A STORY ABOUT AMERICA'S "ALL VOLUNTEER" MILITARY

U.S. Sailor Gets Life for Killing Japanese Cabbie

Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a 23-year-old Nigerian citizen serving in the U.S. Navy, was found guilty of stabbing 61-year-old Masaaki Takahashi to death near a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo

Contributed by Sergeant of Marines Timothy Joseph Harrington

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.

Staff Sergeant Ray Girouard's court-martial

101st Airborne soldier's murder trial opens

Girouard's civilian attorney, Anita Gorecki, denied that he gave any such order. Two soldiers who actually killed the detainees — "the trigger-pullers," she said — have falsely implicated Girouard in order to receive reduced sentences under plea bargains, she said.

Staff Sergeant Girouard's Court-martial begins tomorrow (13 March 2007)

The 24-year-old 101st Airborne Solider faces premeditated murder charges in the shooting deaths of three Iraqi detainees last May during operations at a chemical complex north of Baghdad.

Not the best or brightest: Increased granting of 'moral waivers' dangerously lowers standards for military recruits

The savage conflict in Iraq has placed enormous stress on even the most level-headed, scrupulous of soldiers. Abu Ghraib and other moral lapses should be incentive enough to redouble efforts to enlist the best and the brightest. Instead, it seems that the lowering of standards will have the opposite effect.