The phone rang a few minutes ago. It was for my daughter.

She will be 18 real soon.

Me - She's at school, this is her mom, can I take a message?

Woman calling - When is a better time to reach her?

Me - Can I tell her whose calling?

Woman - This is the Army recruitting office.

Me - Don't you ever, ever call this house again!
slam!

What is this? Do they have a list of people that are turning 18 soon, along with their phone numbers?
I feel so violated!
It's bad enough having them go to her school, but why do they have her name and phone number??

Bet you didn't hear the Chimp discuss that in his edumacationization speeches, huh?

You spend all your days as a parent doing all you can to protect your child, and
bam, along come the vultures swooping down just in time for their 18th birthday.

I remember recruiters only being allowed on campuses when I was that age and even then it something that had to be suspected for the shady practices and lies they would feed students. It pains me to see them moving the posts again.

How dare you refer to our brave soldiers as "vultures?"

Any decent parent would encourage their son or daughter to enlist and defend our homeland.

Why do you hate America?

:sarcasm:

They started calling my house when my kids were 14.

...passed a law refusing financial aid for college to anyone whose parents won't allow recruiters to meet with their kid first. :eyes:

Your school should have asked you if you wanted her removed from that list.

If they don't stop calling - you put on your best mama bear growl and end with "I will hunt you down..."

I think they call each other and say "cuckoo cuckoo" after that, because that's the last time I got any military crap for my son.

The only problem is that many schools tie military and colleges together so that if you opt out of the military, you are also opting out of the colleges getting the name and info as well so make sure you know what you are checking when you check that box. Our school district, thankfully, lets you say no to the recruiters (which I did) and yes to the colleges (which I also did).

different?

Talk to your children. They need to make informed choices.

She has other goals for her life.

She hates war as much as her mother does.

Nice to see.

Peace.

for the past 2 or so years.

I guess they want to recruit me early :P

He finally got me at home. After giving his pitch, I told him that I had taken "tons of acid, man."

They never called again.

no one wants to join...i mean its a straight ticket to iraq...no duh...

http://www.peaceedcenter.org/MilOptOut_undated.pdf

File copies at both the school and the district office.

I will do that.

And as soon as she graduated, the calls started all over again.

...a Marine showed up at our door looking for our daughter. Needless to say he never got past me.

You done good :toast:

Cheers

Omg - If they show up at my door, you may be reading about me in the paper.

...and I thought they were there for her brother who is 19 months older than her. I was stunned that it was my baby girl.

If I read about you in the paper I'll send bail money :hug:

A simple call from a recruiter makes you feel so violated? Maybe you better stay away from the phone, I'm sure Verizon will be calling shortly.

"So, you need my daughter as cannon fodder for Bush's stupid war?"

Did you also give the school her social security number? You are not required to do so, and I didn't.

the letters from the Leave My Child Alone activist action, and I can't tell you how many pieces of literature, phone calls to my house, and my 17 yr. old gets calls on his freakin' cell phone!

I did intercept a call from the Marines, and I stated that he's a minor, recanted the above, and they haven't called since. I'm sure that when he gets closer to his 18th birthday, the calls will begin again, but the mailings haven't stopped. I suppose they'll be calling the 14 yr. old soon.

We can only figure that the school turned over his cell phone number as they log the numbers of kids who have cell phones at school! We got a cell phone for him when he passed his driving test and he was going to be out driving - not as a plaything, but so he could call home if something happened while he was driving. :mad: :mad:

and they will be calling for my son next year. I will tell them not to waste their time calling back. Everyone in this house is fully aware joining the military means you go and fight to protect profits of US corporations, high chance of death/dismemberment. No one here interested in that.

Julie

high chance of death/dismemberment? I'd be interested in your numbers. Thanks!

Source: http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

If I understand things correctly, we have 180K troops there at any one time. 32K are "officially" dead or wounded. That means 1/6 of the folks serving in Iraq are "officially" casualties.

Now, before you say something silly like "because of troop rotations, that's not a good number" (which is a valid point, and probably brings it down to better than 1 in 6), allow me to point out the obvious -- multiple trips/rotations. You might not end up on the bad end of the stats the first time out, or the second time out, or the third time out....but we've got people going for fourth and FIFTH rotations. And these numbers don't include the damage to the psyche that happens....

I respect the men and women of our military, but they are being BADLY misused. Frankly, it is CRIMINAL, and I would *NOT* encourage anyone I care about to join at this point in time.

This is not Clinton's army. Bush has no respect for them, and his contempt for them is shown by the way he abuses them.

:cry:

ON EDIT: Doh! Looked at the *small* number by accident -- its worse than I thought! :cry:

Boy, that's for sure. I was in the military when Clinton was elected, and I've never seen morale go south so quickly. Now I work around a lot of military, and I really don't see any morale issues; certainly none like there were then.

I don't view a military recruiter telemarketer as being any more annoying than any other telemarketer (which is to say that they are very annoying and should not be calling).

By the way, your stats are wrong - you point out that we have 180k troops in Iraq, and 32k dead or wounded, therefore a 1/6 casualty ratio. All well and good, but the 32k is a running total over four years. If you add up all the troops who have served in Iraq during those four years, you'll come up with a number substantially higher than 180k.

Yes, I know it is a RUNNING TOTAL, but I pointed out that the "running total" doesn't account for the MULTIPLE ROTATIONS, which means a vast majority of those 180K are THE SAME FOLKS.

We have units with 80% casualty rates (I know the father of one member). Its the luck of the draw, and I think 1 in 6 (while an easy, off the top number) is probably more accurate than I'd like it to be. World War II had the same problem with fighter pilots -- there seemed to be a "magic number" of times before "the number was up" and a pilot didn't come back from combat.

I know "military folks" liked to disparage Clinton because he didn't serve, and most INFORMED people know Junior didn't either. The difference is that Clinton *RESPECTED* the military, and treated them as Valuable Human Beings (instead of expendable minions).

Welcome to DU.

ON EDIT: Perhaps you should compare the "Bush Years Dead/Wounded Military" to the "Clinton Years Dead/Wounded" for a comparison? Or, how about the "Dead Americans" in both cases? After I saw Rumsfield talk about "Nuclear War Would Be An Option!" I put a bumper sticker on my car:

CLINTON: 8 Years, Peace & Prospertiy
BUSH: 9 Months, War & Recession

First of all, the military as a whole is not 180K troops, it's closer to 2.4 million members on active duty and in the reserves. Now since the military recruits over 200K new troops each year, you figure since 2003, that at least another 800K troops rotated in and out of the military. That brings the pool closer to about 3.2 million.

32K/3.2M = 0.01 - Not exactly a "high probability"

with numbers -- I'm a tad sleep deprived! I'm not sure how many troops have rotated in and out, but I keep seeing the numbers 180K, and running into folks who have served multiple rotations. I'm not sure which scares me more -- the same couple of hundred thousand folks who keep going, or close to a million folks who have been exposed to the war in close quarters!!!

I think Bucky's numbers down below are probably closer to reality -- with a 5% probability of overall Iraqi "official" casualties. As I said, I know we have folks rotating in and out of danger zones (Falluja) with 80% casualty rates....

But, to be honest, the bottom line is still that under this administration I would *NOT* encourage anyone I care about to join as I do not believe this administration treats them with respect. 1 in 6 or 1 in 18 == BOTH SUCK as odds for wounds/death, especially when its for a *BAD* cause.

although everyone is quick to assume I was. The original comment was "Everyone in this house is fully aware joining the military means you go and fight to protect profits of US corporations, high chance of death/dismemberment."

The military is millions of people on active duty and in the reserves all over the world, not just the 160K in Iraq. That's the military.

Afghanistan are the ones we talk about the most because they are directly in harm's way (and therefore we worry about them the most). We also have folks serving in other dangerous positions in this world (nuclear subs aren't a walk in the park, and the Korean border patrol isn't a daily picnic!), and you are right to point out the services they perform for our country. I think we both know, however, that NO ONE can promise any member of our military that "they won't have to go" (nor would most of our service people think well of such a comment -- the ones I am familiar with are proud to go where they are sent, even when they don't agree with the politics).

As I said, I have *great* respect for the men and women in our military, and believe they deserve the support of *ALL* OF US. I do *NOT* agree with their current mission in Iraq, but I reserve my wrath for the FOOLS whose CIVILIAN LEADERSHIP has put them there.

I also know that there is a terrible toll on the psyche of our soldiers when they endure life in a war zone. The fact that our service people do so in faithful service to their country (and whoever we put in office, regardless of their own opinion of the Commander in Chief) is to be applauded.

However, I believe tens of thousand of them have been used badly, and frankly, that number should *ALWAYS* be ZERO. Their blood is my blood. They belong to ME -- THEY ARE MY PEOPLE, and like other public servants, THEY SHOULD BE HONORED WITH RESPECT AND NOT ABUSED. I do not believe they should be asked to shed their precious blood for oil profits or the incompetence of a FOOL. (I'm not sure if you remember that the inspectors claimed they would be finished within a week when Bush ordered them out of Iraq. Their report would have confirmed what we now know -- NO "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Ten days of wisdom/diplomacy, and YEARS of bloody war would have been avoided! ARGH!!!)

:argh:

out of a pool of about 500,000 troops who've been in and out of Iraq over the last four years and a half years, 3800 are dead and 28,000 have been wounded.

That's about one in every 131 dead in 4.5 years, or one in 18 wounded.

My base figure could be off. If it's closer to 600,000 troops (army and Marines) rotating in and out, then it's one in 157 dead, one in 21.4 wounded.

Extrapolated out to the whole US population, that'd be like having 1.9 million Americans killed by violence and another 14 million injured by violence. If you go back to the original base figure of 500,000 military personnel, then it's 2.3 million killed and nearly 17 million injured by gunfire, bombs, or vehicle accident occuring in the prevention of gunfire and bombs.

That's about three to four times the actual figures. But of course the actual figures draw from a population with children and seniors in them. The military population has no children at all and damn few combatants over the age of 50.

although I think you are underestimating the "repeat rotation" factor. Still, 1 in 18 is still rotten odds as far as I'm concerned, and I would *NOT* encourage people I care about to join the military at this time.

(That is not to say that I don't respect the military -- it is an honorable profession that, as I said, is being HORRIBLY misused. The men and women who join up do so in most cases because of a deep love of country, and they deserve all of the support those of us who do not serve can give them.)

Please forgive me for tossing off some numbers quickly without doing more analysis -- I'm a tad sleep deprived due to teething twins!!!

Do you think the military is looking for anything but cannon fodder these days?

Even if there's a modest chance the risk is far too high for me to think it's worth one of my kids (or anyone else's for that matter!) to sign up--just to go and protect the profits of corporations.

But, realistically, with war(s) in progress and bob-knows-what on the horizon, I would say it's very likely it's substantially more than a modest chance of death/dismemberment. But if deductions and common sense aren't enough for you and numbers are your thing, you might want to start here: http://icasualties.org/oif/

Those numbers tell me a story of unfavorable odds.

Julie

Watch much news lately?

Whatever the poster's political bias is, they didn't reveal it by asking for information. Asking questions to get more facts isn't a bad thing. You should't get irate over people asking for facts. I've always thought we were the side that liked facts.

Rinse. Repeat.

We've gotten 26 calls despite doing the opt out letters. I mean how many times do you have to say NO??? There has been a temporary lull to the calls since my second most recent complaint to my Senator's office, but I'm not holding my breath. I started photographing the caller ID on my phone as a proof of the calls. Next call I get I plan to tell them they will be recorded and I will get all their information, and that of their commanding officer. I'm going to take it to the ACLU if they persist. They've disrupted important business calls, disrupted dinner, and been more annoying than any telemarketer I've ever dealt with in the past.

Wait till a recruiter wants to "hang out" with one of your kid's friends who has enlisted or signed up for a delayed enlistment. It's sick.

We had a case here where a middle aged male Army recruiter followed 17 yr old girls around town hounding them and calling them all times of the day and night. Even the police wouldn't stop it because it was supposedly legal. The parents banded together and filed a civil lawsuit and suddenly the recruiter was transferred somewhere else.

to that point. I am sure that they had complaints from the parents and chose to do nothing until legal action was threatened.

Same recruiter calls for her friend. They both graduated in 02, and this joker has been calling them ever since.

Fuck you, Montoya, and all your asshole peers.

It was about a year before my graduation when the emails started rolling in. Air Force, Army, Marines, Coast Guard, Navy, every single branch was sending me an email a day trying to get a hold of me. A friend of mine had the nerve to email the Marine recruiter back, indicating he had no intention of joining up. The recruiter didn't like that kind of attitude, and sent numerous emails back berating my friend being "ungrateful" and "un-American", and so on.

... of fascism, and instead accept it as a real projection of a possible future for this planet.

This crap disgusts me more and more each day!

My have times changed even since that movie was made!

and forget about it.
:P

i loathe their sick tactics too.

freak out, too! Tell them to call republicons.

He cornered me in school, but I refused to even speak with a recruiter.

Then next day, he's ringing the doorbell. In the driveway was a "Go Army" minivan. :puke:

A friend of mine use go with them to Subway and Burger King just to get food with no intention of signing up. :rofl:

My parents always told me that it was my decision, and mine alone and I respect them for that. While I'm in debt now due to school expenses I'm thankful that I'm not in a body bag.

"NAZI punks, NAZI punks, NAZI punks...
F&CK OFF!!!"

were getting called a lot. I knew how they felt, so I finally told them to take the calls. Both of them just went off on the callers, telling them exactly what they thought about Bush's war and very clearly told them to stop calling. They did this with the Army, the Marines and the Navy. The calls stopped. Now we get mail constantly. We've started bundling it up and sending it back.

turning 18. This is a normal call.