What you should know
before joining the military
You’ve probably heard the ads and the recruiter’s sales pitch. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? All advertising does. But if military life doesn’t live up to the advertising, you can’t bring your enlistment agreement back to the recruiter for a refund, and you are obligated to the military for a total of eight years FOR AS LONG AS THIRTY FIVE YEARS*, including possible reserve duty.
Emiliano Santiago served in the Oregon National Guard for his full eight years. Four months after his end date, he was ordered to go to Afghanistan. He was told his new termination date was the end of 2031!
You wouldn’t buy a car without looking under the hood. Check it out carefully!
Topics: Military Facts, The Basics |
$70 Thousand for College?
Well, not really, lets look at that a little closer.First on their list of what you get is the Montgomery GI Bill, $282.00 times 36. Apparently they will send you $282.00 a month for 3 years. Hmmm, last I heard, it takes 4 years to get a 4 year degree. Of course, you won’t be able to pay your tuition AND your rent on $282.00 a month. Don’t forget, you have to pay IN $100.00 per month during your first year in service to get this “benefit”
Then there’s the GI Bill kicker, $200.00 times 36. Oh, that’s a little better, you might be able to eat while attending the college of your choice. But still, not enough money to pay rent and eat and pay tuition. Please note the * next to this amount, below it says “Member must qualify for these programs” Too bad they don’t bother to specify how you qualify, maybe you won’t.
Topics: Educational Benefits |
WAR is a racket, it always has been. by Smedley D. Butler, Marine Major General
“For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.” It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.
Topics: Veterans Speak Out |
Regaining my humanity by Camilo Mejia
If you join the military and find yourself fighting in a war you don’t believe in, you could go to jail, like Camilo Mejia did.
Camilo Mejia spent more than 7 years in the military and 8 months fighting in Iraq. While he was on a furlough from the war, he realized he could no longer justify fighting in Iraq. He applied for Conscientious Objector status, but was denied. At first he refused to return to his unit, but then he turned himself in. He went to trial, and was convicted of desertion on May 21st 2004 by the U.S. military and was imprisoned. Mejia was released from prison on February 15th 2005, and is now speaking out against the war.
Topics: Veterans Speak Out |
I have betrayed my conscience far too long
Albrecht Georg Haushofer (January 7, 1903, Munich – April 23, 1945 Berlin) was a German geopolitician and professor of geopolitics and political geography at the University of Berlin between 1940 and 1944. He is the author of several tragedies in verse, and a representative of conservative resistance in Germany during World War II.
Born in 1903, he was one of two sons of General Prof. Dr. Karl Haushofer (1869 – 1946), a famous German geopolitician, and his half-Jewish wife Martha Mayer-Doss (1877 – 1946). His brother was Heinz Haushofer. Albrecht studied at Munich University under his father and alongside Rudolf Hess, who would later become Hitler’s deputy. After Hess’s imprisonment following the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 Albrecht was a frequent visitor to Landsberg Prison. Following graduation, Albrecht became Secretary General of Germany’s Society for Geography, and later editor of the Periodical of the Society of Geography. In his official capacity he would travel the world, lecturing and gaining a wide experience of international affairs.
Topics: Uncategorized |
Advising My Students on Marching to War
By Kirk Stapp, Friday 24 June 2005
After a marine or army recruiter visits Mammoth High School, students frequently ask me questions about my military experience in Vietnam. Eventually, these conversations lead to a single question: Should I enlist?
Advice can carry a heavy burden in shaping a seventeen-year-old’s future: employment, culinary school, a community college, a UC, a tour in Iraq, an amputated leg, a lifetime full of nightmares, cancer from the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium used in US and British munitions, a flag-draped coffin.
Topics: Educational Benefits, Veterans Speak Out |
Conscientious Objector Status & Alternative Service
A conscientious objector is one who is opposed to serving in the armed forces and/or bearing arms on the grounds of moral or religious principles.
HOW TO APPLY
In general, once a man gets a notice that he has been found qualified for military service, he has the opportunity to make a claim for classification as a conscientious objector (CO). A registrant making a claim for Conscientious Objection is required to appear before his local board to explain his beliefs.
Topics: The Basics |
Injured Iraq Vets Come Home to Poverty
Injured Soldiers Returning from Iraq Struggle for Medical Benefits, Financial SurvivalBy BRIAN ROSS, DAVID SCOTT and MADDY SAUER Oct. 14, 2004
Following inquiries by ABC News, the Pentagon has dropped plans to force a severely wounded U.S. soldier to repay his enlistment bonus after injuries had forced him out of the service.
Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon’s own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty.
Johnson said the Pentagon listed the bonus on his credit report as an unpaid government loan, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment or obtain credit cards.
Topics: Broken Promises, Veterans Speak Out |
Injured Troops Suffer Financially
For Injured U.S. Troops, ‘Financial Friendly Fire’ Flaws in Pay System Lead to Dunning, Credit Trouble
By Donna St. George, Washington Post Staff Writer, October 14, 2005
His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life’s possibilities. The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate — downgrading it because he was out of the war zone — or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.
But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing.
Topics: Broken Promises, Veterans Speak Out |
Herold’s War, A homeless Iraq vet asks for respect
Originally published by Guerilla News Network
Jan. 10, 2005 By Anthony Lappé, GNN
Pfc. Herold Noel wasn’t expecting a parade. But when he and his fellow soldiers from the Army’s Expeditionary Unit 37 arrived home from Iraq in Hinesville, Ga. they got what one might call less than a hero’s welcome. Waiting for them as they deplaned were local police officers. In their hands were lists of names of soldiers with outstanding warrants, mostly for traffic and parking tickets left unpaid while off fighting the war.
“I had a couple [of unpaid tickets],” Noel recalls. “I told my family to meet me in the parking lot and I went out the side door.” According to Noel, several soldiers were hauled away in cuffs as their families looked on. The scene was an ominous sign of things to come.
Topics: Broken Promises, Discrimination, Veterans Speak Out |