Via DarkSyde:
- If you saw Fahrenheit 9-11, you might remember a scene with a pair of Marine recruiters filmed in a Michigan Mall. One of those featured was Staff Sergeant Raymond Plouhar. This individual allowed Michael Moore to film him (?-DS) at work even though he knew that Moore opposed the war. Obviously he was proud of his work, or he surely would not have granted permission.
Plouhar is described by those that know him as one hell of a guy. Indeed, despite his short brush with fame, what a lot of people don't know is that Staff Sergeant Plouhar originally enlisted in the Marines in 1995, but took a four year hiatus after donating a kidney to his uncle, saving his uncle's life in the process.
Whatever our views on the wisdom of the war, or lack thereof, we must recognize that there are two distinctly different kinds of war supporters: Those that put yellow magnets on their car, and those that report to the recruiter station to put themselves in harm's way. Both may genuinely believe in the military action in Iraq, but one deserves far more respect, imo, than the other.
Staff Sergeant Plouhar was one of those. Not long after Fahrenheit 9-11 was finished, he shipped out to Iraq himself where he served with distinction in Anbar Province--one of the most dangerous regions in Iraq. Last Monday, Staff Sergeant Plouhar was killed in action. He was thirty-years old and had 38 days left in his deployment.
4 Comments:
Well said. I am proud of those who go enlist. I may not agree with the war, but it would be foolish of me to not care for our men and women over there, and to wish them safe travels. Plouhar's story is not unique. There are many that would do whatever they could for God Country or Family. Would you lay your life on the line for something you belived in? I dont know that I could for my country.
Staff Sergeant Plouhar (et al.), you served us well.
They're taking combat troops with missing kidneys? I bet CF and that other guy still claim there's no recruitment problem and hence no reason for them to enlist.
Citizen F, if you are an electrician there is a staggering need for you in Mississippi. Hundreds of rebuilding projects in Hancock County are stalled because we can't put in insulation or drywall until the houses are rewired.
Speaking of how the chickenhawks' war isn't stretching the military thin and thus obligating them to think about maybe considering enlisting:
Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts
By JOHN KIFNER
Published: July 7, 2006
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem."
A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it.
The center called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appoint a task force to study the problem, declare a new zero tolerance policy and strictly enforce it.
The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war.
The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq.
The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members."
Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."
The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities.
The defense secretary at the time, William Perry, said the rules were meant to leave no room for racist and extremist activities within the military. But the report said Mr. Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, Wash., had said that he had provided evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year, but that only two had been discharged. He also said there was an online network of neo-Nazis.
"They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," he said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq."
The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone."
An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator."
"Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' "
He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/washington/07recruit.html?ex=1309924800&en=18e0e7dce2b8c8d3&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
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