WASHINGTON (April 21) – Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions.
Data released by a congressional committee shows the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350.
So let me get this straight. The fact that 719 kids with records were allowed to enlist somehow, someway, is so outrageous it needed a whole article?
Come on….no matter how much the writer wants to spin this it does NOT mean were in a recruiting emergency. CJ puts it into perspective:
According to FBI statistics in 2006 (the latest available), the number of juveniles arrested for assault (ie, schoolyard fights, but not including aggravated assault) rose 5.0% in the past decade. The number of robberies by juveniles rose 34.4%. Violent crimes involving arson by juveniles rose 7.6%. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter by juveniles rose 17.8%. Vandalism among juveniles rose 10.4%. Weapons offenses by juveniles rose 30.9%.
In 2006, 414,822 juveniles committed the offenses that the article highlights being waivered in to the military. The military recruited 680 of those juveniles – a mere 0.16%! Those individuals made up less than one half percent of the total enlistment contracts signed.
I’m sorry….one half of one percent does not require a dire warning from out MSM. But it’s not surprising they spin this stuff like so. How else to spin the successes in Iraq but with hyperbole about a fraction of a percent.
See author page
Liberal view of criminals:
Poor souls that are the victims of society turned against them that must be helped and rehabilitated. Once they serve their time they should be considered regular members of society and allowed to contribute like all others.
Unless they enlist in the military, then they’re dirty filthy thugs that do not deserve to have that position and it demonstrates the desperation of the military in allowing these disgusting individuals to serve.
Buzz NAILS it!
what else could I add? BUZZ did most certainly nail it.
Great comment left at CJ’s post, by George Samek, CW-3 US Army Retired:
Interesting contrast: Kevorkian is running for office in Michigan. I guess felons that turn to politics after jail rehab don’t rate equivalent media sniping and snobbery as our soldiers, eh?
But I dare say, the military’s training, discipline, oversight and punishment in the military courts is far more stringent that the US judicial system is on our elected officials. So I’ll bet on the boys in uniform as coming out the superior citizen over felon pols.
There’s a different kind of pol?
Didn’t they used to send troubled adolescents to the Marines to turn them into men?
And have not the Marines always done a good job of that?
Bubba, I think they only do that during Republican administrations. Never during a Democratic Presidency. Surely once a Democrat is in office, everything will automatically be better, there will be no need for an increased military (despite being a DNC election platform for the past 20yrs), and so felons and non-Americans will no longer be recruited to protect our nation and fight for the rights of Amerikans.
>felons and non-Americans
I remember back when I was in basic (when dinosaurs ruled the earth 😎 ) there were 4 guys from South America in my platoon who were earning their citizenship.
I thought well of their efforts then, and I think well of their effort now.
I think a term of service would do more for most young people than any other program out there and I have true respect for folks who choose to earn their citizenship that way. it leaves no doubt in my mind that they *earned* it!
Just My $0.02 worth….
The interesting point (if I may combine two issues) is that, as our military was accepting 900+ convicted felons into the fold, it was discharging approximately 1200 gay service members.
The implied argument is that a raw recruit with a felony record is, somehow, more valuable to the military than is a gay soldier who (presumably) has already completed their training successfully and (in most cases) is otherwise serving honorably.
I digress…moving back to the issue at hand, I can understand granting waivers for things such as theft-by-deception (bad checks over a certain amount are prosecuted as felonies), burglaries, or even auto theft. I will admit, however, that I am dismayed and concerned to learn that waivers (though very few in number) have been granted for convictions of manslaughter, aggravated assault, and sex crimes. One would hope that these cases are vetted with extreme care; since they must be approved by a BG-or-higher officer–which I did not know until reading this article–such would seem to be case.
It is also disconcerting to learn that the general “moral waiver” category of recruits (which includes misdemeanor convictions, drug use (even if unprosecuted) and the like) rose from a 15% share of total recruits in 2006 to 18% in 2007. When I enlisted in the 1980s, I seem to recall that number in the low single digits.
Gee… now who was it that was responsible for the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy? Uh… lemme think… don’t help! LOL
Wes,
The Laughtenberg Ammendment refutes your numbers. If convicted of manslaughter, sex crimes, domestic abuse, etc, the person is not allowed to be in the military.
So, as usual, we will dissagree and I think you are mistaken
‘…how else to spin the successes in Iraq…’
Excuse me, did you say successes? And what would those be? Almost $ a trillion in the crapper? 2-4 million displaced citizens, ones more innocent than you (they didn’t approve the invasion of anywhere)? The use of white phosphorous against civilians? The poisoning of Iraqis and your own stupid idiots with depleted uranium? The use of torture (including sodomy) even against children? Nazi-like door kickings in the middle of the night? The rape of little girls? Theft? The fact that there’s still no drinking water or electricity? Murderous rampages by Blackwater goons? Over a million dead Iraqis?
Wait-I know what it is: America has successfully proved to the entire world (which already suspected) that America is the dumbest, most barbaric, most loathesome nation in the whole mean world. That’s it. Oh, and another thing. You can’t possibly ‘win’. You already lost. Remember Viet Nam? Nah, of course not.
Talk about gullible. Man, you’d believe anything-any stat-that fed your support for Saddam’s regime.
2-4 million displaced? Yeah, right. There’s more Iraqi refugee camps than there are Palestinian ones. No one sees them, but they’re out there someplace. NOT
$1trillion? I’ve heard as much as $4 trillion this week. Add up the costs though, and it comes out to $550million over 5years. That makes it cheaper than the cost of so-called “containment” years from 91-2003.
1,000,000 dead Iraqis, eh? Interesting. Only about 1/11th that number of bodies have been found. Where’s the other 910,000 bodies? And of those bodies…you do of course recognize that about 1/30th of the number you claim were actually killed by US bullets and not Al Queda, Baath Party loyalists/insurgents, and Iranian-backed militias…right?
Dude, do some research. Try not to be so gullible as to buy the opposition party propaganda anymore than you think others should believe the Bush admin (btw, none of the stats I provided come from the Bush Admin, but rather from the Democrats’ Congress and independent, bi-partisan investigations).
Yawn, must be a fence post down in the moobat holding pen
The ‘containment years’ (nice euphemism) did nothing to dislodge Saddam, but did kill (amongst others) 500,000 children under the age of five. Nice going!
That’s what I’m talking about- you don’t care who dies or for what reason.
I’m not in your awful country, and I wouldn’t believe anything that comes out of your execrable news services. None. The figures I cite are accepted by (non-American) scholars from around the world. The cost of $1 trillon is approximate and only to date and may rise to 4-5 trillion when all is taken into account. I refer you Nobel prize winning Economics Prof. Stiglitz.
The number of displaced includes those who have left the country, who are living with relatives, moved to different regions, etc. Also an approximation.
The number of dead is also an approximation supported by British Lancet and other organizations. Not all those were killed by American bullets, but most were as a direct result of the illegal and immoral American invasion. Not in question is that many brutish Americans have murdered innocent Iraqis for ‘sport’.
As for Al Queida, as of a very short time ago your creepy VP was still pushing the line that Saddam had ties, that Saddam was responsible for 9-11 a stupidity still believed by a majority of your imbecilic troops on the ground.
I guess you can be as bloody stupid as you want, but not when you endanger the whole world. Try to let it sink in- you can’t ‘win’ in Iraq any more than you could in Viet Nam. All that’s left is to mumble some platitude about ‘honor’ and get the hell out. You were never ‘the good guys’ here never will be.
unmurrikan,
Congratulations, you have cornered the market on hate, pre-programed lies (leftist talking points) and general ignorance. And you are idiotic and somehow proud of it too…. Insanity… Hate and insanity best describes your moronic posts.
It wasn’t used against civilians; and it’s an incendiary; not a chemical weapon. Only the moonbat spinmeisters and anti-American scumbuckets believe such slanderous garbage.
Yes, every gullible moonbat’s new best friend. His math’s wrong.
What is it that you find so believable about the Lancet study?
Inaccuracies due to spin, and behind in the news. Find me the quote where VP Cheney said Saddam is responsible for 9/11.
BTW, unmurrikan’s weblink causes Firefox to crash. Now to check for viruses from it.
unmurrikan, I can guess you are not American. I can also guess you are either a leftist nutcase or an Islamic radical. I am guessing leftist nutcase from lack of religious attacks (barring your idiotic attack on the Pope). However, when Christians are slandered, there is no rioting or heads chopped off.
But go ahead and believe your own hate and idiotic lies as that is all you have. I am off to run a virus check now that I clicked on your moronic web link.
That is a low an vile calumny against US Service Men and Women and I request that you back it up with some reliable sites or withdraw the statement.
Implying that we are the evil ones…
For years, I have thought that the folks who say this, only do so and can only get away with it because it is not true.
Can any of them imagine what would happen were we to truly turn our time, energy and talents to Evil?
What would the same energy that built the World Trade Center, the Panama canal, The Apollo Moon Landings create when turned to destruction ?
What horrific works we could accomplish ?
Would any of the few survivors dare to say anything?
Common, Tamerlane was a piker!
They should thank whatever gods(s) they worship every day, that the US Solder is above that kind of industry.
Chris,
Thanks for the heads up. What a cowardly schmuck.
Gee….I wonder who this boy is running away from…..
…and finding shelter behind:
You don’t suppose he knows the difference between the “good guys” and the “bad guys” do you?
A U.S. Army Soldier from Charlie Company, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, from Ft. Lewis, Wash., shares a laughs with an Iraqi army soldier at a U.S. and Iraqi Army security checkpoint in Tarmiyah, Iraq, Sept. 25, 2007. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication 2nd Class Summer M. Anderson.
U.S. Army Sgt. Quenton Sallows hands out Iraqi Flags to Iraqi children beginning their first day of school in Lutafiyah, Iraq, Oct. 1, 2007. Sallows is assigned to Civil Affairs, 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Quinton Russ.
Nice to Meet You
U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Julia Venegas, from 2nd Marine Logistics Group, shakes hands with a little girl in the village of Kabani, Iraq, while on a security patrol Sept. 28, 2007. U.S. Marine Corps photo taken by Lance Cpl. Robert S. Morgan.
A U.S. Army Soldier of 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division plays with a young Iraqi boy in Mufriq, Iraq, Oct. 8, 2007. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Shawn Weismiller.
Iraqi girls walk to a primary school in the Andaloos district of Fallujah, Iraq, Oct. 17, 2007, to receive school supplies from U.S. Marines and Iraqi police. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Robert B. Brown Jr.
The students at an elementary school in Jerf Al-Mila hold up their ‘Junior Hero’ stickers after taking an oath to become honorary Junior Heroes during a visit to the school by Iraqi Army Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 9th Iraqi Army Division (mechanized), Oct. 17. The Junior Hero program was designed by the Iraqi security forces to teach children about the roles of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police who work in their communities and ways in which they can volunteer to keep their villages free of crime. Photo by Staff Sgt. Jon Cupp, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division Public Affairs
A Sucker for Children
U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Patrick K. Mason, a squad leader for 1st Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, hands a lollipop to an Iraqi boy during a security patrol in Dulab, Iraq, Sept. 25, 2007. The Marines are working with Iraqi police in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Al Anbar province of Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Shane S. Keller.
My goodness unmurrikan, you certainly are a very hate-filled individual. Though you appear to have a great love of conspiracy theories.
So, you aren’t in our “awful” country… You use the world “bloody” and cite a British report, so my guess is you’re a citizen of our fine ally the United Kingdom.
But, before you come down too hard on the United States, you might remember that Western Europe’s freedom from the Nazis and subsequently the Communists was guaranteed by the United States. Of course, in spite of Eastern Europeans later assuring them that it wasn’t such a good deal, plenty of lefties in Western Europe apparently thought being part of the Soviet Bloc would’ve been a good idea. Post-war Europe’s economic recovery and physical reconstruction was paid by the U.S. Marshall Plan.
Now, on the chance that my educated guess is wrong, I’ll end that line of discussion. But, in spite of all the negatives you choose to concentrate on, the Pax Americana has allowed far more people around the world to get an education, have greater economic opportunity, and be rescued from tyrants.
Maybe you revile the United States for its “Western Imperialism” and Capitalism, but I don’t believe I’m the only one who hopes we continue to: “Think locally, and act globally!”
Folks, where I come from we never committed genocide against any indigineous population- we didn’t use dead Native children as dog food or deliberately introduce smallpox to the population. You did. Your ancestors found joy in wanton state murder. Your contemporaries still do. Why?
We don’t claim we are God’s Chosen, or exceptionalism, or Manifest Destiny. You do.
We didn’t kidnap Africans or anyone else to use as slaves. After not doing that we didn’t create one of the most viciously racist societies on earth, sic dogs and firehoses on minorities, murder tiny Black children for trying to go to school, or voters for wanting to vote, or people just for being. You did. Do you know or care how many people got lynched in America? It still happens.
We didn’t invade any of our neighbors, employ torture methods (such as waterboarding) in the Philippnes in the 1800’s, use terror tactics against neighbors such as Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatelema and others. We did join in the fight against Hitler as America sat by and was even prepared to see Britain fall. We didn’t drop atomic bombs on two cities of civilians, surely two of the most cowardly acts in human history. We didn’t invade Viet Nam (where’s the ‘Domino Theory’ now?). We didn’t drown Vietnamese in buckets, throw them alive from helicopters, or engage in ‘Operation Phoenix’ which ex-judicially executed between 25-50,000. We didn’t do My Lai and many other atrocities. You did all that. You machine-gunned old women, old men and babies and drank to the Home of the Brave.
We didn’t fall for the lies of the most mendacious, secetive, and undemocratic President in your sorry history and invade a country where we had already exterminated perhaps a million citizens after installing and maintaining a vicious dictator who suited our needs (for awhhile). We didn’t meddle in Iran and depose an elected Prime Minister and impose the murderous Shah who helped to steal their oil. You did those dishonorable things.
We’re not planning on invading or ‘oblitering’ Iran, or Syria or anywhere else for that matter. You are.
After all the murder and mayhem since America’s founding, can’t you see how people literally want to vomit when they once again hear about such vaunted American values as Freedom, Democracy, the American Way? The American Way kills people and always has. The American Way is lies and hypocrisy and self-delusion. Why can’t you get that?
As Americans you had better start to appreciate just how loathed you have become in the world, because unless you wish to destroy it, you can’t stand up to the whole planet. You have no friends left, although some governments will tell you what you want to hear. Soon even they won’t dare.
The Nazis were arrogant, but not nearly so much as you are, and they were a lot more informed about the world, and a lot more educated in general. Your ignorance (and indifference to history, logic, and truth) are as disturbing as your arrogance.
I notice on sites like this there are no individuals, just little gangs of cheerleaders, brave in their identical Brownshirts. Cheer on.
I loathe what America has sunk to, the stupidity, the racism, the hate-filled religion, the greed, the arrogance, the mindless embrace of violence, the sheer mind-numbing depravity. But never mistake loathing for fear. That mistake will surely be your ultimate undoing.
unmerikan….you’ve no right to blame any American today for bad things that Americans or British or Dutch or Spanish or French ancestors did 400yrs ago or even 40yrs ago. No nation has a closet without skelatons.
You project a lot… The hateful comments and associating us with “brownshirts” is a manifestation of this.
So what pristine mythical land are you from? What mythical land where your ancestors did no wrong against anyone did you hatch from which seems to give you this “holier than thou” elitism? Your IP states you are in Canada. Interesting. I doubt the “Native Americans” would agree with your statements about your pristine history.
Your historical “understanding” is full of lies, slander, and hate. Yet you accuse us of being nothing but evil.. An “evil” that has protected Canada with our lives BTW. My family fought slavery in the USA AFTER fleeing it in Europe. We ran Underground RR stations. I am also part “Native American” and through it I have learned that the American Indians are not the “pure” “innocent” people we are taught to believe.
You yourself are full of nothing but hate and lies. We are not perfect, but unlike you, we acknowledge the mistakes made not by our ancestors (as many in the USA are immigrants fleeing oppression in their lands) but of our history. In this we are different than most any other people. We do not seek war, but decades of terrorist actions and Saddam violating the Gulf War Cease Fire resulted in his downfall and our war against Islamofascism. This upsets you thus speaking volumes about what side you think is “good”, but you believe their lies without question. You call us “cheerleaders” yet this is another manifestation of your delusional projectionism, as is your continued conspiracy theory stupidity.
I DO see stupid, arrogant, hate-filled, arrogant mindless cheerleader here to loath: YOU!!!!!!!!!
That’s because Canada doesn’t do a whole lot of anything but shoot verbal barbs while hiding behind the skirts of the US and England.
ChrisG, your Firefox has the good taste to crash instead of load Orato. It’s a site of “citizen journalists”. If UNmurrikan is one of the 3891 contributors, he certainly isn’t confident enough in his position to use his “correspondent” name.
To catch the bent, they are offering $100 for any eyewitness story for..i.e.
One doesn’t find it difficult to see the slant and reporting… anti-American, and ways to show the more bent side of the Mormons.
Wait! Hold on… just found some positive stuff. Not political, of course…
UPDATE again. Lots of stories here on huge variety of topics. Course who knows if they’re true. But certainly could provide entertainment. END UPDATE
Poor UNmurrikan tho. Does appear to be a victim of education that specifically seeks stories of hate. Not much better than jihad schools. Certainly keeps the hate going generation after generation.
But he, like Skye55110, has just become invisible. My browser scrolls easily enuf…. mental “delete” in force. I can move on because I have already seen there is nothing of value in the comments.
MataHarley,
True. No value in his hate and lies at all except as an example of what stupidity, hate, and brainwashing does to a person.
With his “hate-filled religion” comment on another thread, I had to wonder if he was speaking of Islam or the Trinity Church. Since you were able to see his reference site, I would think he and his ilk see nothing but “peace” in Islam and refuse to see what is happening in his own, Europe’s, and sadley now America’s backyard concering radical Islam.
But from your quotes from the site, I am inclined to belive this person supports those who, ironically, would gleefully kill him while he stabs those of us defending and warning him in the back. Reminds me of the Oxford Debate Society’s pledge in the mid-1930s.
The Domino Theory was accurate. After WWII, communism spread violently through all of eastern Europe. They conquered East Germany, Poland….Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Latvia….one domino after another. (The communist threat was resisted by the U.S. in Greece.)
China’s fall has spelled disastrous consequences.
The U.S. was being probed and tested, everywhere as the Soviet Union advanced its interests all over the world. After WWII, a war-weary U.S. was eager to demobilize; but the threat of international communism made it clear that they were hell-bent on world domination. Stalin wrote to Zhou Enlai on August 20, 1952 during the middle of the Korean War, about how Germans conquered France in 20 days; but in 2 years of fighting, Americans had yet to subdue North Korea;already people are weeping in the U.S over the body count. Stalin’s belief was America had lost the will to win large-scale wars and the will to protect its interest, as demonstrated by America’s inability to protect China from falling to communist rule.
The countries that comprised the Association of Southeast Asian Nations remained free of communism, thanks to the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. The Indonesians threw the Soviets out in 1966 because of America’s commitment to Vietnam. Without that commitment, Communism would have swept all the way to the Malacca Straits.
For all its failures and haunt on the American psyche, the Vietnam War was a turning point. It demonstrated a willingness on the part of the U.S. to stem the tide of what is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 100 million people, most of the murders occurring after WWII.