Topic: military service

Parris Island, SC.: Four days with the U.S. Marines

By Chris Lugo | February 2, 2009 |

In early January, Clarksville Online was invited to participate in this Marine Corps junket. Several of our staff hoped to attend,  but  had prior commitments, or were otherwise unable to make the trip on such short notice. One of our contributing writers, Nashville’s Chris Lugo, however, was able to attend as a representative of Tennessee  Indymedia. Here is his “Reflection on the USMC Educator’s Workshop and Marine Culture from the perspective of a Peace Activist.”

On Tuesday, January 13th at six in the morning I boarded a Delta Airlines jet in Nashville bound for Savannah, Georgia.  Accompanying me on the plane were two employers of a local rock station in Nashville that caters to young adults, high school teachers from rural and mid sized school districts in Tennessee, and two recruiters for the U.S. Marines.  Our destination was Parris Island, South Carolina, which is the primary training ground for new recruits to the United States Marine Corps.

The Marines, which are a small branch of the US armed forces, receive about six percent of the Department of Defense annual budget and have two training facilities for newly enlistees.  I had been invited along a USMC Educator’s Workshop, which is essentially a marketing strategy designed to encouraged high school teachers to develop friendlier relations with Marine recruiters, and to encourage journalists write positive stories about the USMC.

I am a peace activist, and my training and education is in the business of ending war and promoting peace.  I am also a politician who has run for office twice as a candidate for U.S. Senate representing the Green Party of Tennessee.  If I had been elected to office, one of my first actions as Senator would have been to sponsor legislation to immediately withdraw all U.S. armed forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, to drastically reduce the scope of U.S. military spending and close our military bases overseas, so I didn’t fit easily into any category that the USMC had constructed for the three day program.  Still, as a former candidate and in the interest of good will and cooperation, I attended, because I believe that it is important to hear all sides in any conversation — and the USMC clearly has one side and they want to make sure that you understand exactly what that side is. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 3 Comments

ASVAB: Backdoor military recruitment in the guise of “career testing”

By Christine Anne Piesyk | November 20, 2008 |

Tucked inside a handbook my grandson brought home from school was a score sheet not unlike what one might expect from No Child Left Behind or any standardized state Achievement Test paper. Scores and tables and percentiles. Okay. And then I looked closer. Read the fine print (almost needed magnifying glasses for my 58-year-old eyes).

Although it masquerades as a “career exploration test,” I was appalled when I first read the tidbits on the grading sheet, test materials and booklet on a test called the ASVAB, a test most high school juniors (11th grade) take.

ASVAB, you ask? What’s that? ASVAB stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery; I had to visit three websites to find the acronym actually spelled out. Yep. My grandson, 17, has been tested by the U.S. Government and the only reasons for that are the probability of intense recruitment efforts or the possibility of forced military service — i.e.: a draft. It’s a logical conclusion, given the issues facing recruiters in a country increasingly disenchanted and disgusted with the policies behind the Iraq War (and the physical, emotional and financial cost of that war), policies that have tens of thousands of U.S. troops deployed in the Middle East, policies that have stretched our troops to the breaking point. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News, Opinion | 2 Comments

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