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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 19985
[Action/Protest]
Date Posted:
9/3/2008
4:54:13 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 8,605
RSS: 17,165
Comments: 31
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Quaker Woman Tries To Steer H.S. Students Away From Joining Military
Author: AP Source: CNN
Title: QUAKER WOMAN TRIES TO STEER H.S. STUDENTS AWAY FROM JOINING MILITARY
Sally Ferrell bounded from the truck and grabbed a posterboard sign that read: "War is not the Answer."
Over the years, she's organized dozens of peace vigils like this one being set up in a parking lot. Find common ground, she has always preached, and any conflict can be resolved.
But she's now engaged in a conflict of her own -- a dispute over military recruiting in high schools that has polarized rural Wilkes County.
For three years, Ferrell has asked permission to distribute pamphlets and other materials that warn students to think twice before joining the military. But the school superintendent has stopped her, calling her activities unpatriotic. The American Civil Liberties Union, calling it a First Amendment issue, has threatened to sue.
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Community Thoughts: There are 31 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| War And Solutions | Sep 6th. at 1:00:24 pm EDT
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Ananta Androscoggin (Greene, Maine) - Email Me
How did Heinlein phrase it in one of his books? "Let the Carthaginians debate it with the Canaanites, and the ghost of the passenger pigeon be the moderator." I know that's not how it went, but it's pretty much the gist of the sentiment.
Warfare, once the true "Sport of Kings," and always a tool of those ambitious for power and 'glory,' isn't going away anytime soon, given the nature of so many of the governments around our little planet. Tinpot dictators tend to confuse their personal desires to be synonymous with what their country MUST also want. Thus, the worry over the strange resemblance between the rhetoric of Bush's speeches and the rantings of such vermin: "Those who disagree with me are unpatriotic" to begin with.
Two examples (and very different ones at that) of countries which have universal conscription are Switzerland and Israel.
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| I'm... | Sep 5th. at 12:49:57 pm EDT
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Corax (Glendale, Arizona) - Email Me
a military vet too, so I agree that the military is necessary. But if these kids choose to join the military, they should go into it with their eyes open, i.e., they should hear BOTH sides of the issue, and Ms. Ferrel should get equal time. Anyone who has been in the military knows what high-pressure salesmen those recruiters can be. Kids need to hear the other side of the story with the same level of persuasion.
My problem with the recruiters on high school campuses is not anti-military; I have no problem defending against communism, fascism, etc.. I DO, however, have a problem when the war is not about defending America against the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, etc., or actually FINDING Osama bin Laden (BTW, bush actually stated on TV that he wasn't really interested in bin Laden anymore) but quite clearly was trumped up in order to enrich the oil companies and other Big Business and to provide an excuse to deprive Americans of many of their most cherished civil liberties. Poor kids shouldn't be in danger of getting their legs blown off, so the oil company investors can live even more luxuriously than before.
A slogan from the Vietnam era is appropriate here:
"What if they gave a war and nobody came?"
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| No Need For Quakers To Fear | Sep 5th. at 12:42:18 pm EDT
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Ahr-Ohn (Bridgeport, Connecticut) - Email Me
I suppose a lawsuit would be in order, from the ACLU's stand-point, and a fund should be set up to assist the School Board in their stalwart presentation of this test case. Still, Quakers often make the mistake of despising the Military, to the point of having established Pacifism as a kind of Steeple.
A much better approach, would be to approach the girls, in high school, and present them with the alternative carreers they should be seeking breadwinners amongst, if they exist. Further, the Quakers were a force to be reconned with, during the Vietnam War, as the very bravest soldiers, they gave Pacifism a good name. They carried Wounded, in stead of Rifles, and those wounded got wounded where sensible soldiers knew better than to tread. Thus-wise, the Quakers could put their hands to War, and hope for some progress.
The Military is necessary for reasons most would rather not savor, but the lack has proven disastrous, and the savoring is called for. Military is not a necassary Evil, but a polite address, to that evil, which may or may not be necessary. Military stands between Civilization and Savagery, and those neglectful of Savagery are doing naught for Civilization. Peace Corp is a good alternative, which is how Solomon gave us Gautama, Zoroaster and Pythagoras, but Medical Corp should also be trained for, as a way of extending the hand in places where Peace will not otherwise approach.
I don't think Basic, as given in Military Circle, would be appropriate for Everybody, and the uselessness of Child Labor Law would defeat any such effort, but Medicine Lodges should be able to compete for the sixty markets of Youth, rather than condemning them to High School.
Arawn
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| KWITCHERBITCHIN | Sep 5th. at 10:15:20 am EDT
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Lady GoldenRaven (New Castle, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
As a Navy vet, I can see both sides to this story.
First of all, the majority of people will NEVER see combat. Even in this time of war,
If the recruiter is going to the high schools--there is nothing wrong with him having time set aside for him to show what the military can offer. The military CAN offer GOOD things.
Personally, I think ALL kids should go thru boot camp---not so much for the miloitary training, but, our children are sorely in need of discipline and someone to show them how to be an adult. Most parents are not doing their jobs. Boot camp also gives you PRIDE-once you make it thru boot camp-there isn't anything you can't do.
They don't need to learn about weapons or how the military works, but the physical and educatiional aspects---most definitely.
We have become a nation of wusses. Oh woe is me---wake up people, The military is a necessary evil.
We would NOT be allowed to practice our faith if it were not for those fighting for our freedom.
Before everyone condemns the military recruiting system--try learning something about the system and how this country works.
It is a much better alternative than living in some other countries. At least here-everyone has the choice. Most countries it is MANDATORY that you serve time in the military.
So let's all quit complaining of someone who wishes to speak to those high school seniors--who will be making their own way as adults .
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| War HASN'T Solved | Sep 5th. at 7:39:21 am EDT
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Sapphire Firebloom (Williamson, West Virginia) - Email Me
tyranny, for all you get is a new tyrant; slavery because it still goes on; oppression still occurs; fascism, communism, nazism - all three are still here, and don't even get me started on terrorism.
I do appreciate what soldiers have done for this country. I do honor them for their commitment and sacrifice. However, I do NOT believe that military recruiters should be allowed on school campuses. If kids want to join the armed forces, fine. But allow them the choice - give them options. And I believe that parents should be involved in this process - no recruitment without parental involvement - especially with high school students, who have not even lived yet - and their being asked to go to another country to very possibly perish.
I just don't see how this woman telling kids that they don't have to choose the military is a bad thing. Because they DON'T have to choose it. It may be a good choice, but there are other options. I'm thankful for the woman for being there to give these kids other options when they probably think that there are none.
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| Oh But In All Fairness | Sep 4th. at 10:20:17 pm EDT
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LD Wolverine (Edmonton, Alberta) - Email Me
If the recruiters can come in and offer jobs...then she should be allowed the same opportunity. What kind of jobs is she offering the students? Does she have a viable business to set these students up in a career with? If so, then she should be there to present a viable alternative.
If now, then I dont understand why she should be allowed to stop them from recruiting. Sure she can have her say. but it puts me in mind of the protesters outside of abortion clinics. I dunno...more information is required I think.
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| Oh, Yeah, War Never Solved Anything... | Sep 4th. at 10:14:20 pm EDT
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LD Wolverine (Edmonton, Alberta) - Email Me
Except for tyranny, slavery, oppression, fascism, communism, natzism, and we're working on Terrorism...
but other then that, war never solved anything right?
Whatever.
I tell you right now, if it wasnt for a military recruiter in high school, I would be a statistic right now, from a family that couldnt afford anything even remotely like collage and the government said my parents made too much to give me anything to help me. Yeah I would be stuck in a rut in my home town, probubly a druggy, with 6 kids.
Instead I listened to a recruiter 18 years ago, and I am a responsible, discliplined, educated woman who waited till she was 30 and successful to have children.
Those recruiters saved my life. And tens of thousands like me.
So till you have walked the walk...shut it.
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| I Think... | Sep 4th. at 10:01:53 pm EDT
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Corax (Glendale, Arizona) - Email Me
it is absolutely disgusting that these school administrators allow recruiters to invade school lunchrooms to ply their filty trade, while not allowing Ms. Ferrel to give her side of things but twice a year. A pox on bush and the republicans and their self-serving war for oil! What it all boils down to is that American kids die and get maimed so that the oil companies can make windfall profits- who cares if a few thousand POOR kids get their legs blown off; OUR kids don't have to worry about that, so what's the problem?
I hope that the scummy republicans re-institute the draft-- because then there would be such a groundswell of resistance that would make the Vietnam protests of the 1960s and 70s look like a trip to disneyland!
Just as in the 70s, Congress would be FORCED by public opinion to cut off funding for these insane wars and finally they would thankfully end!
Out of the Middle East NOW!
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| Recruiters | Sep 4th. at 5:20:57 pm EDT
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Silver Tree (Fort Worth, Texas) - Email Me
I'm a vet (Navy 1983-88) with two daughters in college. My oldest (born in the Naval Hospital in Naples Italy) is a senior, and honor student, at the toughest College of Nursing in Texas. I understand the military is at its stretching point and that recruiters are under pressure to get saps to enlist for Bush, Cheney & Co's escapade in the middle east. Anyway a local recruiter called my house looking for my eldest. The caller ID nailed this as a recruiter.
I ordinarily have no problem with anyone who joins up, however this war is illegal, etc. When possible I like to counsel potential recruits. I don't try to discourage them from joining. They do need to be aware that there is more to the service than what recruiters and Hollywood imply.
I made it certain that I did not raise either of my daughters to participate in a war for oil and Zionism. The recruiting office understood my message clearly. They wisely don't want an extremely angry veteran in their office. They even got my girls off their mailing list.
My recruiter was a dirtbag. As Mama Fate willed I later had access to his pay and service records. He never received any more promotions and his pay was somehow permanently FUBAR. ;)
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| Here's Something That Conservatives And Liberals | Sep 4th. at 4:30:41 pm EDT
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Jenna (Cary, North Carolina) - Email Me
Can agree upon when it comes to the military: how about any President or member of Congress who wants to start or continue a war must put his/her own child or nearest kin on the frontlines to show just how important this war is to him/her like the Romans did? It makes no sense and is beyond insulting to declare that your and my children are "worthy" enough to die for this country, but the Bushie twins aren't. Wasn't there a revolution so all people would be considered equal and we would be without an aristocracy? We have a class system every bit as oppressive in this country as it was in England under George III, and it needs to stop. It should be, by law, any politician who wants to start a war must begin by signing his/her child up for active duty on the frontline. That might limit the number of war that this country engages in.
On the article, it is unfortunate that we do need a military and soldiers, but alas this is the world in which we live. Maybe if we detox from the petrol, we could pull out of the Middle East entirely (and stop helping the Saudis to fund our destruction via Hamas with our bloody petrol money) and become a less aggressive nation. Oh, dare to dream! I agree with the Quaker woman in the article; military recruiters have no place in schools. Look, porn is legal too, but I wouldn't want Jenna Jameson coming to my kid's school to discuss the fine opportunities in that industry. I don't want an agent of death coming and lying to my sons in their school. If they decide to join, they know where to find the recruiters: they're online and in the phone book. They do not need to go into schools, making promises that they know they won't keep to children who are at a crossroads in their lives and don't know exactly where to go. I didn't suffer for nine months to give birth to my beloved child only to see him in a coffin for an unjust war. NeoCons, take note: put your kids up or shut up about trying to take mine! Shalom to all.
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| It's Ridiculous | Sep 4th. at 3:51:10 pm EDT
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Friday Scott (Middleton, Wisconsin) - Email Me
I repeat, it's ridiculous, for some to claim, 'Liberals hate the military and are trying to destroy it, cause they don't put yellow 'Support Our Troops' ribbons on their cars and then support *instead* an administration that *claims* to support the troops but in fact *screws them over.*
So now we should encourage deceptive recruiting practices in order to make up for the resulting declines in recruitment strength, instead of demanding the government honor its half of the bargain before telling the kids to sign up and get screwed, anyway?
Does that seem right to you?
What you think, the Republicans who said they're going to 'run the country like a corporation' are just gonna give up money they don't have to, when we keep giving them our kids, anyway?
Somehow, I don't see that happening.
Time to press the issue. For *all* our troops. And *real* support.
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| Hmph | Sep 4th. at 12:27:57 pm EDT
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Dynnys Derwydd (Lubbock, Texas) - Email Me
Part of the problem is underfunded or unfunded mandates coming from above, and that is Congress and our President. The VA was just beginning to clean up its act when the current Gulf War, and War on Terror, began and they are not overwhelmed with the number of soldiers who are alive yet need months and years of physical therapy.
And yes, before anyone asks, I am a proud veteran and son of a long standing military family that has lost loved ones in war from the American Revolution to some dear cousins and second cousins currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Please place much of the blame where it belongs; on our Congress and President who feel our men and women in uniform are nothing more than political pawns in the business as usual city that is Washington, D.C.. Yes, I do blame both Democrats and Republicans. Both parties need to be run out and never allowed back in.
honi soit qui mal y pense,
Dynnys Derwydd
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| Patriotic Or Not?? | Sep 4th. at 11:44:35 am EDT
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Mysteries Child (Garfield, Arkansas) - Email Me
I would love to live in a world where soldiers, and the standing military they wo/man, would be unnecessary. A world where people simply do not need to shoot at each other-- or to be able to credibly threaten to on very short notice-- sounds like a very utopian place indeed.
"Utopia." Something in the rusted regions of my literary education tells me that's an old Greek word meaning "nowhere." As in, "It would be nice if this place existed. But it doesn't. That's why it's an ideal to strive for."
The way things are, I have to acknowledge that we need weapons. We need trained soldiers. Sadly-- and I know some of you are going to want to shoot me for this ( ;-/ ) -- the way things are, sometimes we need wars. We needed WWII. I think we need the War on Terror (though not as it's currently being waged) .
I respect our military. Grudgingly, yes, but I do respect it. I have a great deal of respect-- not grudging in the least-- for the great majority of men and women who staff it.
I came from Wadestown, West Virginia-- a place very much like Wilkes County, a place where you were a coal miner and undertook a dirty and dangerous job, you were a nurse and drove many many miles to work each day, you taught at one of the two local schools and prayed you didn't lose your job in the next reduction in force, or you were poor.
If you wanted to go to college, you got an academic scholarship, you got an athletic scholarship, you accepted taking on a mountain of debt (if you were given the option) , or you joined the military.
If you weren't going to college, and you wanted to get out, you joined the military.
If you wanted to stay, and didn't want to spend the rest of your life either working two (or three, or four) jobs or hoping and praying the Food Stamps kept coming, you joined the military.
If you were eighteen and had more than just yourself to worry about because you already had a baby or Momma and Daddy needed your help to feed Grandma and your little siblings, you joined the military.
We were none of those things. I was the only child of a single coal miner. I was a straight-A student who was handed an academic scholarship without even applying for it. We were not poor, and, other than a great deal of parental involvement, I had every opportunity a kid in the rural Mon Valley could hope for-- and I still thought about joining the military.
I even understand that, especially in wartime, recruitment is a tough job. Recruiters have to be aggressive; the have to have the liberty to do so. The alternative is a national draft-- and I'd rather have a choice-- or, being female, I'd rather my friends, my husband, and not least of all my son, have a choice-- even if the "preferred" option is made deceptively clear.
I don't think the military is perfect. Nothing is. They gloss over the fact that soldiers die. They gloss over the fact that, should you have a family, the military is going to demand to come first. The Guard glosses over the fact that "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" can happen any weekend and any two weeks that they damn well feel like it. They gloss over the fact that "one weekend a month and two weeks a year" is the bare minimum of what will be demanded of you, even once deployment for active duty is removed from consideration. They gloss over the fact that many employers and colleges do not honor their supposed committment not to punish soldiers for work or class time missed due to military service, and the fact that the military will not help you in any way if you are unlucky enough to be one of the people who get punished.
They do a sell-job, frankly, that would make a stereotypical used-car salesman shake his head.
What do you expect?? You don't sign soldiers up by saying, "You're likely to get killed. Even if you don't, we own you for the term of your enlistment. And, if you want to redeem the benefits we promise you, you'll need all of the skills you picked up in combat training."
I don't like some of the things our leadership chooses to use of military for. I don't like a lot of things about the way it is run. I don't actually like the fact that we have to have a military at all...
...but I understand, accept, and respect the fact that we have to have a military, and we have to staff it somehow.
HOWEVER. Let me reiterate, just for the local metaphoric pyromaniacs who probably haven't even bothered to read this far before hitting the hatemail-- I mean email-- link, HOWEVER.
A very large and evangelically loud HOWEVER, I believe to the bottom of my combat boots, to the last cent of the last dollar I've spent to Support Our Troops, that Sally Ferrel and others who share her point of view MUST have the freedom to speak out for their views. Even if it annoys people, even if it offends people, even if it hampers recruitment.
We have a First Amendment specifically to protect controversial speech, specifically to protect speech that annoys and/or offends the majority and those with the power. If it does not apply to everyone equally, then our claims about what this country stands for are even more hollow than those often-less-than-perfectly-honest recruitment pitches.
Mr. Laws, for your "patriotic" efforts, I would like to present you with the Major Frank Burns All-American Award.
Someone will be along shortly to dig your foxhole and fill it with water. Please have a garden hose ready.
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| If The Military Dealt Honestly . . . | Sep 4th. at 11:05:42 am EDT
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Snoozepossum (Mooresville, North Carolina) - Email Me - Web
. . . . it would be another ballgame. But they don't.
I'm sure there are ethical people who work as recruiters out there. They may be getting misled as well. Others can be very aggressive, alternating between making the service sound like a glamorous cakewalk that pays for school, and telling kids they're unpatriotic and don't love their country if they don't sign up.
I have friends and relatives who can't get medical treatment for service related injuries, and get punished if they try. Some friends who've been trained for one thing, then put in situations where they were completely out of their depth or sphere and lacking even decently functioning equipment and gear, and then penalized for failing to perform at par. The DAV is stuck dealing with the government treating our vets like garbage, and I know at least three service people who are still missing pay after 5-6 years. My friend's son's class is holding a fundraiser to buy protective gear for soldiers who get told "we don't have enough to go around". Others who've been lied to about their deployment (non war related) , to the detriment of family and child care arrangements.
Playing the "against the war is against America" card would mean more if it didn't seem as though America were against itself. No one should follow people who lie to them and expect them to smile while they do it.
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| I Feel .... | Sep 4th. at 9:09:02 am EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
That- absolutely- no one should join any branch of the military until they can quit lying-and give to the soldiers those benefits they promised.
Anyone who reads history will see that more often than not, those benefits promised-were just that. Promises. With very little substance to back anything up. Vets have often gotten short shrift since before the days of the Bonus Army, when the government reneged on the Vets to give them what they were promised.
It's always great going in, but once your duty is done--they treat you like dirt.
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