“Human Military Hybrids” January 2007

Every year in the State of the Union address the president tosses out something that makes me perk up. Last year there was “switch grass” and “human animal hybrids”. Through the course of 2006 switch grass came up, but I still keep looking for a human animal hybrid! That seems a lot more interesting than some weedy grass.

What hit me in this year’s speech was “Civilian Reserve Corps”. Huh? That’s what President Bush said.
“A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.”

All I found about this idea was something attributed to Wesley Clark from October 2003. He talked of Americans serving their country when emergencies occur. Civilian Reserve registration would allow Americans to contribute their special abilities to help in times of trouble without an added bureaucracy. Nah – that’s not it.

No way could the Bush Administration be talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was part of the New Deal to help relieve poverty during the Great Depression. This is the administration that despises and tries to remove anything related to Roosevelt, but cuddles and pampers the Ronald Reagan legacy.

Just for fun I looked up the Nazi stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung. Basically the Brownshirts were a bunch of thugs that Adolf Hitler would use in the 1920s to squelch out dissidents at Nazi speeches or gatherings. Later on when Hitler took power in Germany they were good at busting up Jewish businesses and homes. Maybe? Nah.

Let’s meander on down the trail of the Military Industrial Complex. Bush was talking about Americans without uniforms to define our greatest struggle. It sounds like privatizing the military to me. It eliminates the financial burden of the military, and not so long ago we had hired guns watchin’ over the cattle on the plains.

It’s already here, so it’s not a stretch to get to the Civilian Reserve Corps. In the Iraqi and Afghanistan War we have our military operating side by side with civilians or “private contractors”. Can you imagine what it’s like to work next to somebody making $100,000 a year while you risk your life for your country for $20-24,000 a year? That can’t help morale!

Financially it makes sense to take misguided youths out of their bedrooms and away from their Mp3 to let them act out all their video gaming in a foreign land. The best part is now a company doesn’t have to pay exorbitant salaries, and these employees aren’t held to any of the rules of warfare. Heck! If this works out, we can do away with police departments too! That’s taxing on our cities and country too. Oh, oh, can you say – Sturmabteilung?

Write your congress people because this is one really bad idea.

Jake Drew
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