Markos is constantly beating up the 101st Keyboarders. Markos served in the army, while Cheney, Bush and countless right wing mouthpieces avoided service. I haven’t served in our armed services, so I usually avoid calling people chickenhawks. But today’s NY Times recruiting article shows how bad things have become:

From Pago Pago in American Samoa to Yap in Micronesia, 4,000 miles to the west, Army recruiters are scouring the Pacific, looking for high school graduates to enlist at a time when the Iraq war is turning off many candidates in the States.
NY Times

Serving in the military is a lot more attractive when we are at peace. People from my age-group served in Panama, the Persian Gulf, and Yugoslavia. None of these conflicts had anywhere near the casualty rates that we are experiencing in Iraq. In June we had more fatalities in Iraq than we had in either of the first two months of the war. And injury rates are through the roof. Now that we know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, patriotism alone is not enough to convince many teenagers to take the risks of seving in our armed services. The recruiters are being forced to resort to purely economic inducements, and the poorer the target the better the results.

“You can’t beat recruiting here in the Marianas, in Micronesia,” said First Sgt. Olympio Magofna, who grew up on Saipan and oversees Pacific recruiting for the Army from his base in Guam. “In the states, they are really hurting,” he said. “But over here, I can afford go play golf every other day.”

Mr. Magofna spends one day golfing for every day he spends convincing poor Pacific Islanders to become IED fodder for a lost and senseless war. I don’t blame Mr. Magofna for doing his job. But I think the time has come for the people who still support this war to fight it.

Yes, we have an all volunteer army, but no one is volunteering anymore. We need troops not just for Iraq, but to keep up our military preparedness. The 101st Fighting Keyboardists no longer have an excuse for their lack of service. We can’t fulfill our needs by relying on recruits like this:

“It’s the benefits,” said Arnold Balisalisa, who took the aptitude test here in late June. Taking a break from his $3.25-an-hour job at a McDonald’s, he said: “It is better than staying on this island. There’s nothing going on here.

So, all you warmongers, turn off your computer and get yourself to a recruiting center. Oh wait! One last thing before you turn off your computer: visit this site to find a recruiting station near you.