Recruiting in the Schools - No Lie Left Untried

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff10112005.html


When it comes to a reputation for selling snake oil, surely the army recruiter has long been right down there in the muck with the used car salesman and the patent medicine huckster. It's common knowledge that the promises made by recruiters about postings and future positions and training are worthless, and that once someone signs on as a recruit, her or his fate is at the whim of the military. That said, recruiters these days, desperate to fill the pipeline to Iraq's slaughterhouse with new bodies, are resorting to an interesting new spiel this days.

Word comes in from students in the Philadelphia area that recruiters at area high schools are warning them to enlist now, when they can pick the type of service they'd like to do, "because there's a draft coming next year and then you'll have no choice."

It's an interesting come-on because the White House and Pentagon keep saying that there are no plans for a draft.

Granted, two years ago they began a crash program at the Selective Service System to rebuild the local and regional draft boards, which had been allowed to languish for years with seats going unfilled, and which are essential to a functioning system of conscription. And granted that this year was the worst year for enlistments and reenlistments for all branches of the uniformed services since Vietnam, with even the Marines failing to reach their quota, and with the army raising its maximum enlistment age from 35 to 42.
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so, which is it? draft or lie?

they'll still lie