Thinking about dropping out and joining the army?

[LeviG]

<p>

On March 11, 2006, after drinking Iraqi whiskey, Private Green and other soldiers manning a checkpoint decided to rape an Iraqi girl who lived nearby, according to testimony. Wearing civilian clothing, the soldiers broke into a house and raped Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. Soldiers in the group testified that Private Green killed the girl’s parents and a younger sister before raping and then shooting the girl in the head with the family’s own AK-47, which it had kept for self defense.</p>

<p>In the sentencing phase of the trial, the Army stress counselor, Lt. Col. Karen Marrs, a mental health nurse practitioner, testified that Private Green was disturbed by deaths in his unit and had expressed a desire to hurt Iraqi civilians. But Colonel Marrs also said such sentiments had been expressed by other members of the unit and were not uncommon among troops in combat. On questioning from the prosecution, she also said that she thought Private Green clearly understood that hurting civilians would be wrong and that he had no plans to act on his anger.</p>

<p>Mr. Green, who was reared in Midland, Tex., came from a broken and chaotic home, defense witnesses testified, and despite scoring well on intelligence tests, was highly impulsive and did poorly in school. He got into the Army in 2005 on a so-called morals waiver, having had problems with alcohol and drug abuse.

</p>

<p>These are the kind of people you’ll be around. These are the kind of people they let in out of desperation. This is the lack of respect for human life you’ll see.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/22soldier.html?hpw[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/22soldier.html?hpw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[QwertyKey]

<p>…Wanna go to Harvard? This is the type of person you’ll be around: [Theodore</a> Kaczynski - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski]Theodore”>Ted Kaczynski - Wikipedia)</p>

[LeviG]

<p>

Colonel Marrs also said such sentiments had been expressed by other members of the unit and were not uncommon among troops in combat

</p>

<p>Harvard’s full of wannabe unabombers?</p>

[PlattsburghLoser]

<p>Guffaw at this thread.</p>

[QwertyKey]

<p>I’m just trying to point out how redicilous it is of you to take an article about something a soldier did from 3 years ago and claim everyone in the military is like that. I’m not really trying to claim Harvard if full of Unabombers.</p>

[LeviG]

<p>

such sentiments had been expressed by other members of the unit and were not uncommon among troops in combat

</p>

<p>what part of this don’t you understand?</p>

[QwertyKey]

<p>If that statement were true I’d bet you could find hundreds more articles like this one, especially considering that this one was written 3 years ago. If everyone in the military is going out and raping and killing civilians then there’ll be pleny of others you could post (including ones more recent than 3 years ago)</p>

[LeviG]

<p>A joke in the marine corps involves hundreds of people fleeing their homes in terror.</p>

<p>[Marine</a> Started Juliet Fire at Camp Pendleton Last Fall - San Diego 6](<a href=“http://www.sandiego6.com/news/local/story/Marine-Started-Juliet-Fire-at-Camp-Pendleton-Last/dFnhiXJ-PU-HMj1uguhs1g.cspx]Marine”>http://www.sandiego6.com/news/local/story/Marine-Started-Juliet-Fire-at-Camp-Pendleton-Last/dFnhiXJ-PU-HMj1uguhs1g.cspx)</p>

[LeviG]

<p>

“My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military,” said Harman, who has long sought better protection of women in the military.</p>

<p>"Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and downward spirals many of their lives have taken since.</p>

<p>The committee also heard from Mary Lauterbach, the mother of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a 20-year-old pregnant Marine who was killed in December, allegedly by a fellow Marine. Mary Lauterbach said her daughter filed a rape claim with the military against Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean seven months before he was accused of killing her.</p>

<p>“I believe that Maria would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect the victims of sexual assault,” she said.</p>

<p>In the months after her daughter filed the rape claim, she said, the military didn’t seem to take her seriously, and the onus was on “Maria to connect the dots.”</p>

<p>“The victim should not have the burden to generate evidence for the command,” Lauterbach told the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. “Maria is dead, but there will be many more victims in the future, I promise you. I’m here to ask you to do what you can to help change how the military treats victims of crime and to ensure the victims receive the support and protection they need and they deserve.”</p>

<p>Another woman, Ingrid Torres, described being raped on a U.S. base in Korea when she worked with the American Red Cross.</p>

<p>“I was raped while I slept,” she said.</p>

<p>The man who assaulted her, she said, was a flight director who was found guilty and dismissed from the Air Force.</p>

<p>Fighting back tears, Torres added, “he still comes after me in my dreams.”</p>

<p>The Government Accountability Office released preliminary results from an investigation into sexual assaults in the military and the Coast Guard. The GAO found that the “occurrences of sexual assault may be exceeding the rates being reported.”</p>

<p>“At the 14 installations where GAO administered its survey, 103 service members indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12 months. Of these, 52 service members indicated that they did not report the sexual assault,” the GAO said.</p>

<p>The office found that the military and Coast Guard have established policies to address sexual assault but that the implementation of the programs is hampered by an array of factors, including that “most, but not all, commanders support the programs.”</p>

<p>“Left unchecked, these challenges can discourage or prevent some service members from using the programs when needed,” the GAO said.</p>

<p>Tierney said, "what’s at stake here goes to the very core of the values of the military and the nation itself.</p>

<p>“When our sons and daughters put their lives on the line to defend the rest of us, the last thing they should fear is being attacked by one of our own.”

</p>

<p>Here’s some more misogyny, lack of respect for human life to come later.</p>

[pandem]

<p>Lol, another whiny pacifist teenager.</p>

[LeviG]

<p>Here we go:</p>

<p>

Rooster Romriell, an Iraq War veteran, described an incident in which his
unit was ordered to attack a garbage truck with children riding on the back,
after it had passed a checkpoint:</p>

<p>We were ordered to fire on a dump truck, and we opened fire. While the truck
burned to the ground, a man ran to the base of our rooftop OP, waving a
white cloth and yelling “Baby! Baby!”–trying to tell us we were destroying
children…So we killed him.</p>

<p>Romriell said that this was one of many war crimes he witnessed while
stationed in Sadr City.

</p>

<p>And if you have time to watch 18 videos click:</p>

<p>[Racism</a> and War: the Dehumanization of the Enemy: Part 1 | Iraq Veterans Against the War](<a href=“Search | Iraq Veterans Against the War”>Search | Iraq Veterans Against the War)</p>

<p>[Racism</a> and War: the Dehumanization of the Enemy: Part 2 | Iraq Veterans Against the War](<a href=“Search | Iraq Veterans Against the War”>Search | Iraq Veterans Against the War)</p>

<p>Closest thing to a Nuremburg trial we’re going to get to.</p>

[LeviG]

<p>

Lol, another whiny pacifist teenager.

</p>

<p>I’m not pacifist. I believe Iraq has a right to defend itself.</p>

[pandem]

<p>So, using your example, you’d prefer that the soldiers let the truck go past and explode, killing American soldiers and innocent civilians? They ran a checkpoint, what do you expect? </p>

<p>And it’s ridiculous to use isolated examples to generalize a huge group of people. In that case, all Harvard, Michigan, and Berkeley students must be wannabe-Unabombers, right?</p>

<p>If you care that much, get off the internet and do something about it. Oh wait, that would require something more than whining behind a computer screen. Please, go to some excessively liberal college and run your little demonstrations there; this isn’t the place.</p>

[LeviG]

<p>You seem to think that I have some larger agenda. I’m just telling people on the internet not to join the military.</p>

<p>And none of these examples are isolated.</p>

[aforautumn]

<p>this thread a joke.</p>

[LeviG]

<p>Yes, I was joking about rape, murder, and racism.</p>

[pandem]

<p>And last time I checked, this isn’t the “Don’t Join the Military Forum”. </p>

<p>If these examples weren’t isolated, we’d be hearing about it every week in the news. The corporate media doesn’t control everything.</p>

[LeviG]

<p>

The corporate media doesn’t control everything.

</p>

<p>I’m not that guy.</p>

<p>And I was considering the military until I started reading stuff like this. It’s only a helpful warning to others.</p>

[pandem]

<p>Sure you were. </p>

<p>And again, this topic has absolutely nothing to do with college life. Post it in the Army forum. I can’t wait to watch those guys chew your ass up.</p>

[LeviG]

<p>How will they chew my ass up? Are they going to rape me, kill my family, and then kill me too?</p>

<p>If entire groups of soldiers commit arson, rape, and murder then it’s a lack of morality, not isolated incidents.</p>