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American Legion Commander Bashes U.S. Constitution
December 3, 2006

In a reprehensible act of emotional immaturity, the national commander of the American Legion, Paul A. Morin, called on Charles Rangel (D-NY) to apologize for suggesting American troops would not choose to fight in Iraq if they had other employment options.

This deplorable behavior by Morin shows he has passed the point of reason and succumbed to the mental debilitations of advanced age. He is obviously out of touch with reality, and a staunch opponent of our constitutional right to freedom of speech. Thanks Morin, for taking an otherwise outstanding American Legion organization backwards three steps with your childish behavior.

Morin’s target, Representative Rangel, is definitely problematic and sometimes delusional, but Rangel is probably correct with his opinions about soldiers and employment options. Soldiers do not enlist so they can travel to Iraq for a chance encounter with an IED, stray mortar rocket or sniper’s bullet.

They enlist because of enticements like free college tuition; cash bonuses; free food, shelter, medical and dental care; and early paid retirement. Offhand, I can not think of any civilian career fields that offer similar incentives supported and guaranteed by the authority of the United States government.

Morin throws up a smokescreen of statistics tending to show that soldiers have higher education levels than non-soldiers. That is designed to lend credibility to his premise that intelligent people do enlist. Morin is apparently unaware of service enlistment requirements? Yes Morin, the Army has standards, at least for now. I don’t suppose the Army’s restricted quota on non-high school graduates has anything to do with your misleading statistics.

We have a higher ratio of smart people in the services because the quotas keep stupid people out. That doesn’t mean smart people enlist out of patriotism, it just means they want to eat well every day and their civilian career options were somewhat limited. High school dropouts are not the only ones facing challenges in today’s job market.

But not for long. The Army has grown so desperate for cannon fodder in Iraq it is now engaged in a concentrated effort to enlist high school dropouts. Dropouts are likely to be more susceptible to enticements like cash bonuses and free health care. Even if it has to scrape the bottom of the barrel, the Army will do what is necessary to meet enlistment quotas.

But don’t just take my word for it. Retired General Barry McCaffrey said at a recent professional symposium sponsored by the Military Officers Association of America:

“Generally speaking, we’ve quadrupled the number of lowest mental category [recruits]…we’ve quadrupled the number of non-high school graduates…we’re putting six, seven, eight thousand moral criminal waivers into the armed forces. As recruit quality falls, battalion and squadron leaders are facing more readiness challenges. Cocaine use is reappearing. Lots of pregnancy among young women emerging from advanced individual training reporting to units.”

Get the picture Morin? If the Army is so successful in filling its recruiting quotas with patriots, why did the Army offer me a $1000 bounty to coerce my daughter into enlisting? That’s right. Now the recruits are not the only recipients of special incentives. The Army is offering bounty money to retirees on fixed incomes to bolster active duty strength. The last “bounty” I ever received was for shooting a cougar in California.

Don’t worry Morin, I won’t ask you to apologize. I believe wholeheartedly in our Constitution and the American right to free speech. You can say anything that comes to your mind. I do however, implore you as a fellow veteran to curb your immature behavior, read the newspapers a little more and stop picking on old men like Representative Rangel who fought in Korea to protect your right to free speech.

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