A Serious Question for Bush Supporters

By E&P Staff

Published: August 27, 2005 7:45 PM ET

NEW YORK It's a question from the press sure to be posed more and more as the months go on, directed at public officials who continue to support the Iraq war: If you believe in the cause so deeply, why aren't your own kids signing up? Most prominently, President Bush (through his press spokesmen) is now hearing it, but it's now trickling down to the congressional and state level.

Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a strong backer of Bush policy in Iraq -- who has give sons age 24 to 35 -- heard the query yesterday, from a Boston Herald reporter. Romney, who has promoted National Guard recruitment, replied, a bit angrily, that he has not urged his own sons to enlist -- and isn't sure whether they would.

The Herald tossed the question as Romney as he was honored by the Massachusetts National Guard. "No, I have not urged my own children to enlist. I don't know the status of my childrens' potentially enlisting in the Guard and Reserve," Romney said, his voice tinged with anger, the Herald reported.

Neither the Romney children nor the governor have served in the military, a Romney spokeswoman said.

More than 1,100 guardsmen and women from Massachusetts are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 28 Massachusetts soldiers killed so far.

"I don't think you should be so 'rah-rah' for a war that you aren't willing to send your own family members to," Rose Gonzalez of Somerville, whose mother, a state employee, was deployed to Iraq in January, told the Herald. "If he thinks the war is so just and so important and we shouldn't pull out, then he should encourage his own sons to go."

Nancy Lessin, a spokeswoman for Military Families Speak Out, said, "This is just one more politician who is willing to risk the lives of our loved ones and celebrate sending them off into a war that we never should have [been] in."

Recruiters' access to college campuses has been protected since 1996 under the Solomon Amendment, which ties federal funding to schools' willingness to permit recruiters on campus. And the military is taking full advantage, especially at community colleges, where students with fewer choices are more likely to consider a military career. Now the military has gained free access to high schools as well, under a little-known clause in the No Child Left Behind Act. Nestled among florid tributes to education reform and clunky legalese is a brief passage stating that all public schools are required to share students' names, addresses and telephone numbers with recruiters. "They have unrestricted access to kids in the schools, cafeterias and classrooms," says Hany Khalil, an organizing coordinator at United for Peace and Justice, a national antiwar coalition. "They've even brought Humvees onto campuses to make the prospect of going to war seem sexy and exciting."

And it works. Not necessarily for the white doctor's son in the suburbs, who can see both Princeton and a Porsche in his future, but for low-income urban youth. In fact, the fewer alternatives a young person has, the better. "The military recruiters are especially targeting working-class youth and communities of color," says Khalil. "These are the communities that don't have access to good schools or good jobs, so it's easier to take advantage of them." Khalil's comments are substantiated by Defense Department population studies showing that most recruits are drawn from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, that 43 percent come from the South (while only 15 percent come from the more populous Northeast) and that only 8 percent of new recruits come from families with a father or mother in the "professions."

Permanent limp from fat wallets in one pocket?

dlowan wrote:

Permanent limp from fat wallets in one pocket?

silly wabbitt ! dey jus' have udder priorities. :wink:

an some ob dem hab big, big pimples on dey butts. and some, dey do not tink dat dee war is being managed wight.

dey simpwy woodknot like dey fellwo soldyas to be saddulled o' impay-ed by dey wack of attention, dey inability to sitdown pwoppaly or compwaynings.

dey ahh doing dey paytweeotic doodies by not enwisting to be an ahhmy mans.

whydooknot yew wib-ahh-woools undastands dat ???

So, who are the people enlisting? Anti-war liberals? I doubt it. I think you should check your facts before this gets out of hand...

McGentrix wrote:

So, who are the people enlisting? Anti-war liberals? I doubt it. I think you should check your facts before this gets out of hand...

I'm pretty sure the Anti-war people are not going to fight the war.