A Few Good Recruits, Injured Veterans...In Demand Among Contractors -WP

[Rose Siding]

Army Capt. Lonnie Moore lost his right leg and -- he thought -- his career last April when his convoy was ambushed on the road to Ramadi, in central Iraq. The injury led to some dark days in Walter Reed Army Medical Center as Moore, 29, began his recuperation and contemplated life outside the military.

Within months, however, he had received job offers from a munitions company, an information technology firm, and the Department of Veterans Affairs itself. And that's without sending out a résumé.
...
Through broad initiatives and individual requests, corporations have been actively recruiting veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, turning military hospitals like Walter Reed into de facto hiring centers.

Job offers aren't being handed out carte blanche, and companies say talent and fit are still the main priorities. But executives seeking out wounded soldiers claim that many of the skills acquired in the military are applicable in the private sector -- particularly within companies that serve the government. A soldier who has led a platoon into war is probably capable of leading a unit at a private company, executives say. With government contracting in the midst of a boom, the security clearances and knowledge that soldiers bring home with them are also highly valued.......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A58237-2005Feb27%20¬Found=true

[diamond14]

1. more 'happy injuries' spin from DOD....here's what REALLY happens(PHOTOS)

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0412/purplehearts_intro.html




double-amputee, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Pfc. Alan Jermaine Lewis, 23, a machine-gunner, 3rd Infantry Division was wounded July 16, 2003 on Highway 8 in Baghdad when the Humvee he was driving hit a land mine blowing off both legs, burning his face, and breaking his left arm in 6 places. He was delivering ice to other soldiers at the time.




Brain damaged, blind, living at his parents house...
PFC Randall Clunen, 19, 101st Airborne, stationed in Tal Afar, was pulling guard December 8, 2003 when a suicide bomber broke through security and exploded himself and his vehicle. Chunks of shrapnel ripped into Clunen's face.



"My head doesn't let me work."

Sgt. John Quincy Adams, 37, A Reservist with the Florida National Guard, 124th Infantry, was on patrol in Ramadi August 29, 2003 when a remote controlled bomb exploded under his humvee sending shrapnel into his head and body leaving him brain damaged. Photographed at with his wife Summer, in Miramar, Florida, December 18, 2003



"From my neckline down, I cannot feel anything."

Spc. Luis Calderon, 22, from Puerto Rico, a tank operator, 4th Infantry Division, was injured May 5, 2003 in Tikrit, when a concrete wall with Saddam's face on it, which he was ordered to destroy, came crashing down on his tank severing his spinal cord and leaving him a quadriplegic. Photographed at the Miami Veterans' Hospital December 17, 2003.

[Boomer]

2. Raises really mixed emotions

It's almost eerie hearing so many of these young soldiers musing about how they really enjoyed the military life and miss the excitement, and how they don't regret their choice because they got to do such interesting things before they were blown apart. Or describing the way they stormed into Iraqi homes and terrorized the inhabitants, then wondering why Iraqis are so ungrateful.

There is an amazing amount of ignorance, self-delusion and arrogance in these accounts. It's so easy, in the abstract, to feel sympathy for these terribly injured young men. Not so easy when I read, in their own words, how carelessly they've destroyed not only their own lives, but the lives of countless Iraqi civilians who did NOT make this choice for war.

I know there are other stories out there of soldiers who have been shaken out of their complacency, but I daresay it's harder to find a publisher for those reactions....

[diamond14]

4. these are white, middle-class KILLERS...they ENJOY the KILL...and

most are very non-political, have no interest in why they are there...they just go to KILL for the THRILL...and they want to go back and KILL more....


it's a very frightening episode in American History...without the DRAFT, without the citizen soldiers with morals to tone down the KILLING.... we now have this new rising class of cold-blooded KILLERS....young white men (like Clockwork Orange) who just enjoy stomping helpless people to death....people they don't know, people who never posed any threat to them....


it's like that U.S. Military General spewed out in his recruiting spiel: KILLING IS FUN !!!

[Pinboy]

9. Villifying wounded and maimed soldiers with unsupported . . .

. . . characterizations does a disservice to them and to DU. Labelling them cold-blooded thrill-killers? Neocon cherry-pickers love to find such posts on DU to support their nonsense about the left not supporting the troops.

When I read your comment, I was curious to see the source article, wondering what kind of bloodthirsty remarks might have been quoted there. I was surprised to find . . . none. The wounded soldiers didn't talk about killing at all. Some didn't even have combat jobs –like one Captain working in human resources who was wounded by a suicide bomber while he was showing a contractor a damaged fence along a roadway.

That they often want to return to their units in Iraq does not mean they want to "kill more." That characterization is especially ironic because the desire to return is more likely motivated by love. It's not unusual for a wounded soldier to feel an irrational sense of guilt for "abandoning" friends and comrades. It can be difficult to be safely out of the combat zone while your friends are still in the lurch.

I am absolutely dumbfounded by completely unwarranted and unsupported characterizations of these wounded soldiers as "young white men . . . who just enjoy stomping helpless people to death . . . ." WTF????

[fishface]

10. Maybe your medications need adjusting?

You're letting your emotions get the better of you.

[Massachusetts]

12. Get a grip diamond14 and do some more research!

:wtf:

[Pinboy]

11. Not sure to what your comment refers

"It's almost eerie hearing so many of these young soldiers musing about how they really enjoyed the military life and miss the excitement, and how they don't regret their choice because they got to do such interesting things before they were blown apart. Or describing the way they stormed into Iraqi homes and terrorized the inhabitants, then wondering why Iraqis are so ungrateful."

This was not in the topic story. Are you referring to something else?

[Boomer]

13. Should have been Reply to #1

I clicked the wrong reply button: my message was in answer to message #1, not the original. This is a side discussion about the terrible injuries suffered by many soliders.

Here are some of the quotes from those maimed solider:

"I don't have any regrets. No not at all. It was the best experience of my life. Twenty-one years old and I've seen a couple of countries. I've been pretty much everywhere and done everything. I've jumped out of airplanes. I got to play with mines. I got to see how the army works. I got to go mess around with a bunch of guys that feel the same way that I do, that all enjoy it."

"I joined the guard for the money and I liked putting on the uniform."

"I liked it. The excitement. The adrenaline. Never knowing what's going to happen. I mean you could walk in the house and it would blow up. Or you could go in and get fired at. I'm an adrenaline junky and I like that. I want to get out there and hump stuff on my back. That's what I was doing. I was doing what I wanted. I did something with my life instead of sitting around and doing nothing.

Yeah they (Iraqis) were scared. You have like 9 Americans busting into your house just screaming pointing weapons. Yeah they were scared. We would go in when they were sleeping and we would just bust in and wake them up so they didn't have enough time to get their stuff.

I have no political feelings. I'm just a soldier out there. You know, we're trying to help them live like us so they can be free and not be scared to do anything. Trying to set them free. That's how we looked at it. Sometimes we hated being over there because they just didn't respect what we were doing. We were trying to help them and they didn't want us there at all..."

[Trillo]

3. The new VA benefit plan?

Work for a contractor to pay the new VA fixed fee for medical care.

[daleo]

5. Agreed - a feel good story, and no actual statistics to back it up.

Lots of anecdotes, not evidence, of how wonderfully the corporate world is treating injured veterans. I have serious doubts. It seems more likely it is just meant as
- re-assurance for possible naive young recruits ("corporate America will be watching my back even if I am hurt").
- re-assurance for right wing war supporters in the general population ("it's all ok - the troops are being supported, no small thanks to the magnetic ribbon on my car").

I imagine the reality will be far different, and far more disillusioning. But, that will be swept under the rug. The veteran's hospital scenes from F911 are more to the point, and probably what this article is trying to counter.

[diamond14]

6. here's another bush* spin: happy amputees ! ski FREE at Vail !

IMO, bush* public relations pays BIG MONEY for spinning the HAPPY SOLDIER returning to FREE skiing, and job offers without even sending out a resume....WOW !....join now...and you too can SKI FREE AT VAIL, and GET A GREAT HIGH-PAYING JOB when you return....all part of the US Defense Departments "America Supports You" program :puke:




Iraq war veteran U.S. Marine L/Cpl Jeff Sanders of Mifflinburg, PA (R) is held back from going to fast by instructor Ruth Demuth as they take a run in Vail, Colorado February 26, 2005. Sanders lost his leg when wounded by a roadside bomb in Iskandariyah, Iraq last September. Sanders, who has only been walking again for 2 1/2 months, was one of several vets invited to the Vail ski area for free private ski and snowboard lessons over the weekend as part of the U.S. Department of Defense's 'America Supports You' program. REUTERS/Rick Wilking









An artificial leg stands against a fence with skis at the Vail, Colorado ski resort February 26, 2005. Vail was hosting amputee U.S. military veterans of the Iraq war for a weekend of free private ski and snowboard lessons as part of the U.S. Department of Defense's 'America Supports You' program. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

[daleo]

7. Yes, that seems like a sad bit of tokenism/p.r. n/t

[burrowowl]

8. Ted Kennedy's

son whose leg was amputated due to cancer learned to ski, why don't we have storie on that!?!
Oh! Iraq war feel good stories.