for this book but it could be considered for the future, after he has seen the horror and stupidity of war, that this young man might wish to read Desertion and the American Soldier: 1776-2006 by Robert Fantina. One of the main reasons that Fantina cites for soldiers deserting their units is not cowardice but rather disagreement with the cause of war. The hope is that this naive young man will soon reach this epiphany be realizing that he, like the rest of those in the military, has been lied to by his recruiter, the military and his own government just like I was when I and hundreds of thousands of other poor bastards ended up in a place called Vietnam.
Perhaps if this gullible soon to be soldier and killer for the U.S. war machine were to see Sir! No Sir!, then he just might see the wisdom of what former Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan said in that film when he noted:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
At my high school before christmas break, we had a Remembrance Day celebration (I live in Quebec and they celebrate it at our school) and we had representatives coming to our school from the canadian forces and also some WW2 survivors. Honestly it was pretty pathetic, the WW2 survivors told us how horrible the war was and all that stuff while the afghan war soldiers that came to our school were talking like Afghanistan was an awsome place and that sure deaths happenned but all in all it wasn't too bad. And this brainwashes soldier was talking to us on how embedded journalist are the most reliable source of information and thats why this war was better cause back in Vietnam, they didnt have that. I was honeslty freaking out, my school was trying to sensibilize us to the facts of war, and although half of it was actually good and we learned somethign (WW2 survivors) the rest was honest bullshit and it was just very pathetice.
Good for you for recognizing how pathetic it was.
Part of the problem is that war now is so remote. Our (and your) soldiers, from two of the most modern armies in the world, are fighting some of the poorest peasant fighters imaginable. They fire from helicopters, up safely out of range of the "enemy's" weapons, they use remotely piloted drones, or drop bombs from high altitude, and they don't allow honest reporting to get back home.
People like you are the weak link. You see through it. Protest to your school. Say you want to hear from some veterans critical of the current wars. Canada must have a version of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). Invite them to send someone to speak.
Dave Lindorff
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
I don't have children, and I'm pleased that my grown niece and nephew weren't remotely tempted to enter military service, even though both have scrambled about to get their economic footing since graduating from college.
Of course, the fact that they were raised in a socioeconomic bracket that allowed these smart kids to stay on the academic high road in the first place may explain why they were never tempted to Be All That They Can Be by diving into the maw of the military beast.
I really felt Dave's pain at the encounter he writes about, though. And I'm sympathetic to the thought that there's still time for Dave's young acquaintance to change his mind.
It occurs to me, though, that the would-be "deprogrammers" must be very careful, even discreet, in attempting what amounts to an "intervention". There's no lack of thoughtful and hard-hitting material to make the case against a military career in the Amerikan Imperium, but I would think that one has to tread very lightly in sharing it.
It's fatally easy to drive a person at that age and time of life into a defensive, reactionary spiral. No matter how compelling the literature and DVDs are, if the, er, target feels he's being pushed or criticized, it may stiffen rather than soften his resolve.
Finally, I'm struck by this business of "helicopter gunner" vs. "helicopter mechanic"; one can think of all sorts of motivations for a young man to adjust his description to accomodate different audiences.
I don't pretend to know much about the occupational divisions of labor within the military. It's possible that "mechanic" is a non-combat support role-- for all I know, mechanics may not even handle, much less operate, the actual ordnance.
But even if a "helicopter mechanic" is only responsible for servicing the aircraft and its components-- making sure those doors are securely supporting those gun mounts-- the blood and dishonor trickles down, and innocence is lost.
It may be a relief and "small favor" if one's child isn't programmed to specialize in homicidal mayhem, or put directly in harm's way, but that doesn't make the relatively "harmless" job more moral or honorable.
Good points.
I should point out that in this particular case, one parent is a research chemist with a higher degree from MIT, and the other is a civil engineer with a higher degree from U of Penn.
The kid has all kinds of opportunities open to him, but clearly got suckered into this by a recruiter.
I agree that treading lightly is the name of the game.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
dave....appreciate that you also blog with us.
apropos dubet's comments...what would you have said to the boy if he declared he was joining the mafia and they were going to train him to be a hitman?
It's a little different.
In that case, he would be wanting to be a criminal and a murderer.
In the present case, he's confused, and thinks he's doing "the right thing," something to be proud of.
My intention is to work on his mother--and that is working. She doesn't like what he's doing, so I've given her plenty of ammunition.
If you just strike out at a kid like this and tell him he's wrong, you're liable to have him close off.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
d...do i understand your argument? if he had said "mafia"....you would have said good luck, i hope you come back in one piece and then tried to work on the mother?
(i'm dubious also about the characterization of one, but not the other, as "criminal)
No, my point is someone who says he's joining the Mafia to be a hitman KNOWS he is opting to be a criminal. I wouldn't have to explain it to him. I could tell him he's a scumbag and I hope he ends up doing life and hard time if he does it and kills someone. I can tell him to go talk to a shrink. I can tell him to go see his pastor or rabbi or whatever. There's no need to try and win him around. He's gone.
A kid joining the military is more complicated. He surely doesn't see his action as criminal or evil. He sees it as virtuous. He's trained and propagandized to believe it's a noble act. So for me to jump right in and say he's doing wrong, that he's going to be killing innocent people, that he's propping up corporations, etc., is a big leap. I have to work on this kid and/or his parents, and get them to realize what's wrong.
It might be satisfying to say what I'm thinking, but I could cause the kid to just shut down, and no longer communicate with me. That's a loss.
Get it?
If he were my kid, it would be a bit of a different story, but he's not my kid. He doesn't have to talk to me.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
yes, dave, i understand your dilemma...i see americans everyday pinched by the taboo against speaking out....they can't call a spade a spade
(or say "shit" even when they're drowning in it).
from what you told us you treated this boy differently then if he'd been your son. why? (takes a village, no?)this is someone (a man) who's mere days away from killing innocent people in an illegal war and instead of telling him this and saying "SHAME ON YOU"....well, i can't help but see a cave in to the social niceties and the young beaver cleaver ran to his basketball game thinking " that nice mr. lindorff disagrees with my decision, but he supports me".
ok...maybe i'm wrong, i just think it is unclear, we'll never know if an uncompromising response wouldn't have been just as effective. i see sheeple everywhere. i 'm sure you're a great guy. peace
The difference is I can make my son listen to me, and if he won't my wife has even better persuasive powers!
Have you tried talking with teenagers--especially those not your own?
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
O.S.
Your trenchant comments remind me of the scene in the documentary Sir! No Sir! when a soldier who had returned from Vietnam was telling other soldiers in a GI coffeehouse who may be sent to Vietnam not to think that because they may end up as a clerk typist that that will somehow get them off the hook. As the returning soldier wisely pointed out to them, it won't because they are still part of an organization that is participating in the illegal and immoral occupation of an under developed country.
That statement by that soldier is just as relevant today as it was when it was spoken those many years ago.
E; I agree and was a flightline aerospace ground equip. mechanic in Vietnam; fixed stuff used on aircraft that went out and killed people. Never even shot at anyone or picked up any weapon but a wrench or screwdriver but it never leaves. quit drinking 20 years ago or ,for sure, I would not be here today. Tony
It happened to us similarly in Vietnam but the lessons go incorrectly learned. Whatever happens to that young marine, I hope that he doesn't lose any limbs or end up dead. He will have to live to tell us what he learned from going in and serving. The level of suffering will determine how he chooses to reform himself.
Dave L, you need to confront this kid and let him know what you really think and that you think he's a pawn in the game. We can't let these kids think that they're doing something good for their country or are being "patriotic". They should be made to feel that the USA missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are something that most people in the world think is an inhumane, imperialistic adventure.
I know of a young man who was delightfully sleepy-headed , who joined the army after High School, only to find that the army wanted him to aim a gun at human beings. He told them that THAT was impossible and wrong.
He was discharged.
If more young people failed to live up to the military's perverse "standards", we would be a much better nation.
Hooray for "failures"!
Christian Viewpoint: Thou shalt not kill.
I've made this comment before, but it sounds like it needs saying again: If you join the armed services, what are you if not a murderer for hire? How can there be "good men and women" in the armed forces?
Do good men and women really offer to kill for others? I really can't see it. How many people did Hitler kill? One, that we can be reasonably certain of, since it is general knowledge that he committed suicide.
As for millions of other deaths generally attributed to him, as in, "Hitler killed six to ten million Jews," it robs so many others of proper credit and is thus unfair, since Hitler did not kill those millions--other people did it for him. In the same vein, George Bush did not kill anyone, nor did Osama bin Ladin, as far as I know. They have others do the killing for them.
If you are willing to kill another human being, what business have you on this planet? If you want to kill someone, I say kill yourself. I won't even get into the opportunities lost, because we squander over half our taxes on the military (which, incidentally, can't catch a cave man after almost five years).
I do not support our troops. I support our conscientious objectors, and other thinking people. I support nurses, doctors, teachers, construction workers, garbage men, laborers, cooks, waiters and waitresses, writers, inventors, organic farmers, architects, scientists, engineers, computer programmers, landscapers, and all those who choose to actually do something with their lives.
To the destroyers I say: Why don't you get a life? Far better to be a prostitute, even, than to be a military person. You are at least hiring out to bring pleasure to others, not misery and destruction. If you can't bring yourself to kill yourself, and you still feel a vague need to kill someone, at least get to know a great many people first. Then pick the one you like the least. It will probably be a Republican.
Then you may have some real personal reason to kill, rather than doing so because politician wants others killed, but can't seem to do it him or herself.
For further reading, from a higher authority:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-angrily-clarifies-dont-kill-rule,222/
Daniel G.
Extremely well said.
"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."-Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961], American writer and Nobel laureate
Those incisive words are just as relevant today [despite the propaganda that the United States government and the media attempt to tell the American people] as it was when Hemingway first wrote them.
sometimes, I find telling my son's friends how I feel about heavy issues while my son is present is an effective way to communicate these messages to my son without the familiar 'father-son' overtones that so often thwart the passage of wisdom with a defensive eyeroll...
this often leads to conversations among the group that surprise me in their depth and awareness...
they know what is ahead, although they may not all agree on what to do...
I tell them the government is criminal, and exactly what they're up to, regarding 911 and iraq and afghanistan, etc...they're realistic...Star Wars has already laid the perfect foundation, as the Emperor is the bad guy...easy to grasp that one...the realities of the drug world are familiar to them, so it's no stretch to see heroin farming, or oil\metal\arms dealing, as grossly profitable, and surrounded with killing...
why is that a stretch for so many?
I tell them precisely what I think of the school system, and illuminate them regarding our institutionalized societal mind control by religious- and media-savvy murdering industrialists...
I tell them the Constitution left out a key piece, on purpose: the ability of the same citizenry that elected an official to remove that official outside the normal election cycle...if that doesn't tell you the whole thing was set up as a ruse, then you need to spend more time under the ol' thinkin' tree...
I discuss the ravages of human industry on the living planet, and the reluctance of the individual to be responsible for their own work, and how we will all need to alter the way we live in short order...you'd be surprised how aware of this fact many of them are...they're planning...not always well, mind you, but discussion helps...
though I question the value of mass communication, like this post, for example, I feel much more confident in what I say and hear in these personal conversations...I know thought, and learning, is taking place...this is important...these are good kids, mostly...
we can't be silent anymore...they're building drones...do you understand?
From my POV, we're losing the struggle to win the kids over to our side because we aren't offering them an alternative.
I've dealt with a lot of teens over the years, and the one thing most of them had in common was insecurity. They were just plain scared - but of course, they couldn't tell their parents that, or even their friends who felt the very same way. What drew them to the military was the survival instinct we all possess - strength in numbers, and the comfortable anonymity of a uniform that identified them as the 'bully' instead of the 'victim' - that unit-cohesion factor that makes military relationships so strong. Suddenly, they weren't alone anymore in a hostile world where kids are treated as second-class citizens and denied important responsibilities - denied respect.
Those of you who came back from war - where you were in charge of other men's lives and responsible for millions of dollars of equipment - only to find that in the civilian world you were nothing but an inexperienced 'nobody' all alone in the jungle of 'private sector competition' and relegated to the bottom rung know what I mean. No respect - no support - no grave responsibilities - no sense of pride, and alienated from all those 'civiians' who thought they were such hot stuff but probably never faced the kinds of responsibilities you had mastered - and now you're back to flipping burgers for minimum wage, working for some arrogant smart-ass that treats you like a peon. Hell, I've known 20-year vets that couldn't hack it in civilian life, so they went back for another round - that's brutal.
Somehow, we have to offer kids the same kind of 'perks' - incentives - that draws them to the military in the first place. We have to give them an alternative that compares to what those recruiters offer - nevermind that the recruiters are lying through their teeth. This is an emotional decision, and all the 'facts' in the world isn't going to make much of a dent. Rubbing their noses in the 'facts' will indeed alienate them - where else do they have to go? The military promises them all the things they so crave - respect, responsiblity, camaraderie, and security.
They have to leave the nest - but the world is a very frightening place, and they've already had some 12+ years of a very abnormal social situation where they're grouped by age and influenced by their immature peers - Lord of the Flies, anyone? Add the not-so-subtle indoctrination of organized sports to the mix - war games - where the 'jocks' get all the perks, and these kids are pre-conditioned to choose the military over being cut loose in a dog-eat-dog society with no job prospects, no respect, no security, and no hope. And remember just how scared they really are - humans alone are extremely frail, vulnerable, and thus easily manipulated. Why do you think so many 'losers' join cults? Why the elderly are so easily scammed by a 'friendly' voice on the phone? It's natural - it's survival.
Being left out meant certain death for millions of years - that evolutionary reality doesn't go away in a couple thousand years. There used to be tribal rituals to initiate kids (both girls and boys) into the 'grown-up' society - now they form gangs instead, and compete with each other - the only route left to them. They need 'meaning' in their lives - and that's what they get from the military (their new gang, complete with gang-colors and all the trappings and vices of street gangs). Unfortunately, they learn the wrong lessons, and for those who 'wise up' it's often too late. We have to do better.
My cousin asked me repeatedly: "Why don't Americans care about their children?" - and I didn't know, because my own parents never became 'Americanized' - they taught us about how a defensive military works, and how fascism corrupts it - and they taught us about propaganda, and how insidious, sophisticated, and manipulative it had become in order to best serve the fascists. Why do Americans glorify the military? Why does chauvinism, homophobia, bigotry, and domestic abuse remain the 'norm' - in this day and age? Why do we not offer our children a future that inspires them, challenges them, and rewards them? Why do we force them to turn to barbarism and hate just to 'fit it' - just to feel safe from society? They want to do the right thing - they want to 'serve' as much as get high on 'cool' weaponry - they want to feel that their contribution to society is important. And we give them only one consistent choice - the Big Lie.