The truth about military recruitment

By Martin Smith
Nancy Pasternack’s "Tell it to the Marines" article in a Sunday edition gave a sympathetic view of the tough life of being a Marine recruiter. Being a Marine is a tough life, and I should know, as a veteran myself.

But you can ask any number of people who have served in the military, not just "anti-war protesters" at UC Santa Cruz, that you can trust a recruiter just about as much as you can believe a used-car salesman. It’s certainly not the individual recruiter’s fault that they distort the truth and must give false and misleading information to potential recruits — that’s their job and they have a quota to fill.

But that’s exactly where Pasternack’s article, I believe, focuses on the wrong issues and the wrong service members. Instead of telling us about the poor and abused Marine recruiter Staff Sgt. Wenner, who is in constant need of a free uniform cleaning due to anti-war protesters who spat upon him — an image that is more often used falsely to malign anti-war protest sentiment and belittle the message of peace activists — perhaps Pasternack should consider writing about the veterans who were promised job skills and opportunities but received a death sentence in the Middle East instead.

Take the words of veteran Kellie Doughtery, who was a sergeant in the Colorado Army National Guard and served in Iraq. I interviewed her at a recent peace rally outside Fort Bragg, N.C., on March 19, the second anniversary of the start of the Iraq war.

more: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2005/May/22/edit/stories/03edit.htm