America's Child Soldiers: JROTC and the Militarizing of America

[unhappycamper]

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/20657-americas-child-soldiers-jrotc-and-the-militarizing-of-america



America's Child Soldiers: JROTC and the Militarizing of America
Monday, 16 December 2013 10:09
By Ann Jones, TomDispatch | News Analysis

Congress surely meant to do the right thing when, in the fall of 2008, it passed the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA). The law was designed to protect kids worldwide from being forced to fight the wars of Big Men. From then on, any country that coerced children into becoming soldiers was supposed to lose all U.S. military aid.

It turned out, however, that Congress -- in its rare moment of concern for the next generation -- had it all wrong. In its greater wisdom, the White House found countries like Chad and Yemen so vital to the national interest of the United States that it preferred to overlook what happened to the children in their midst.

As required by CSPA, this year the State Department once again listed 10 countries that use child soldiers: Burma (Myanmar), the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Seven of them were scheduled to receive millions of dollars in U.S. military aid as well as what’s called “U.S. Foreign Military Financing.” That’s a shell game aimed at supporting the Pentagon and American weapons makers by handing millions of taxpayer dollars over to such dodgy “allies,” who must then turn around and buy “services” from the Pentagon or “materiel” from the usual merchants of death. You know the crowd: Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas, Northrop Grumman, and so on.

Here was a chance for Washington to teach a set of countries to cherish their young people, not lead them to the slaughter. But in October, as it has done every year since CSPA became law, the White House again granted whole or partial “waivers” to five countries on the State Department’s “do not aid” list: Chad, South Sudan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia.

[Notafraidtoo]

1. I was in JROTC

I was in JROTC in high school not by choice mind you, Recruiters were in our class everyday, it was unbridled access to students during school time, was graded on how well i shot a rifle on the in school fire range using 22. ammunition, very happy we didn't have anyone disgruntled who could have easily turned on us all during shooting test.

I did enjoy it but even at that age i knew that it was just marketing for the USMC, one time a instructor brought in what i believe was a M16 with Launcher attachment and the grenade launcher went off (unloaded of course) during class in a small brick room with the door closed, it was insanely loud, so loud some of the kids screamed in pain, that was my JROTC experience.

[unhappycamper]

2. FWIW, I carried a dooper under attachment to my M-16 in Cambodia.

Jebus, I felt like an ammunition carrier - M-16, M1911 and a frickking dooper under attachment.

A funny story: We had been in Cambodia for about three weeks and chance to go to the big PX in Saigon. Dirty, smelly, armed guys.

Outside of the Saigon PX were chrome domes (MPs) who made sure your uniform was pressed and your boots shined. Neither of those things were true for us. The guy at least recognized that we had been traipsing around in the bush for while and gave us a break about the shined shoes.

He did however, ask us to unload all our weapons before going into the PX. So I pop the magazine outta my M-16 and unchamber the round. Ditto for the M1911. Ditto for the dooper.

I think I had the fewest weapons in our small group o smelly guys.