It's What the Recruiters Don't Tell You...

The Armchair Curmudgeon
News&Views
May 8, 2007



It’s What the Recruiters Don’t Tell You…

America invests six to eight weeks or more teaching young, innocent people how to become killers. In every way, they are encouraged to kill. That’s what being a soldier is all about when you remove all of the hype. And, oftentimes, those they kill are innocent women or children.

Think about it.

If they survive their tours, more often than not, they are returning with what is being referred to as “personality disorders.” Any big surprise? I mean you can’t teach men and women how to kill, throw them into combat and then expect them to come home the same way as they left.

But the government does. I know. It happened to a young man I had known and loved since he was a baby.

He went to the Gulf, came home and blew his brains out.

Why is it we can we invest all this time to turn our young people into killers and not invest at least an equal amount of time to deprogram them so that they can become productive citizens again? That is my question..

The sad part is that when these young people seek help, they are told they their problem is a personality disorder and that their problem has nothing to do with their service.

They have just gotten the military off the hook.

But they’ve abandoned the young person they taught how to kill…

It’s tough, pardner, we used you up and now you’re on your own.

That’s the sum total of the message that the Army, Navy or Marines gives to our best and our brightest. They are left to fend for themselves once the benefits run out. Something that the recruiter fails to mention to the young recruit when he’s selling them a bill of goods.

Something our leadership should think about four years after our president said that the War is over.

And something for the next crop of young people to think about before they get sucked in with big promises from the local recruiter seeking to fulfill his quota.


Les Aaron
The Armchair Curmudgeon