"Jared is polite but won't talk to people unless they address him first"
Seems a perfect recruit, right? Here's a guy who won't sass back his commanders. He'll probably take orders, and he's got experience cleaning toilets and mopping floors. Heck, he even passed one of those intelligence tests the recruiters give their recruits.
But while Jared Guinther may be 18, he has been diagnosed as autistic since he was three years old. Oops!
"When Jared first started talking about joining the Army, I thought, 'Well, that isn't going to happen,' " said Paul Guinther, Jared's father. "I told my wife not to worry about it. They're not going to take anybody in the service who's autistic."
But they did. Last month, Jared came home with papers showing that he not only had enlisted, but also had signed up for the Army's most dangerous job: cavalry scout. He is scheduled to leave for basic training Aug. 16.
Officials are now investigating whether recruiters at the U.S. Army Recruiting Station in Southeast Portland improperly concealed Jared's disability, which should have made him ineligible for service.
I'm thinking inclusive education and mainstreaming wasn't meant to apply to military recruiting, but I could be wrong.
posted by SpinDentist @ 5/09/2006 09:19:00 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
The guys who signed the kid up should be put in jail for child abuse, cause that's exactly what it is!
amen, patricia! bastards!
It's hard out there for a pimp. Those numbers just aren't adding up for the Recruiters. Here in the National Guard they offer you $50 just for taking a short course to school you in the ways of getting someone to sign up. Then if you do get someone to make their mark you get $1000 when they ship to basic and another $1000 when they graduate AIT. Everyones a recruiter! I couldn't have it on my mind though, money or no money.
Oh God. That poor kid.
Won't one of the young Shrubberal worshippers step up and take the place of this kid? Is there even one worshipper with a conscience?
Hey, no child left behind means no child left behind, right?
When I was in the Army (early 80s), Reagan had cut federal money to help low income kids go to college, gotten rid of the old GI Bill and replaced with the joke called VEAP. This resulted in an increase of college bound kids joining because they had no other choice.
Several of the people who served were in because they made a deal with the judge. If they joined the Army, then the judge would not press charges, for what they were arrested for.
My my my, how times have changed.
samewise,
VEAP was aroung long before Ronald Reagan. get your facts straight. BTW, Reagan w/ a Democratic Conress ushered in the MGIB.
IRR Soldier...
That's samwise, not samewise.
OK, I got my facts wrong. The old GI bill ended 1976, and VEAP started during the Carter administration. Thanks for the correction.
My second point about Reagan cutting federal college assistance is still valid.
This should have never happened but like robot buddha said I know it was going on in the 80's,I would say even more today.
Word is, they've changed their minds about taking this kid.
But, and from the same blog I learned that from, here are a few good recruitment candidates, who would fit right in at Abu G. : http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2006/05/charming.html
The real issue here is simple:
1. The kid was formally diagnosed, and
2. He has articulate, middle-class parents that the media could not ignore, given #1 above.
Think about similar situations lacking either a formal diagnosis or articulate parents who care enough to persist beyond the initial brush-off, whether from the media or Congressional staffers in District Offices.
Post a Comment
<< Home