The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for July 2010

[Tony Nuspl]

Truth in Recruiting - "Don't Believe the Hype!"

(scroll down for details about any story - links at bottom of every story)

Lead Story from the past month's news:
America’s ‘casualty gap’ : Poor areas lose more of their young to wars
--file  under: the poverty draft, confirmed by latest study

quote:
"If Americans were to learn of the casualty gap between rich and poor communities, the public would become more circumspect about future military action. However, the
casualty gap is not part of our national dialogue."

facts & figures:
Why do we need alternatives to the military? The Pentagon spends billions of dollars every year targeting low-income youth and youth of color for
enlistment in the military. The 'poverty draft' ensures that
those with less resources and less opportunity are disproportionately
represented in the military. To convince the poor to sign up, the
Pentagon spends $4.7 billion per year in advertising and other
predatory recruitment campaigns.  It really is a war
against the poor of this nation.

related resources:

Alternatives to Killing &/or Alternatives to Enlistment
--online database of jobs and opportunities from the Center
on Conscience and War. It has opportunities around the country
that offer more promise for a peaceful &
long life than joining the US military.

page 1

file under: dangers of privatized military
U.S.-Based Mercenaries Killing U.S. Government-Issued Soldiers in
Afghanistan
--military profiteering is feeding the cycle of violence, at the cost of G.I. lives

facts & figures:
It is estimated that there is 1 mercenary for every 1 G.I. soldier in Afghanistan. They each potentially serve cross purposes.

Military Still Failing To Diagnose, Treat Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI)
--Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), has been called the signature injury of the Iraq war,
roadside bombs are the reason. The US invaded Iraq 7 years ago on the
pretense of finding weapons of mass destruction. When is it over?

Reasons #3, #4 and #5, why you shouldn't join the military:

c.. You May Be Injured
d.. You May Not Receive Proper Medical Care
e.. You May Suffer Long-term Health Problems

featured op/ed
Downplaying the Mess of War
by William A. Collins

facts & figures:

The Army Times reports that 18 vets a day commit suicide. Every day! And those are just the ones being treated by the VA health system. Worse, these only constitute 7 percent of those who
try. In addition, 11 percent of those who attempted suicide once give
it another shot within nine months. Suicide rates for active-duty
troops are also high, but closely held. They’re generally called
“accidents.”

page 2

file under: bringing the war home
Depression, PTSD plague many Iraq vets
--follow up on lamentable condition of treatment services for PTSD

facts & figures:

    * Up to 31 percent of soldiers returning from combat in Iraq experience depression or PTSD
    * In extreme cases, relationship problems and stress can lead to suicide
    * The time between deployments may not be sufficient for many
soldiers to recover

related story:
Research shows that killing at any distance may increase the risk of developing PTSD

file under:  war is boring, and bad for your health
Sand flies infect U.S. forces with parasite that leaves them with 'Baghdad Boil'
--during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, hundreds of soldiers began to spot red
bumps on their skin that swelled for weeks before rupturing into
seeping wounds, leaving them permanently disfigured.

from the archives:
What was the cost in lives of "Operation Rolling Thunder" (Vietnam bombing runs)
--After one of the longest aerial campaigns ever conducted by any nation, Rolling
Thunder was terminated as a strategic failure in late 1968 having
achieved none of its objectives.

epitaph for this edition of "Truth in Recruiting"
by John Mueller, excerpt from "Band of Brigands"

---

The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for July 2010
lead story

Poor areas lose more of their young to wars
--America’s ‘casualty gap’ : why poverty and death are linked together in the
U.S. Armed Forces

by Douglas L Kriner and Francis X. Shen
May 30th 2010

we should not overlook a very real though hidden aspect of war: the socioeconomic inequality in who makes the ultimate
sacrifice in defense of the nation.

Over the last six years, we have studied this inequality by collecting and analyzing data on
the hometowns of more than 400,000 members of the armed forces who
died in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.

By integrating these records with census data, we demonstrate unambiguously that,
beginning with the Korean War, disadvantaged communities have
suffered a disproportionate share of the nation’s wartime
casualties, while richer communities have been more insulated from
the costs of war.

Furthermore, the data suggest that this “casualty gap” between rich and poor communities has reached its
widest proportions in the ongoing conflict in Iraq. Although the
military uses the term “casualty” in reference to both killed and
wounded soldiers, following the standard practice in political
science our study uses the term casualty to denote
deaths.

Nationally, in the Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars, communities in the lowest three income groups suffered 35 percent, 36
percent and 38 percent of the casualties, respectively. Yet
communities in the top three income deciles sustained significantly
fewer casualties – 25 percent, 26 percent and 23 percent of the
casualties, respectively.

More advanced statistical analyses, which account for a variety of other important factors, also offer
strong evidence of casualty gaps between communities with different
levels of income and education.

Los Angeles, for example, citywide almost 27 percent of residents hold a college degree. By
contrast, in the specific L.A. neighborhoods that have lost a young
man or woman in Iraq, less than 12 percent of residents graduated
from college.

Similarly, in New York City, the citywide average median family income is nearly $42,000, while the average in
neighborhoods that have experienced an Iraq war casualty is $34,000,
19 percent lower.

Assertions of a casualty gap are not new. In the Civil War, there were cries of a “rich man’s war, poor man’s
fight.” But documenting this inequality has proved difficult.
Previous studies were limited in scope and produced conflicting
findings. This confusion led commentators such as William F. Buckley
to describe Vietnam as an “all-American effort” of shared
battlefield sacrifice. Our study, however, definitively shows that
the burden of war death in Vietnam, Korea and Iraq has not been
shouldered equally.

What would happen if the nation openly acknowledged the casualty gap? Would citizens rethink questions of
war and peace? To find out, we conducted a series of original public
opinion survey experiments with nationally representative samples of
Americans.

We found that citizens informed about the existence of a casualty gap were significantly more likely to oppose ongoing
military operations and less willing to support future ones than were
their peers who were not informed about casualty inequalities.

These experimental results suggest that if Americans were to learn of
wartime inequalities, the public would become more circumspect about
future military action. However, the casualty gap is not part of our
national dialogue.

The reason is clear: Casualty inequalities challenge our fundamental American values. Bringing a frank and
honest discussion of the casualty gap into the public sphere could
significantly alter the tenor of political discourse in
Washington.

We call on policymakers, military leaders and the public to acknowledge and discuss the disproportionate wartime burden
borne by America’s poorest and most disadvantaged communities.

Let us remember the full human costs of military action, including the
socioeconomic inequality they underscore, and weigh them carefully
when crafting American military policy.

byline: Douglas L. Kriner is an assistant professor of political science at Boston
University. Francis X. Shen is a fellow in the MacArthur Foundation
Law & Neuroscience Project and a visiting scholar at Vanderbilt
Law School. They wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.

Read more:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/05/30/v-lite/1206207/americas-ca...

Alternatives to the Military Guides

"It's My Life"  (national guide to be used anywhere in the U.S.) details alternative options to military service that still satisfy a
taste for adventure and commitment to high ideals.

Created by AFSC's Great Lakes Regional Office, this alternative guide features pages and pages filled with many local and national career opportunities:  peaceful jobs and careers that offer what
the military promises—without giving up your rights and supporting
the war machine. The booklet also includes career planning, personal
growth, youth leadership and independent living. It will be updated
constantly. For more information, contact the American Friends
Service Committee office in Chicago office at  312-427-2533.

Specific ideas for travel, adventure jobs, youth exchange, skills training, career training and paying for college are explored in this 92-page book available for $9.95. Please
download the order form (PDF, 32 KB) for purchase by
mail. You may also place an order by emailing [e-mail]
or calling 215-241-7176. Bulk pricing is available.

To view an electronic version of It's My Life with the 2009 updates included in the text, click here.

---

page 1

file under: dangers of privatized military
U.S.-Based Mercenaries Killing U.S. Government-Issued Soldiers in Afghanistan
--military profiteering by U.S. corporations is feeding the cycle of violence,
at the cost of G.I.'s losing their lives
--accused of extorting U.S. tax dollars, private security companies resemble R.I.C.O.'s
(racket-influenced and corrupt organizations)

By Dexter Filkins
June 6, 2010
The New York Times

MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — Two of the biggest private security companies
were banned [temporarily] from escorting NATO convoys on the highway
between Kabul and Kandahar.

[The President one of the two mercenary companies] strongly denied any suggestion that his men
either colluded with insurgents or orchestrated
attacks to emphasize the need for their services.

Investigators here and in Washington, who are trying to track the tens of millions
in taxpayer dollars paid to private security companies to move
supplies to American and other NATO bases.

Although the investigation is not complete, the officials suspect that at least
some of these security companies — many of which have ties to top
Afghan officials — are using American money to bribe the Taliban.
The officials suspect that the security companies may also engage in
fake fighting to increase the sense of risk on the roads, and that
they may sometimes stage attacks against competitors.

The suspicions raise fundamental questions about the conduct of
operations here, since the convoys, and the supplies they deliver,
are the lifeblood of the war effort.

“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul
said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
the investigation was incomplete, said he believed millions of
dollars were making their way to the Taliban.

Afghan and NATO officials say that anecdotal evidence suggests that in order to keep
their trucks moving — and to keep up their business — some
companies may sometimes pay Taliban fighters not to attack, to
sometimes mount attacks on competitors, or, as is suspected in the
case in Maidan Shahr, to attack NATO forces.

“It would be my expectation that people might create their own demand,” said Maj.
Gen. Nick Carter, the commander of NATO forces in southern
Afghanistan. “It is essential that these highways move freely
without extortion and racketeering.”

While at least some of the companies are believed to be bribing Taliban fighters, many have
also been known to act with extreme harshness toward villagers or
insurgents who have tried to interfere with their convoys.

The security companies, which appear to operate under little supervision,
have sometimes wreaked havoc on Afghan civilians. Some of the private
security companies have been known to attack villages on routes where
convoys have come under fire, Western officials here say.

Records show there are 52 government-registered security companies, with
24,000 gunmen, most of them Afghans. But many, if not most, of the
security companies are not registered at all, do not advertise
themselves and do not necessarily restrain their gunmen with training
or rules of engagement. Some appear to be little more than gangs with
guns.

In the city of Kandahar alone, at least 23 armed groups — ostensibly security companies not registered with the government
— are operating under virtually no government control, Western and
Afghan officials said. On Kandahar’s chaotic streets, armed men can
often be seen roaming about without any uniforms or
identification.

“There are thousands of people that have been paid by both civilian and military organizations to escort their
convoys, and they all pose a problem,” said Hanif Atmar, the Afghan
interior minister. (Mr. Atmar resigned under pressure from President
Karzai on Sunday.) “The Afghan people are not ready to accept the
private companies’ providing public security.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/world/asia/07convoys.html



Kucinich: ‘We may be funding our own killers in Afghanistan’

By Sahil Kapur
June 8th, 2010

According to the New York Times, a "series of events last month suggested all-out
collusion with the insurgents." The Times interviewed a
NATO official in Kabul who "believed millions of dollars were
making their way to the Taliban."

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a leading opponent of the war, asks: "Is
the U.S. paying for attacks on U.S. troops?”

"The American people are paying to prop up a corrupt government that may
be using our money to pay private companies to drum up business by
paying the insurgents to attack our troops," he said. "Our
troops are dying in Afghanistan, and now it turns out we may be
funding their killers," Kucinich said in a statement e-mailed to
Raw Story, renewing his longstanding call for a pullout.

Robert Greenwald, an ardent war critic and director of the 2009 documentary
"Rethink Afghanistan," viewed the Times story as
vindication for his message. It "confirms what we have heard
numerous times from our friends, co workers and producers in
Afghanistan. The United States is effectively funding both sides of
the war all too often," he
said.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0608/kucinich-war-critics-rebuke-usfund...



Military Still Failing To Diagnose, Treat Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI)
T. Christian Miller and Daniel Zwerdling
June 8, 2010 for NPR

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), has been called the signature injury of the Iraq war, roadside bombs are the reason. The
US invaded Iraq 7 years ago on the pretense of finding weapons of
mass destruction. When is it over?

image source: http://www.propublica.org/special/tbi-in-combat

PRIMARY BLAST INJURY

An explosion generates a blast wave traveling faster than sound and creating a surge of high pressure immediately followed by a vacuum. Studies show that the blast wave shoots through armor and
soldiers' skulls and brains, even if it doesn't draw blood. While
the exact mechanisms by which it damages the brain's cells and
circuits are still being studied, the blast wave's pressure has been
shown to compress the torso, impacting blood vessels, which then
send damaging energy pulses into the brain. The pressure can also be
transferred partially through the skull, interacting with the brain.

SECONDARY BLAST INJURY

Shrapnel and debris propelled by the blast can strike a soldier's head, causing either a closed-head injury through blunt force or a penetrating head injury that damages brain tissue.

TERTIARY BLAST INJURY

The kinetic energy generated and released by an explosion can accelerate a soldier's body through the air and into the ground or nearby solid object. Once the body stops, the brain continues to
move in the direction of the force, hitting the interior of the
skull and then bouncing back into the opposite side, causing a
coup-contrecoup
injury.

The military medical system is failing to diagnose brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom receive little or no treatment for lingering health problems, an
investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found.  ProPublica is a
nonprofit investigative news organization.

Based on dozens of interviews and access to previously unreleased military studies,
documents and e-mails, NPR and ProPublica have found that from the
battlefield to the homefront the military's doctors and screening
systems routinely miss brain trauma in soldiers. As a result,
soldiers haven't been getting treatment.

In 2007, under enormous public pressure, military leaders pledged to fix problems in
diagnosing and treating brain injuries. Yet despite the hundreds of
millions of dollars pumped into the effort since then, critical parts
of this promise remain unfulfilled.

>From the battlefield to the homefront, the military’s doctors and screening systems
routinely miss brain trauma in soldiers. One of the military tests
fails to catch as many as 40 percent of concussions, a recent
unpublished study concluded. A second exam, on which the Pentagon has
spent millions, yields results that top medical officials call about
as reliable as a coin flip.


http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/96-96/2152-aud...

featured op/ed
Downplaying the Mess of War
by William A. Collins, June 22, 2010

Now just suppose, say, that high school kids received full knowledge of the hideous nature of
war. Or the number of female soldiers who get raped. How many do you
think would sign up? Well, sure, some still would, many of them
because they need jobs or citizenship. But plenty who today respond
to the Pentagon’s snazzy $4 billion recruiting budget might sign up
for community college instead. Then how would we be able to invade
Iran?

Probably by using still more civilians. That’s another secret. We’ve heard generally about the shady defense contractors
who rip us off while supporting our armies abroad. Thanks to these
mercenaries, we don’t need so many troops. But how many are there
altogether? That’s classified. The estimate is one civilian per GI.
And many are foreign laborers who work for dirt and are treated about
the same.

That’s the way many soldiers and veterans feel too. Plenty with post-traumatic stress disorder find themselves
discharged for behavioral problems, thus relieving the Pentagon of
having to care for them. Others finish their enlistment and then
flood the VA seeking help. Thus begins their next war: fighting for
adequate appropriations to treat the suffering from preferably
forgotten old wars.

All presidents are much more eager to “move forward” into exciting new wars, which someone else will
later have to clean
up.

http://original.antiwar.com/collins/2010/06/21/downplaying-the-mess...


sidebar: funding peace rather than war
Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Program

Richard Holbrooke, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters Monday that
the US, Japan, Britain and other countries have “committed”
roughly “200 million dollars” to fund peace efforts in
Afghanistan, Agence-France Presse reports. The Afghanistan
Peace and Reconciliation Program aims to reintegrate Taliban fighters
who have renounced violence into Afghan
society.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0608/kucinich-war-critics-rebuke-usfund...

---

page 2

file under: bringing the war home
Depression, PTSD plague many Iraq vets
By Amanda Gardner, Health.com
June 7, 2010

Up to 31 percent of soldiers returning from combat in Iraq experience depression or
post-traumatic stress disorder that affects their jobs,
relationships, or home life, according to a new study by Army
researchers.

For as many as 14 percent of these veterans, depression and PTSD cause severe problems in their daily life. These
problems are often accompanied by alcohol misuse and aggressive
behavior, the study found.

"These things begin to snowball," says Robert Bossarte, Ph.D., an assistant professor
of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in
Rochester, New York. "Your work performance suffers; you
experience job loss and economic strain."

In extreme cases, the resulting relationship problems and stress can lead to
suicide, adds Bossarte, who was not involved in the new study.

The researchers analyzed mental health surveys from more than 13,000 Army
and National Guard infantrymen who fought in Iraq. The soldiers
completed the surveys between 2004 and 2007, three and 12 months
after returning to the U.S.

Between 9 percent and 14 percent of the soldiers were diagnosed with PTSD or depression resulting in
serious impairment, while 23 percent to 31 percent were deemed to
have some impairment. (The rates varied depending on the diagnostic
criteria the researchers used.)

The risk of mental health problems may be more persistent among National Guard soldiers, the
study suggests. A greater proportion of men and women in the National
Guard than in the Army were diagnosed with PTSD and depression one
year after their
return.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/07/iraq.vets.ptsd/

related story:
Research shows that killing at any distance may increase the risk of developing PTSD

A recent study in the Journal of Traumatic Stress found that Iraq war veterans
who had killed, or believe they had, were at greater risk for mental
health issues including PTSD, depression, anger, alcohol abuse and
relationship strife.

Of nearly 2,800 soldiers surveyed for the study, 40 percent reported having killed or being responsible for
somebody’s death in Iraq, and about 22 percent showed symptoms of
PTSD. Killing was “a significant predictor of psychosocial
functioning, including anger and relationship difficulties,” wrote
Shira Maguen, the study’s chief investigator.

Even now, the word “kill” is rarely used during basic training. Rather, troops
are taught to “attrit the enemy,” “engage a target” or
“neutralize the threat,” said Grossman. But conditioning troops
to kill, without preparing them mentally for what it looks and feels
like and ultimately means, can have unintended and disturbing
results.

“I can trick your body to kill,” he said, “But if your mind is not ready to live with it, then who is the next
victim?”

To fully prepare troops and preserve their mental health, Grossman argued, killing must be readily acknowledged as a
part of war, not cloaked in euphemism.

Some servicemembers have difficulty forgiving themselves, and the ones who are haunted
have often witnessed, or taken part in, killing
noncombatants.

http://www.stripes.com/an-instant-to-pull-the-trigger-and-a-lifetim...


file under : war is boring, and bad for your health
Sand flies infect U.S. forces with parasite that leaves them with 'Baghdad
Boil'

By Eric Athas
June 22, 2010
The Washington Post

Mason Alsaleh was sound asleep when he was attacked at a U.S. Army outpost in northwest Iraq.

What happened that August night last year left the 48-year-old interpreter
disfigured and unable to sleep, his mind muddled with paranoia, his
temper short.

But Alsaleh's injuries -- including what look today like third-degree burns on his neck and arm -- weren't caused
by gunfire or an explosion. His enemy that night was a tiny insect
that injected a flesh-eating parasite into his skin.

Alsaleh, a Jordanian-born military contractor who works for Falls Church-based
Global Linguist Solutions, is a victim of leishmaniasis, a disease
carried by sand flies that is sometimes called Baghdad Boil. He
remembers that when he first got to his mattress in an old building
on a contingency base, it was covered in sand flies. He brushed them
away.

"It looked like a bug bite," Alsaleh said of the lesions he got on his neck and elbow while the brigade he was
working with was based northwest of Mosul. "And it grew and grew
and grew, and then started to ooze. Then it gets bigger and starts to
ooze again."

The disease, which the World Health Organization says affects 12 million people worldwide, received
considerable media and political attention in 2003 during the U.S.
invasion of Iraq, when hundreds of soldiers began to spot red bumps
on their skin that swelled for weeks before rupturing into seeping
wounds.

Although it's not commonly found in the United States, leishmaniasis is considered endemic in 88 countries and is
most prevalent in Afghanistan, Brazil, Bangladesh, India, Nepal,
Sudan, Bolivia, Peru, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

When an infected sand fly bites a human, it injects the parasite under the skin,
explains Col. Glenn Wortmann, chief of the Infectious Diseases
Service at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Ironically, the parasite
stays alive by hiding inside the human body's center of immunity:
white blood cells.

"They multiply, they burst out of that macrophage [white blood cell], infect other macrophages, and there's
a progressive infection, eventually causing an ulcer in the skin,"
said Wortmann.

But Alsaleh discovered that the treatment he began in March was almost as traumatizing as the disease itself. The
medication that is commonly recommended by doctors is Pentostam,
which is administered in 20-injection doses and is "associated
with a tremendous number of side effects," said Wortmann.

And the most terrifying form -- mucocutaneous, caused by leishmania braziliensis -- gnaws away at the faces of the infected.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2...

from the archives: 
Vietnam-era U.S.-led "Rolling Thunder" bombing campaign against North Vietnam from 1965 to
1968

	U.S. dead	“collateral damage” (U.S. military's euphemism for dead civilians)
"Rolling Thunder" bombing campaign	~835 pilots/bombers killed, captured, or missing*	estimated 72,000 civilian casualties
Vietnam War, called "the American War" by the Vietnamese	58,000 dead Americans	between 1,000,000 and 10,000,000 dead Vietnamese millions dead in neighboring Laos and Cambodia scorched earth in Vietnam, a country still suffering today from the effects of Agent Orange

It was “collateral damage,” an estimated 72,000 civilian casualties during the U.S.-led “Rolling Thunder” bombing campaign against North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, that helped to tarnish the
U.S. military’s reputation.

*source for number of U.S. pilot/bomber casualties:
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Rolling_Thunder

---

epitaph for this edition of "Truth in Recruiting"

The recent wars in the former Yugoslavia illustrate the mercenary principle. The violence erupting there in the early 1990s didn’t derive from a paroxysm of societal angst or from a
frenzy of nationalism, whether ancient or newly aroused. Instead, it
derived principally from the actions of newly empowered and unpoliced
thugs. Politicians may have started the wars, and they may have
whipped up a fair amount of hatred, but the killing wasn’t done by
hordes of ordinary citizens released from their ethnic repression and
incited to commit violence against their neighbors.

Even the Serbian (or Yugoslav) army substantially disintegrated early in the
hostilities. After years of supposedly influential media propaganda
and centuries of allegedly pent-up ethnic and societal antagonism,
ordinary Serb soldiers were finally given an opportunity to express
these proclivities through government-sanctioned violence. They
responded to the opportunity by pointedly declining to embrace it.
Observing that they did not know why they were fighting, they often
mutinied or deserted en masse—a turn of events
vividly illustrated in the experience of General Slavko Lisica. The
general attempted to shame Serb conscripts in Croatia by declaring
that all those who were not prepared to “defend the glory of the
Serbian nation” should lay down their arms and take off their
uniforms. To his astonishment, “They all did, including their
commanding officer.” Furious, the general shouted at them “to
remove everything including their underpants, and, with the exception
of one man, they all removed their military-issue underpants and
marched off completely naked.” Later, he said, the recruits
commandeered a cannon and used it to shell his headquarters.
~ John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State
University, from an article entitled "Band of Brigands" in
Lapham's Quarterly, May 2010.

Mueller is the author of numerous books, including The Remnants of War and, most
recently, Overblown.

---

masthead

who we are:

The Tulsa Peace Fellowship is the activist wing of the peace movement in Eastern Oklahoma.  TPF offers citizens and
community groups tools and resources to participate personally in our
democracy, to help shape federal budget and policy priorities, and to
promote peace, social and economic justice, and human rights.  
TPF is a registered non-profit organization and a non-partisan
civic-sector organization, loosely affiliated with the Unitarian
Universalist Church of the Restoration, north side of Tulsa.

"Waging Peace One Person at a Time".

Through its counter-recruitment task force, TPF is a member of the National Network in Opposition to the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) representing some
188 counter-recruitment groups in cities and towns across the
country. On the web:
http://www.nnomy.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=v...

If you enjoyed this news digest and/or found this update useful, please
consider making a donation of time, money, or effort to the Tulsa
Peace Fellowship.   Details on tax status available.

Come join us!   Especially parents, guardians, and students in
the Tulsa Public Schools system who are interested in countering the
presence of military recruiters on school grounds.

The information provided in this digest/update herein is for non-profit use only, according to "fair use" doctrine.  Copyright and all commercial exploitation
rights remain with the various authors/publishers cited above. The
Tulsa Peace Fellowship does not necessarily endorse the views
expressed in the articles appearing herein.


THE 10 REASONS why you should NOT enlist


Ten excellent reasons not to join the military:
a.. You May Be Killed, Even By Mistake
b.. You May Kill Others Who Do Not Deserve to Die
c.. You May Be Injured
d.. You May Not Receive Proper Medical Care
e.. You May Suffer Long-term Health Problems
f.. You May Be Lied To
g.. You May Face Discrimination
h.. You May Be Asked to Do Things Against Your Beliefs
i.. You May Find It Difficult to Leave the Military
j.. You Have Other Choices, including the Choice to Learn a Marketable Skill

for more info:
http://www.10reasonsbook.com/medcare.htm

further information

IN ACCORDANCE WITH TITLE 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107, THIS MATERIAL IS DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PROFIT TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPRESSED A PRIOR INTEREST IN RECEIVING THE INCLUDED INFORMATION FOR RESEARCH AND
EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. The Tulsa Peace Fellowship IS NOT ENDORSED OR
SPONSORED BY THE ORIGINATORS OF THE ARTICLES HEREIN.

SOURCE ARTICLE LINKS ARE PROVIDED AS A CONVENIENCE TO OUR READERS AND ALLOW FOR VERIFICATION OF AUTHENTICITY. HOWEVER, AS ORIGINATING PAGES ARE OFTEN UPDATED BY THEIR ORIGINATING HOST SITES, THE
VERSIONS POSTED MAY NOT MATCH THE VERSIONS OUR READERS VIEW WHEN
CLICKING THE SOURCE ARTICLE LINKS, OR INDEED, THE WEBPAGES MAY NO
LONGER EVEN EXIST.