A large percentage of the men and women who carry the war in Iraq on their shoulders entered the military straight from the small towns of rural America. They were looking for something more from their lives -- anything more than what they had. An opportunity. A job. Money for college. Travel. We all know the jobless dead-end towns they left behind if only from watching the return of POW PFC Jessica Lynch to her tiny hometown of Palestine, West Virginia, on CNN. The shabby downtown area is empty of life except for a few halfhearted storefronts, the surrounding neighborhoods are filled with overstuffed tract homes, retirees and their out-of-work children co-existing in a state of love and resentment. If they're lucky, the younger generation has scraped together the cash to park a trailer home in the back yard in a desperate bid for privacy. When a new strip mall opens up on the city limits, complete with a Wal-Mart and a McDonald's, the stampede for cheap goods is only matched by the run for the jobs such places bring to depressed small town economies.

One of the escapes from this dusty life of desperation is the United States military, whose recruiters are sent into the schools and parking lots of these towns like a pack of well-starched car salesmen looking for easy targets.

The practice of fishing for recruits among the poor is called economic conscription, or in more common usage, the "poverty draft." As much as some would like to attribute the "poverty draft" to the present administration, the practice is nothing new.

One of the deciding factors in the fall of the Roman Empire was the growing numbers of the poorer, conquered populations entering the ranks of the Roman army. The interests of these Roman soldiers were less of conquest than of feeding their families. During the US Civil War, Irish immigrants fleeing the poverty of their own land were met at the ships when they arrived stateside to be conscripted into the Union Army.

In this era, the question is: now that the war in Iraq stretches to the horizon like a Kansas blacktop road, should those who joined the military in search of a better life or money for college continue to bear the lion's share of duties in this war? Their deployments are being extended in order to avoid the inevitable. Democratic Presidential hopeful John Kerry made the point during a speech in veteran-rich West Virginia that the Bush administration has "been effectively putting into place a backdoor draft and refusing to let them out," in reference to the current practice of extending deployments into infinity to avoid the political hot potato of a draft -- a subject Kerry himself has danced around.

Wanted: Youth With Few Opportunities
Would Americans who support the war be so enthusiastic if, instead of some of America's poorest young citizens, they had to cope with sacrificing the lives of, say, the sun-browned boys we see out on Lake Norman in daddy's speedboat?

Irish political leader James Connolly defined economic conscription as "The policy of forcing men into the army by depriving them of the means of earning a living. Fighting at the front today there are many thousands whose whole soul revolts against what they are doing, but who must, nevertheless, continue fighting and murdering because they were deprived of a living at home ... recruiting has become a great hunting party in which the souls and bodies of men are the game to be hunted and trapped."

Connolly was executed by the British in 1916, but his thoughts on economic conscription are frighteningly current as the American military often seeks out those whose chances for good jobs are slim.

The recruitment offices in Charlotte, for instance, are located near some of the city's poorer neighborhoods. The multiple recruitment offices located in the government office-filled Midtown Plaza near Midtown Square could easily be explained away as a way for the government to save on rent money, but there's little doubt that proximity to the neighborhoods near the Morgan Neighborhood Park provide an advantage for recruiters. The Army Recruiting Office on Milton Road in Charlotte is more obvious. It is sandwiched between a Spanish Christian bookstore and empty storefronts, some with bars on the windows and stairways.

But the inner city isn't where most of those serving come from. Kannapolis, NC, is more the right speed. A recent New York Times article stated that today's military "resembles the makeup of a two-year commuter or trade school outside of Birmingham or Biloxi far more than that of a ghetto or barrio or four-year university in Boston."

Steve Wolford with the Military Rights Hotline and The Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC -- a nonprofit organization of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) that provides support and counseling to military personnel who are conscientious objectors -- says his organization fields calls every day from frightened and stressed-out members of the military who joined up looking for money for school, or a decent job with benefits, but who are disappointed by how they are being treated. Wolford says an overwhelming number of callers have gotten into the armed forces and realize they're not able to kill, but are reluctant to face the ridicule and being called a coward if they stay in the military.

Most of them also need to stay in and get their honorable discharge in order to get their promised money for college. The Montgomery GI Bill is used as a recruitment tool, not a social services program. Advertisements can be seen everywhere offering "up to" $50,000 for college when you join, but there's a lot of fine print. The recruit expecting college money in return for his service in the armed forces has to contribute $100 per month to his or her education fund for the first year of service out of the average base pay for an E-1, which amounts to about $1,104 per month. (An E-1 is an entry level recruit who has been in the armed services less than four months.) This contribution is non-refundable. If the soldier decides not to go to college or is one of the 20 percent of soldiers not honorably discharged, the money stays with the military. Although most new recruits sign up for college money, about 65 percent receive no money for college from the GI Bill.

Chuck Fager, director of Quaker House, says that in the short term the military does have something to offer a poor kid from a run down mill town or the inner city, but the long-term costs can be high.

"For young persons from backgrounds of limited opportunity, the military can be an avenue of upward mobility," says Fager, "provided several conditions pertain: 1. the person is not killed or disabled in combat or extended service in an overstrained military force; 2. the person gets training in the military that is truly marketable on the outside (some military skills are; many are not); and 3. the person maintains personal discipline that keeps her/him out of the clutches of the many social and financial parasites who cluster around military bases. (For example, consider Fayetteville, with 40+ pawnshops, 100+ used car dealers, plentiful high interest credit from local retailers, and six pages of color ads for "escort services" in the Yellow Pages.)

"America's cities and towns have many hundreds of thousands of veterans who may have done relatively well for the brief time they were in the military, but who have paid for that with decades of official neglect," continues Fager.

The Bush Administration has included a 3.5 percent pay rate increase for the military in the 2005 budget but is making up the shortfall on the back end by increasing drug co-payments and enrollment fees for veterans' healthcare and cuts in long-term health care funding for veterans. In addition, some base commissaries and schools will be closed, 50,000 VA home loans will be cut, and funding for VA medical and prosthetic research will be cut by $50 million dollars. Support our troops, indeed.

Low Pay, Uncertain Length of Service
When US citizens join the military to improve their lot in life, do they jump out of the frying pan into the fire? One of the sobering realities of the US military is that the greatest fighting force in the world doesn't make a decent living wage. Yes, they make enough to live on but should those who carry guns on our behalf in a foreign land make the same wage as a fry cook? (No offense to fry cooks.)

If you are authorized to live off base, you might get a housing allowance and/or a food, or subsistence, allowance. If you're being shot at in Iraq, you don't have to pay taxes and in its 2005 budget proposal, the Bush Administration has magnanimously decided that the combat pay soldiers get (around $150 monthly) will no longer count against food stamp eligibility. An E-1, the raw recruit, makes a little over six dollars an hour. According to the National Compensation Survey of 2000, that puts them on the same level as amusement park operators and dry cleaning machine operators.

In times past, military service was a way of life in which, essentially, a serviceman's entire family served. Military wives weren't paid for their endless support, relocations and holding down the fort while their spouses were gone for months or years at a time. These days, spouses of military personnel are much less likely -- and less able to afford to -- give of themselves, uncompensated, to such a degree. Many simply have to work to make ends meet, and others might even have the audacity to have careers of their own.

Some supporters of the status quo cry foul when the notion of poverty in the military is brought up, claiming that it's a myth, and often resorting to the old "Well, that's what they signed up for" argument. But people like Sherrill Hendrick with Community Connections for Military Families -- one of the largest military help organizations in the country, based in Tacoma, Washington -- and Larry Jones, founder of Feed the Children, bristle when they hear this kind of rhetoric.

Hendrick says the hue and cry during the last few years about military families on food stamps has brought more support and financial counseling for much of the regular military. But things are still tight, and quite a few members of military families hold down two jobs to make ends meet. When deployed, however, the civilian job has to go. Hendrick angrily asks if we're taking such good care of our regular military, why do so many military pregnant mothers have to use WIC -- and why do so many families still qualify for food stamps? She feels the families of our nation's defenders deserve better.

Larry Jones's organization Feed the Children is an international Christian relief group based in Oklahoma City which delivers food, medicine, clothing and other necessities to families suffering due to famine, war, poverty or natural disaster. Since large-scale deployments to Iraq started in December 2002, Feed the Children has delivered more than 50 trucks of food to military bases all over the country to aid the families left behind, including a delivery at North Carolina's Ft. Bragg.

"Sadly, in addition to risking their lives, thousands of service men and women are risking their livelihoods," said Jones. "Many of these soldiers have had to leave their families in a financial predicament to go fight the war. If we are going to live in the land of the free, we need to stop and thank the brave. The best way to do that is to help give them the peace of mind that comes from knowing that their families will be taken care of back home."

Reservists and Guard in hot water
The biggest financial challenges Hendrick is dealing with now are those of the Reserves and the National Guard who have been called to Iraq. These folks' salaries have been slashed to half and even less of what they made in their civilian jobs. These sometime soldiers expected to be called up here and there for a flood or a tornado; no one was planning financially for such a long deployment. The recruitment brochures for these organizations emphasize, in large print, that it's a "part time job while you live in the comfort of your home." And then there's one sentence unobtrusively placed in the brochure once or twice that has taken on more meaning lately: "And when international conflicts arise, the Guard stands alongside active forces."

One California National Guard Officer, identified as John Doe, has gone so far as to file a lawsuit to fight the "stop-loss" order that will effectively hold him prisoner in the Army National Guard when his term ends in December. Military officials insist that reservists know when signing on the dotted line that a possible extension of service is part of the deal. The reservists I spoke to, however, wryly note that the "extension of service" clause is deliberately downplayed by the military.

Hendrick says one of the biggest problems for Reservists and Guard members is the pay system, which is largely done by hand (payment for a weekend here and there). The system is being overhauled, but for now it's still being done by hand and Reservists and Guardsmen's families are getting their checks three and four months late. Consequently, they're losing their houses and cars -- and their wives are divorcing them in droves. If that's not bad enough, the "weekend" soldiers' families are also dealing with the prejudices of the regular active forces when they apply for help; they're often looked down upon as "part time." But as Hendrick reminds us grimly, "They bleed just as red."

In recent testimony before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Efficiency and Financial Management, the pay problems of the Army Reserve, and their repercussions, were explained by Donald J. Campbell, US Army Reserve, LTC (ret) Past Commander of the 3423rd Military Intelligence Division (PD). He outlined irregularities with Government Issue Visa cards for per-diem pay issues. The methods used by Defense Finance & Accounting System were so byzantine and complex -- for both the DFAS and the Reservists -- a large number of the members of Campbell's unit were turned over to debt collectors by the DFAS for monies the organization itself had been responsible for paying them. After months of wrangling with mid-level bureaucrats after their deployment was completed, the unit's members finally got their good credit repaired. "I take no pleasure in telling the Committee that our unit and many other Reservists were victimized throughout our deployment, and then for months afterwards, trying to correct the wrongs done to us," Campbell testified. "...Many unit members, because of their civilian expertise, contributed to the Intelligence mission at such a high level they were asked to remain and take civilian Analyst jobs. All chose to go home."

It looks as if the ranks of the haphazardly cared for "part-time" soldiers will keep growing, although a substantial number of new backdoor inductees are resisting the call. Three months ago, the Army announced that it would be giving notice to almost 5,700 members of its Individual Ready Reserve pool that they would be summoned to active duty within the next two years. The IRR is a pool of formerly enlisted individuals who served less than eight years on active duty, and all officers who haven't resigned their commissions. They do not perform regular training and in the past have rarely been called upon to serve. The last substantial call-up of these forces was during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 when 20,000 members of the IRR were recalled. September 22 was the deadline for the first 1,662 members of this most recent recall to report for duty. One third of this group hasn't reported for duty and the requests for almost-impossible-to-obtain exemptions are piling up.

Many in the National Guard report that they feel taken for granted by both the government and American businesses and citizens. While some companies such as JP Morgan Chase, Lucent, Safeway, Sprint and Wal-Mart are supporting the Reserves and National Guard by continuing full salaries or making up the difference in paychecks when the soldiers are called up, there are many more that are not as supportive.

Several members of a support group of Guard wives bent my ear recently and, after a promise of anonymity, were frank about their trials. The constant difficulties of the present pay system had caused one Guard wife to lose her apartment, forcing her to move in with her brother and sister-in-law. While her family loves her and her small child, they chide her husband when he calls for "leaving her to face this situation alone" and ridicule his efforts to meet his military obligations in Iraq. "Do they think that I wanted to lose my home, even if it was only an apartment?" she asked.

Another Guard wife recounted living on a restricted budget before her husband's activation last year. Government mistakes in the family's paychecks have caused chaos in their finances and cost her huge amounts of time trying to correct errors regarding her husband's rank and paycheck amounts. Their landlady was understanding and allowed small partial payments, but a national rent-to-own chain was not. After the first late payment, she was harassed by employees of the store by phone and in person at her home. The store wasn't deterred by the local police department, who came repeatedly to remove them from her property. They even went as far as calling the Guard commanders, who then contacted her directly. The attacks continued for 60 days until the wife gave in and, with a police officer present at her own request, returned her living room sofa that was almost paid for. "It is the principle of the issue! I haven't done anything wrong. It isn't our fault that my husband's pay is so messed up. I have gone through more action at home than my husband has seen in the Middle East."

On top of ongoing pay problems, an increasing number of Reservists and National Guard who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan find themselves facing new battles with their former employers at home. Jobs have been eliminated, or benefits have been reduced, or promised promotions have disappeared -- this in spite of specific protections mandated by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The US Labor Department has stepped up its efforts to enforce the law, usually successfully, but some soldiers are discovering that it can't help them. For example, according to CNN, Larry Gill, a policeman in Thomasville, AL, lost his job because a grenade had injured a foot, making it impossible for him to chase criminals or duck bullets. Others, such as Jerry Chambers, of Oberlin, KS, have found their jobs eliminated by employees' budget cuts, which is legal.

Opponents of those who criticize the National Guard's policies often point out that all Guard members go through an orientation when they sign up that warns of this eventuality and outlines financial preparedness. Right? One battle-weary wife laughed out loud.

"I was in the Guard also," she explained. "They told us that we worked for the state and that we would be called up for emergencies only. . .that was our orientation. This kind of situation? In my orientation I was told this would never happen." She sighs wearily. "But you gotta do what you gotta do."