zenekar
08-08-2008, 12:25 PM
Threats, Lies and Audiotape
By Amy Goodman
August 7, 2008
It was like an action movie. A young man held at night in a
hotel, threatened with prison. He is to be shipped off to war
in the morning. His friends desperately trying to find him.
The 'down' button on the elevator had been disabled. He
considered jumping from the window. When his friends arrive,
they encounter military personnel patrolling the grounds. One
sneaks in, gets his friend out, and they drive off into the
night. This was real life for 17-year-old Eric Martinez, a
student at Aldine High School in a poor neighborhood of
Houston. He responded to an Army recruitment pitch, called
the delayed enlistment program.
But then, as 17-year-olds are wont to do, Eric changed his
mind. When the recruiter came to his house and threatened his
mother, she went to the recruiting station to meet with the
officer in charge: 'She talked to Sgt. Marquette and told him
that I didn't want to go, and that's it. And Marquette said
that I had to go, and if I didn't, that I'd have a warrant
for my arrest, and I wouldn't be able to get no government
loans or nothing like that. So, my mom doesn't really know
anything about it, so she believed it, and she told me. And I
believed it, too, because I didn't know much about it
either.' It was then that they took Eric to the hotel.
Martinez's friend, Irving Gonzalez, knew he was next. He had
signed up for the same program. As the oldest of four
children of a single mother, Irving's impulse was to help his
family survive, get the signing bonus and gain access to a
college education. He then wanted to get out of the program,
to pursue college directly. He called the recruiter, Sgt.
Glenn Marquette. Desperate, he had the call recorded.
Sgt. Marquette: 'This is what will happen. You want to go to
school? You will not get no loans, because all college loans
are federal and government loans. So you'll be black-marked
from that. As soon as you get pulled over for a speeding
ticket or anything with the law, they're gonna see that
you're a deserter. Then they're going to apprehend you, take
you to jail - you will do your time, as you deserve. All that
lovey-dovey ‘I want to go to college' and all this? Guess
what. You just threw it out the window, because you just
screwed your life.'
Irving and two others were the ones who sneaked Eric out of
the hotel.
After the story broke, Marquette was suspended, and the
military says it is conducting an investigation, but neither
Martinez nor Gonzalez has been contacted. Recent history does
not bode well. In 2005, Sgt. Thomas Kelt, who like Marquette
worked at the Greenspoint Recruiting Station in Houston, left
a phone message for potential recruit Chris Monarch, saying
if he didn't show up at the recruiting station that
afternoon: 'We'll have a warrant, OK? So give me a call
back.' The story went national. The military conducted a
daylong 'stand down' on recruitment to retrain their
recruiters. They said they removed Kelt. In fact, he was
promoted to head up a nearby recruiting center.
I asked Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting
Command in Kentucky, about why Kelt wasn't punished. Smith
replied that Kelt had received a 'negative administrative
action - just because someone has done something wrong
doesn't mean that they get the death penalty.'
But there's a difference between the death penalty and a
promotion. When I asked Smith what the penalty was, he
replied, 'I'm not allowed to tell you.'
Smith and the rest of the military may dodge reporters'
questions, but they can be subpoenaed before Congress to
testify under oath.
Texas Congressman Ted Poe, a Republican, said: 'Our country
cannot deceive its citizens. Since the Army hasn't taken the
initiative, now Congress may have to get involved.' Another
Texas congressman, Democrat Gene Greene, whose kids went to
Aldine High and whose wife taught there for years, agrees.
With no end in sight in Afghanistan and Iraq, recruiters must
be prevented from using desperate and aggressive measures to
lure our nation's young people - the poorest and most
vulnerable - into the line of fire.
[Amy Goodman is the host of https://DemocracyNow.org a daily
international TV/radio/online news hour airing on more than 700
stations in North America.]
(c) 2008 Amy Goodman
_____________________________________________
By Amy Goodman
August 7, 2008
It was like an action movie. A young man held at night in a
hotel, threatened with prison. He is to be shipped off to war
in the morning. His friends desperately trying to find him.
The 'down' button on the elevator had been disabled. He
considered jumping from the window. When his friends arrive,
they encounter military personnel patrolling the grounds. One
sneaks in, gets his friend out, and they drive off into the
night. This was real life for 17-year-old Eric Martinez, a
student at Aldine High School in a poor neighborhood of
Houston. He responded to an Army recruitment pitch, called
the delayed enlistment program.
But then, as 17-year-olds are wont to do, Eric changed his
mind. When the recruiter came to his house and threatened his
mother, she went to the recruiting station to meet with the
officer in charge: 'She talked to Sgt. Marquette and told him
that I didn't want to go, and that's it. And Marquette said
that I had to go, and if I didn't, that I'd have a warrant
for my arrest, and I wouldn't be able to get no government
loans or nothing like that. So, my mom doesn't really know
anything about it, so she believed it, and she told me. And I
believed it, too, because I didn't know much about it
either.' It was then that they took Eric to the hotel.
Martinez's friend, Irving Gonzalez, knew he was next. He had
signed up for the same program. As the oldest of four
children of a single mother, Irving's impulse was to help his
family survive, get the signing bonus and gain access to a
college education. He then wanted to get out of the program,
to pursue college directly. He called the recruiter, Sgt.
Glenn Marquette. Desperate, he had the call recorded.
Sgt. Marquette: 'This is what will happen. You want to go to
school? You will not get no loans, because all college loans
are federal and government loans. So you'll be black-marked
from that. As soon as you get pulled over for a speeding
ticket or anything with the law, they're gonna see that
you're a deserter. Then they're going to apprehend you, take
you to jail - you will do your time, as you deserve. All that
lovey-dovey ‘I want to go to college' and all this? Guess
what. You just threw it out the window, because you just
screwed your life.'
Irving and two others were the ones who sneaked Eric out of
the hotel.
After the story broke, Marquette was suspended, and the
military says it is conducting an investigation, but neither
Martinez nor Gonzalez has been contacted. Recent history does
not bode well. In 2005, Sgt. Thomas Kelt, who like Marquette
worked at the Greenspoint Recruiting Station in Houston, left
a phone message for potential recruit Chris Monarch, saying
if he didn't show up at the recruiting station that
afternoon: 'We'll have a warrant, OK? So give me a call
back.' The story went national. The military conducted a
daylong 'stand down' on recruitment to retrain their
recruiters. They said they removed Kelt. In fact, he was
promoted to head up a nearby recruiting center.
I asked Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting
Command in Kentucky, about why Kelt wasn't punished. Smith
replied that Kelt had received a 'negative administrative
action - just because someone has done something wrong
doesn't mean that they get the death penalty.'
But there's a difference between the death penalty and a
promotion. When I asked Smith what the penalty was, he
replied, 'I'm not allowed to tell you.'
Smith and the rest of the military may dodge reporters'
questions, but they can be subpoenaed before Congress to
testify under oath.
Texas Congressman Ted Poe, a Republican, said: 'Our country
cannot deceive its citizens. Since the Army hasn't taken the
initiative, now Congress may have to get involved.' Another
Texas congressman, Democrat Gene Greene, whose kids went to
Aldine High and whose wife taught there for years, agrees.
With no end in sight in Afghanistan and Iraq, recruiters must
be prevented from using desperate and aggressive measures to
lure our nation's young people - the poorest and most
vulnerable - into the line of fire.
[Amy Goodman is the host of https://DemocracyNow.org a daily
international TV/radio/online news hour airing on more than 700
stations in North America.]
(c) 2008 Amy Goodman
_____________________________________________