That actually sounds about like i would expect...
In fact, the same was told to many of my friends who went to VN and had their lives destroyed.
It was not unusual for a judge to give the defendant a choice....sign up for the army or go to jail.
"In 2007, it published information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that found the number of convicted criminals enlisting in the US military had nearly doubled in two years, from 824 in 2004 to 1,605 in 2006. In that period, a total of 4,230 convicted felons were enlisted, including those guilty of rape and murder. On top of this, 43,977 soldiers signed up who had been found guilty of a serious misdemeanour, which includes assault. Another 58,561 had drug-related convictions, but all were handed a gun and sent off to the Middle East. "The fact that the military has allowed more than 100,000 people with such troubled pasts to join its ranks over the past three years illustrates the problem we're having meeting our military needs in this time of war," said Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center." (https://www.alternet.org/2012/10/dark-secret-us-military-neo-nazis-and-criminals-are-filling-its-ranks/) |
