Uncle Sam Calling...

In a post aptly titled 15 Months My Aunt Fannie, Jazz at Running Scared reports on the changes to Army and Marine enlistments rules to entice greater numbers of young Americans to join up for a go-round in the war on terra. They’re now offering active duty for only fifteen months followed by the reserves for a couple of years, after which enlistees will remain in the ready reserves for four years.

Combine that with the record setting enlistment bonus being offered and post service educational benefits, and it doesn't sound too bad, huh? I mean, sure there are thousands of soldiers being killed, but there are scores of thousands who survive, right? So if you figure a couple of months for basic and advanced training, you might only have to do one year of dodging bullets and car bombs to cash in. Sweet!

Not so fast there, Sparky. I wonder if the recruiters selling this plan are telling their young prospects about the stop loss program which is still in effect? With all of their troubles in trying to even reach a quarter of their enlistment goals, I can't imaging they are going out of their way to tell these youngsters about that.

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Bait and switch, smoke and mirrors. Welcome to the All Volunteer Army, son. It's not just a job. It's a life sentence.

But with freedom running rampant in Afghanistan, aside from those pesky little demonstrations currently going on, the continued killing of uppity women, and the rampant opium trade, and our Mission Accomplished in Iraq, what’s there to worry about?