A Place to Talk About War

I would like to hear from soldiers who have been in combat situations, from their families, or from others interested in this conversation. I am a graduate student interested in war rhetoric. I have no preset agenda: I simply want to listen, to learn, and to be supportive.

Name:
Location: Texas, United States

Married, two kids. Worked in the defense industry for 20 years before taking a different path. I'll be starting my dissertation on the rhetoric of war in a few months. This semester I am teaching Freshman Composition. I DON'T CARE ABOUT BLOGGERS' SPELLING, PUNCTUATION, OR ANY OTHER GRAMMAR MATTERS--I JUST WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Sailor Kills Marine After Lie About Rape

"A sailor pleaded guilty Monday to abducting and killing a Marine corporal he thought had been involved in a gang rape. The rape turned out to be a lie, but the truth surfaced too late . . . Federal agents had testified at his Article 32 hearing . . . that Jackson had been fooled into falling in love with a woman who called herself Samantha and made up a story about being raped by servicemen.

'Samantha' turned out to be Ashley Elrod, a 22-year-old hotel clerk on North Carolina's Outer Banks, who testified that she lied about being raped. She said she 'might have' told Jackson that one of the Marines was named Huff or Huffman, and she said Jackson called her after Huff was killed. Elrod has not been charged."

In exchange for his plea, he won't get the death penalty. Is there anything they can charge her with besides being a Jezebel?

http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20061023/453c3e40_3ca6_1552620061023-2090222277

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Army recruiting up; so are waivers

You probably saw the morning news report that the Army's recent recruiting numbers are higher than they have been for a while--and that so are the numbers of waivers approved for crimes or health issues. Thought you might find this interview excerpt interesting: Harper's magazine is talking with "Eli Flyer, who retired as a Pentagon senior military analyst in 1979 and has since served as a consultant to U.S. armed forces on personnel issues. He has spent the last fifty years analyzing the relationship between military recruiting and military misconduct; of note is his 2003 report to the Pentagon, 'Reducing the Threat of Destructive Behavior by Military Personnel' (PDF). "

Don't the military services weed out applicants with criminal offense records who are more likely to get in trouble while on active duty?
Many applicants who are accepted for service have committed serious misdemeanors, and some even have felony convictions, even though the evidence is clear that these recruits are more likely than those with "clean" records to show be behavior problems while on active duty. To enlist with a conviction for a criminal offense, an applicant must receive a "moral" waiver. The process involved in issuing a waiver—evaluating reference recommendations for enlistment—is a weak one that has little value for screening purposes. It needs to be fixed. Since recruits who enlist with a moral waiver generally have higher discharge rates than other recruits, they should certainly receive more intensive screening for enlistment than they do now. A number of the men who have been accused of abuses against civilians in Iraq had histories that should have raised red flags. For example, former soldier Steven Green, who is accused of raping and killing an Iraqi girl and her family, enlisted with a moral waiver for at least two drug- or alcohol- related offenses. He committed a third alcohol-related offense just before enlistment, which led to jail time, though this offense may not have been known to the Army when he enlisted. News accounts say Green was a high school dropout (with a GED certificate) and suggest he was a seriously maladjusted young man. A limited background check during the recruitment process would likely have provided information showing he should not receive a moral waiver.
http://www.harpers.org/sb-six-questions-eli-flyer.html

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Sorry, sorry, sorry

What can I say? Sorry I've been gone so long; nice to know that some of you missed me. While I am not going to resume my former output, I will try to be much more diligent about at least posting occasionally.

Not only do I have my usual teaching load this semester, but I am assissting my dissertation director with an upper-level War Rhetoric course. That is not a complaint--I was honored that she asked me and thrilled to be teaching in my area. But it does make me busy when added to my other responsibilities (especially the dissertation that I am supposed to be writing).

Things that I was tempted to post about, but never got around to:
  • Woodward's new book says that Henry Kissinger is advising President Bush on the war in Iraq. Oh, that's very comforting, seeing how well Vietnam worked out for us.
  • One of the arguments against allowing our military or intelligence officers to use "tough tactics" aka "torture" against prisoners is that it leaves our soldiers open to torture if they are captured. Can we think this through just a moment, please? Is there any government or combatant group out there who bases their treatment of our soldiers on how we treat others? I am NOT advocating torture--far from it, and I'm still a little rattled that we're in a position to even be talking about whether it's okay for Americans to torture people. But in some hypothetical situation--war with North Korea, let's say--can you imagine Kim Jong-il basing his decision on whether to torture American soldiers on the latest U.S. military guidelines on the topic? I can't.
  • There's something disturbing about this war being fought by 52-year-old grandmothers manning machine guns. I know she was in the reserves, but it still just seems, well, wrong somehow. Story here.
Okay, let's hear some comments so I can feel justified in taking the time to post. :-)