KPRC Investigation: Drug Users Ushered Into Military Service

February 1, 2007
KPRC Local
http://www.click2houston.com/investigates/10904749/detail.html


HOUSTON -- Note: The following story is a verbatim transcript of an Investigators story that aired on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007, on KPRC Local 2 at 10 p.m.

Tonight, Local 2 investigates a new danger for U.S. troops in Iraqi war zones. Our hidden cameras uncover how drug users and even addicts are being ushered into military service as tens of thousands of new troops are being sent to Iraq.

KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Stephen Dean's investigation is leading to action in the nation's capital.

lowered in other areas as well, to include exam scores and medical qualifications. And we won't even talk about criminal waivers...

The investigation demonstrates recruiters telling candidates they can retake the drug test after a period of time. They give advice on how to flush the remnants out of your system.

The problem is that some recruiters gave the impression that you can remain a drug user after joining the military by knowing when the testing occurs.

Many recruits who fail the test may simply smoke pot occasionally. Letting go of this vice is part of joining the military. It's part of the agreement you make. For a recruit to tell you to clean up and come back seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Military recruiters are not nurses or therapists. They are promoters of the US military as a career and an initial screening process.

Some reform by the commander is in order, which he agrees to consider in the interview. But, I don't think it's a big problem.

Peace.

when I went in to the USAF in 1970 there were dopers everywhere. Saw (and did) more acid at a strategic air command (SAC) missile base in 18 months than I did in 4 years in college in the 60's.

I knew at least 3 guys, friends of mine at the time, who were given this option in the very early 70's when up on drug charges.

- should have been either justifiable or manslaughter in the first degree, as the person he shot had already wounded his grandfather and it looked as if the shooter was going to kill the rest of his family; my co-worker was facing a life sentence in Leavenworth because he was the wrong side of what was basically an racial incident and the whole ugly fight took place on Pine Ridge reservation. The judge "took pity" on his youth and gave him the choice - the Marines or a short, ruined life as someone's "girlfriend" in a federal pen. A death sentence either way.

He was only one of three of his company who survived the war - and most of his company was comprised of young men who had been in similar situations to his. In the early seventies, sending people who were considered borderline trouble - not really felons, but not "average, respectable citizens" to Vietnam was accepted by many local judicial and policing entities as a way of getting rid of "excess weight" in society.

The military has always been considered an option for young people drifting through life with no real opportunities to "improve their lot". During "conflict" when the economic costs of war place an strain on the lower level unskilled or dis-associated labor force by switching resources from civilian to military focus, that "option" becomes even more of an opportunity for these personality types. Especially if they have others to support.

Haele

recruiters and the drug use/testing was part of it. It's strange that the stories are coming out at the same time no?

If you want to read/view the story, it is at the link below:
http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_032224659.html

Edit to add: They went undercover to several recruiting offices:

One recruiter dissed Bush, saying that Iraq is not about Bush, he didn't even vote for Bush!

Here is some snips

<Inside the Medford, New Jersey Army Recruiting Station Staff Sergeant Derrick Davis is telling CBS 3 undercover producer about the dangers in Iraq.

"The chance of you dying in Iraq is very, very slim," said Staff Sergeant Derrick Davis.

Sgt. Davis also told our producer a smart soldier could actually control his own fate.>

<"You're chances of dying is like being out here. You know what I'm saying? You gonna die. You could fall off your bed and that's it," said Sgt. Rodriguez.

The National Safety Council says the odds of dying by falling out of bed are one in 347,000.

The chances of a soldier dying in Iraq are one in 250.>


That's right the chances of dying in Iraq is 1 in 250! This is how we attack the RW fools who bring up the auto deaths, murders etc.

After a relative of mine flunked the drug test to get into the Navy in the mid-90s, he went to the Army recruiter. They told him how to beat the piss test, he did, they sent him to rehab twice while he was in, ended up giving him a medical discharge for a "knee injury". He was stationed at Bragg, and he said there was cocaine, white supremacists, and gangs all over that base.