Thursday, March 06, 2008

Nor-Cal Politics

If you're a regular reader on this blog, you probably know that I'm a former U.S. Marine. I wasn't the best Marine, it wasn't the high point of my life, but I'm proud, nonetheless, of the phrase "once a Marine, always a Marine"

I was recruited here in my hometown of Eureka, California. I signed up just a few days after my seventeenth birthday in the fall of my senior year at Eureka High School. I went to boot camp the following fall once I had my high school diploma in my hand. My birthday comes late in the year, so I was still seventeen when I went to boot camp. I celebrated (if that's what you call a boot-camp birthday) my eighteenth birthday in basic training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego.

My mom and dad gave their permission and their blessing for me to join. They were proud to do it.

Here in Humboldt County, California, their is a political group, Veterans for Peace, who think we should strip parental authority from moms and dads and sign it over to municipal governments as if government can do a better job of parenting.

The Eureka Youth Protection Act states:
"No person who is employed by or an agent of the United States government shall, within the city of Eureka, in the execution of his or her job duties, recruit, initiate contact with for the purpose of recruiting, or promote the future enlistment of any person under the age of 18 into any branch of the United States Armed Forces."

Eureka’s city attorney is preparing a ballot summary, which is expected to be completed today. The next step requires signatures of 10 percent of registered voters in order to get the measure on the November ballot.
Winfield Sample, a World War II veteran and member of Veterans for Peace, is helping to coordinate the proposed ordinance for Eureka.

Sample questioned putting youth into what he described as "life-threatening operations."

"People under 18 cannot sign a legal contract," he said. "Also, people under 18 cannot vote."

HT: Eureka Reporter


The Veterans for Peace are incredibly disingenuous. They are not pro-youth; they're anti-military. I hope the voting public here in Eureka is smart enough to figure that out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maybe vets for peace should spend some time in overseas lands where military recruitment is done by pulling a truck into a neighborhood or village and physically dragging (shanghai-ing) able bodied guys. Military service isn't for everyone, but many a youth has been spared a wasted life cause a recruiter "hounded" him or her in high school.