Don’t believe the Hollywood version of military training in America, y’all. Recruits in the movies always break under the fierce regimen of boot camp and become respectful, highly disciplined team players. They’d do anything for the guys in their unit because, by golly, they’re all in it together.
In Bush’s all-volunteer army, it’s a different script. A CBS News special report and an article in Stars and Stripes (a military newspaper) shed light on the rise of gang activity and crime in the military. The evidence comes from an FBI investigation into gang-related violence inside the army and Marines. The FBI study calls gang allegiances “a threat to law enforcement and national security.”
Marines who form gangs that exclude other Marines? What about Semper Fi ?
Chris Grey, chief of public affairs for Army CID, said most of those cases involved misdemeanors. “It’s important to keep the numbers in perspective,” Grey said.
But among the cases are the murder of a soldier during a fight outside a nightclub at Fort Campbell, a murder charge against a soldier related to a robbery near Fort Bragg, a rape by a soldier at Camp Taji, Iraq, and five drug possession and dealing cases.
“It’s obvious that many of these people do not give up their gang affiliations,” said Hunter Glass, a retired police detective in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Ft. Bragg and the 82nd Airborne. He has been keeping watch on gang activity at the base and across the military.
Gang activity clues like graffiti are appearing in Iraq and Afghanistan, too. The soldier who took photos of the graffiti for CBS News said that he’s been warned he’s a dead man if he ever returns to Iraq.
One army official explains the phenomenon like this: “We represent America – our demographics are the same – so the same problems that America contends with we often times contend with,” said Colonel Gene Smith of the Army’s Office of the Provost Marshal.
I thought that military training was supposed to make our armed forces BETTER than the streets of America. I believed that white militia gangs and black inner city gangs would, once in the same uniform, link hands to fight the common enemy and take orders from a common superior officer.
It is my opinion that this presidency is shabby and full of lies. Why should Bush’s military be any different?
The president and his veepee are members of a gang: Big Oil’s Boys. Or Haliburton’s Heroes.
Why should his soldiers be any different?
If the only person a green, young recruit trusts is another from the same hometown or racial background, he’ll rely first on his gang.
That doesn’t make it right.
Nothing about this war is right.
Goodbye, Semper Fi.
Gita M. Smith is a journalist living in Alabama. Her blog may be seen at http://www.Myspace.com/gitahandley
Tags: Army, CBS News, FBI, Fort Bragg, gang, iraq, Marines, Stars and Stripes
Related Posts
| 
Designed By : 
Get this skin at : 