Fresh Meat For The Meat Grinder

My youngest son has a big fascination with anything boxing related right now. The Ultimate Fighting Championship. Boxing. He and his friends even play this game called Ten Seconds, where they punch the crap out of each other for fun. I'm not entirely clear on the rules, but I do know it involves getting hit on the arm. I remember a similar game when I was in junior high. Sometimes, it escalated to a full on fight, as Terrance tells me it does when they play.

He has a friend who has boxing gloves and he tells me these stories about how they like to smack each other around and challenge other kids in the neighborhood. He says he even has a friend who trains for UFC type fights (although that story is not confirmed).

I've noticed he's attracted to the raw violence of it. The thrill of slugging it out with someone else. No technique or strategy; just throwing punches and seeing what hits. He often comments on why the boxers on TV just don't start swinging. I've tried to impress upon him how they call it "The Sweet Science" and how there's some strategy to it and a certain level of psychology. Its not just about how hard you hit, but where and how you can do the most damage- physically and mentally. He's asked me if I think he could become a boxer and I believe he can. Not the sport I'd like him to take up, but he'd do well at it.

Just the other day he told me that he'd done some boxing at school. Surprised, I asked how he got involved in that and he told me that the Army recruiters had come by and set up a ring. They divide them up into age and weight classes and award T-shirts and other prizes for the winners. He says that they also have contests on who can do the most calisthenics. When he was done telling me about it, I frowned and grit my teeth.

I asked him when this all took place. He said that they set up during lunch and that their gear is elaborate. Its not always the Army, he said. Sometimes its the Marines. From what I gathered, they use the ROTC group to find their way into the school. Anyone who wants to play their "games" can come in and participate, though. Not just ROTC kids.

The Marines send him a steady stream of propaganda. He never sees it as my wife and I have decided not to give it to him yet. He's having a tough enough time right now dealing with his school work and a part time job. He's recently expressed interest in continuing his love of cross country in college and then maybe joining the millitary. I like that he's talking more about going to college. No reason to derail that plan with millitary bullshit.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against the military. I fully support the troops, but not the Iraqi war. Truman was right about the industrial, military complex. Sadly, it has grown beyond our control. And, talking to my youngest son, it's after everything it can get. Including our youth. Fresh meat for the meat grinder.

The military PR department is relentless. With so many of our boys being sent to Iraq and so many of them dying, they need to replenish the ranks. And what better way to do it than by appealing to a young man's sense of honor and duty. Of God and country. "Freedom isn't free" the stickers say. No, its not. I believe that it comes at a steep price. But I believe that the way we evaluate that price has changed.

It upsets me that the military is brainwashing our kids. They are not satisfied with the TV ads, the theatre ads and the magazine ads. Our schools are now becoming their fishing holes. A place to find the lost and misguided to give them "direction" and "purpose". They almost convinced Terrance to sign up early, to get a head start, before he even graduated from high school. Tonya and I squashed that idea before it took root.

There would be those that say, "Well, where are we suppose to get bodies to put in uniform?" "Who's gonna defend our country?" "Who will fight for freedom?" I hear ya. But lets put it into perspective. Lets stop to think who and what we're really servicing here. The United States has seen itself to be, for the lack of a better word, the "World Police." We rush into places were we find "unchecked aggression" and slap the natives around. And before we leave, we put up a base and tell em we're gonna watch over them. Its our job, I've heard it said.

So, we've crowned ourselves world watchdogs. That makes it okay to go into schools and spew this rhetoric on kids who are confused enough by their own feelings and thoughts that we have to push on them this crap about what their duty is? Its their duty to live their lives the best way possible. Its their duty to be the best individuals they can be. Not to strap on a helmet, ride a Hummer and leave their future smeared across some patch of sand somewhere on the other side of the world.

My son has expressed interest in the military. I can tell him that I'd rather he didn't, but ultimately, it's his choice. And I guess this is what I'm fighting for here. Choice. Because when you fill a child's mind with these obligations that don't belong to them, you take that choice away. To honor and protect his family, that's an obligation. As it is my obligation to honor and protect him. Its his obligation to find out what he wants out of his life and his obligation to chase that dream down. If it's the military, so be it, but he has to be given the room to make that choice on his own. Not guilted or tricked into making it. My parents gave me that choice and I want my son to have the same choice.

So many kids at his age have no direction or ambition. Their parents don't hold much sway in their lives and, for the most part, don't even care. They turn over their responsibilities to teachers, the television. At his age, I was just as confused, if not more so, by the miriad of choices and decisions I had to make about myself and about my life.

The military could be good for Terrance. Structure. Disipline. Order. As an adult, I wish, sometimes, that I had gone military, at least for a few years. But looking back on it, I'm glad I didn't. But that was my path to walk.

President Bush and his cronies would have us believe that we're chasing down terrorists. But we all know that story. He would tell you that its our duty to be in Iraq and to fight this war. This is not a war. Not like WWII was a war. We are not fighting Nazis. bin Laden isn't Hitler. Shit, he isn't even an Iraqi. This romanticized view of honor, God and country are out the door. This is a "war" of ideologies. The people we're fighting against- or for, depending on your point of view -are steeped in violence. This was has more to do with oil than with blood. And I'm expected to accept, nay, offer my son up to the alter of sacrifice because it's his duty? What happens if I don't believe in the cause?

I'm really angry about this. I'm pissed off that the Army or Marines or whatever branch of the fucking military are coming into the schools and cherry picking these kids for military service. And don't tell me they don't look for the most confused or easily led. Because that's half their enlistment base. The ones who don't feel like they have a future and buy into a dream that's later nothing more than a nightmare.

Am I wrong for wanting more than a rifle in my son's hand? Am I wrong for hoping that he'll find himself and his future in college instead of on patrol in some desert on the other side of the world? But I guess, ultimately, it will be his choice. I hope I can give him enough information to make the best one.

Until then, keep your minions out of the schools, Bush. I think you've done enough.

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