Posted on 12/15/2005 5:56:46 PM PST by Incorrigible
They Sign Up Knowing They'll Go to War
BY DAVID WOOD
FORT JACKSON, S.C. -- Deep in the dank woods of December, young Americans are gritting through another long day of basic combat training, new soldiers in their first weeks of military service.
Straight off the bus from civilian life they get a haircut, fatigues and a rifle and learn to shoot wearing body armor. They struggle through days in cold and rain, learning to work in teams, mastering combat first aid and compass navigation at night, and pushing past limits of exhaustion and fear: They throw live hand grenades, rappel off 40-foot towers, low-crawl under live machine-gun fire.
They are tough, smart, confident and motivated. They have enlisted to get money for college, to escape bad situations at home, to make a better life.
And they signed up knowing they will soon be sent to war.
At graduation, when the gymnasium erupts in their full-throated cadence of the Soldier's Creed -- "I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT! I WILL NEVER QUIT! I WILL NEVER LEAVE A FALLEN COMRADE! I AM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER!" -- the roar will smash against the walls and stun their families in the bleachers, even if it is not heard far beyond the perimeter of this huge training base.
The Army's recruiting difficulties are well known. Often obscured, by public opinion polls and newspaper headlines about the war, are the tens of thousands who do enlist.
Some refer to them as the NASCAR generation. They are a tiny slice of America and not a privileged one. Though there are college graduates and poets among them, many have been given little except this opportunity. They eagerly fill the Army's ranks and will carry out the war policies made far away in Washington. [Ah yes, must get that Liberal elitist dig in]
"I enlisted to get a better future for myself," said 18-year-old Pvt. Jeread David Grizzle of Cleveland, Calif., who will be a vehicle mechanic.
"I was doing carpentry out of high school and thought I could make something better for myself. My mom didn't want me to go because of the war, but she told me to make my own decision. She's a truck driver, and she sends me cards now telling me what we are doing is good for the country."
Missy Kopf, 23, was an underemployed mother of three with few prospects in the oil and timber town of Minden, La. She enlisted over the vehement objections of her husband, but explained: "I want to be able to take care of myself, and I want a better life for my children."
While she trains, family members are caring for her son and two daughters -- the youngest only eight months old. "I miss them, it breaks my heart," Kopf said. "But it'll be over soon."
"Almost all of these kids have had speed bumps in their lives, and not only speed bumps but outright barriers," said Col. Tom Hayden, deputy commander at Fort Jackson and the tall, rangy son of an Air Force mechanic.
"The Army is an opportunity for a lot of people, and that's not the Washington, D.C., crowd. To me, that is not a negative. This is a meritocracy. You've got to earn your way, but we will take care of you."
Perhaps half the recruits who come his way are from military families, he said; many have relatives already in Iraq. They know full well what lies ahead.
"It's not a popular war, but the country needs soldiers at a time like this," said Pfc. Megan Sturgis, 20, of Cleveland, Ohio, who will be a supply specialist. Pausing to catch her breath during a rigorous seven-day combat exercise, she added proudly: "I am ninth-generation Army."
There are 32.1 million 17- to 24-year-olds in this country, according to Army statistics published this fall. Only some 80,000 are expected to sign up for active Army duty between October 2005 and October 2006, along with 25,500 who choose the Army Reserve and 70,000 the Army National Guard.
"My mother -- I see the things she goes through, struggling. I don't want to go through that," said Devon Weston, 17, of Sumter, S.C. He quit high school at 16, but got his GED and eventually heaved himself over the threshold of the Army's aptitude test. He will be a petroleum supply specialist.
For Weston and his buddies, Iraq -- if they think about it at all -- conjures excitement and bravado.
"If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die," said Pvt. Kevin Velez, 17, of Orlando, Fla., who also quit school for a job at 16 and got his GED at night. He enlisted to become a helicopter mechanic.
"If I go, I go. I'm only 20, but I've lived a fast life," said Pvt. Jimmie Hughes, a lanky boxer from Fort Worth, Texas.
Parents increasingly take the opposing view, Army survey data suggest. The percentage "very unlikely" to urge their children to enlist rose from 20 to 35 between 2003 and 2005, while those "very likely" to urge their children to enlist dropped from 25 percent to 18 percent.
"Clearly, the public knows the risk," said Col. Thomas Nickerson, the Army's director of advertising.
In recruiting, Nickerson said, the Army emphasizes "the tangible benefits" of military service: up to $71,000 in college tuition assistance and technical job training.
In one television ad, a teen tells his mother, "I found somebody to pay for my college -- besides, it's time for me to be the man."
And that's precisely how many real recruits think.
When DeCarlos Sheppard of Newberry, S.C., enlisted this fall at age 21, Iraq hardly entered his calculation. He and his wife have two daughters, 6 and 4, and a son due after Christmas, shortly after he graduates from nine weeks of basic training and begins advanced training as a hazardous materials handler.
The family will likely live in Army housing, in a pleasant, crime-free neighborhood with the full range of Army benefits including life insurance, health care, good schools, day care and recreation facilities.
"If I do go to war, it's to defend my country," Sheppard said. "And if I don't come back my family will be all right."
In years past, recruits like Sheppard had little risk of seeing combat. They could choose jobs in logistics, administration and technical support -- the traditional route for enlistees more interested in college money, technical training or supporting their families than the adventure of war.
But in Iraq, with its unpredictable insurgent attacks on convoys, logistics points, mess halls and support bases, every soldier -- infantryman or cook -- must be ready to fight. And as U.S. combat forces are gradually drawn down, under current Pentagon plans, the role of support troops like Sheppard will become more critical in helping to feed, arm, refuel and move the Iraqi army.
Acknowledging these realities, the Army now pushes all recruits through tough, realistic combat training from their first day.
"The fact is that basic training sucks. It's hard and it needs to be hard," Hayden said. But the dropout rate, of recruits washed out for medical or discipline problems, has stayed level at about 10 percent. Most kids stick to it, Hayden and others say, because they're grown up and hardscrabble.
It worries some that today's volunteer military attracts just a sliver of American youth, an inequity that the draft, for all its shortcomings, helped balance.
Tim and Stephanie Harrah, who traveled to Fort Jackson from central California for son Shawn's graduation from basic training, were proud to see him take his place in a long line of military volunteers -- "There's been a Harrah in the military since 1776," the father said.
"The timing of it threw me," the mother admitted. "But I think everyone ought to do two years of military service. It would make people appreciate things more."
Dec. 15, 2005
(David Wood can be contacted at david.wood@newhouse.com)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
Hooaah!
My son enlisted. He signed for the Army Reserves thinking to serve as he goes to college and then switch to active after graduation.
He is now thinking of requesting a switch now.
These young people are volunteering because this is such an important time. The war and the time are NOW.
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Morale is high among these Army basic trainees even after four cold, damp days in the woods -- and four to go before they road-march back to camp. Pvt. Celia McQueen (front), 18, of Windsor, N.C., enlisted as a food service specialist. (Photo by Bob Mahoney) |
It ain't the sixties anymore. Kids these days love their country.
My son (and all my kids for that matter) grew up in a moslem country. He loves this country.
God Bless your Son
Still gives me chills just reading it.
God bless the American soldier!
Thanks for the link
God Bless your son!! and Thank You!!
We attended the BASIC graduation at FLW this August. It sent chills up and down my spine to hear the troops recite the creed. Our young men and women are awesome.
A bragging mom here: JT (my son) was platoon guide.
I am 57 years old. I am a Vietnam veteran and blessed to still be serving in the Army Reserve. Last year I was deployed to Uzbekistan. I am now trying to get back on flight status. I work on Fort Jackson as a miltech and these young soldiers in training make my heart breakwith sheer pride!
And at weekend drill assemblies, we recite out loud, to the point of shouting, the Soldier's Creed!
Thank God I can still thank these young soldiers by being one!
I know two young men in training right now. Because of their MOS, neither one is going anywhere but straight into the thick of things either. I have a small theory about these young men and this generation...
In the vacuum of moral certainty, boomer offspring have been left without traditional anchors of patriotism, morality, religion or a greater sense of destiny. Too many of the X and Y'ers have ruined their lives before they're even out of the gate and many, many more have been flushed down abortionists' sinks. Luckily, for some in this generation, something real is not to be found in the self-satisfied life of utopian dreams, rank hedonism or the moral relativism of their confused parents.
I think that this war is rightly seen by some as THE event of their generation and their lives. Those who are motivated by higher ideals other than the warmed over leftist slop of their boomer parents are seeing this as a real chance to affect change and to be part of something bigger than themselves. Without the usual patriotic fanfare and popular support of previous generations (Vietnam era veterans certainly experienced much of this too) these kids have made these choices entirely on their own many times without family or social approval or even a clear moral compass to guide them.
I am absolutely amazed and awed by the courage and quality of these young people. I am grateful as I can be and look forward to their safe return into society where they will continue to be seasoned pillars of strength in the spineless ocean of waste that much of our society has become.
I was one of them.
The military allows one to climb out of the lower classes.
I wish I was 17 again so that I could join up and go to Iraq.
"But I think everyone ought to do two years of military service. It would make people appreciate things more."
Not a bad idea.
May He bless and protect them as they take up their mantle in the greatest and most decent military on the face of the earth, and steel their families with pride and comfort.
Me too.
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