Autistic Marine booted from the Corps (click here)

ANOTHER TALE OF AMERICA'S
"ALL-VOLUNTEER" MILITARY

"Gunnery Sgt. Matthew Teson picked up Fry from a group home in Irvine for mentally ill adults — where Fry lived after returning from Colorado — and took him to the Costa Mesa recruiting substation."

The JAG HUNTER

Autistic Marine pleads guilty to desertion

"The Marine Corps is investigating how Fry was allowed to enlist even though his recruiter knew he had been diagnosed as autistic."

Case of autistic Marine brings recruiting problems to the forefront

by Tony Perry

"Faced with quotas, a few recruiters are taking shortcuts that allow those unfit for service into the military.

According to the Pentagon, there were 2,426 claims of recruiter misconduct in fiscal 2007, when 22,218 recruiters brought 319,229 recruits into the all-volunteer services."

Marine Private Joshua D. Fry was diagnosed with autism at age 8

Case stirs military recruiting questions

In a 35-page brief, Studenka said that a Marine took advantage of Fry to meet his recruitment quotas and that other Marine officials failed to intervene later on. Studenka also alleged that the recruiter knew about Fry's history of mental disability, which included a 15-month stay at a lockdown treatment center in Denver.