Woes In The Guard

Recruiting for the US Armed Forces is down for the first time since September 11th. In particular, the National Guard is seeing a sharp decline in recruits. Billed as an easy part-time job of mostly weekends, most National Guard members are now being shipped to the Middle East on extended tours that can last up to a year or more. With accelerated training to meet the needs of US commanders on the ground, some new recruits are finding themselves with no leave to see their families before shipping out. It is no wonder that 13 members of the South Carolina National Guard went AWOL over Labor Day weekend, but now the whole battalion is in lockdown until they ship out for Iraq. With the shutdown of the barracks one soldier commented, "There's a federal prison at Fort Dix, and a lot of us feel the people in there have more rights than we do,"


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Don't let your friends be confined to barracks for being AWOL from the election! Register everyone you know to vote!