11/22/2006

Feel A Draft?

Y did. When Y was 19 and married, we were living in Phoenix and so poor that one day we ate a box of powdered sugar mixed with 19cent margerine for food, and we had to make it last. The place where we lived was made out of wood sheets where the one side was our interior wall and the other side was the exterior wall. We shared a cold water sink with another room. To take a shower or use a toilet, we had to walk down a dirt driveway about 800 feet to the bathroom building. The ambience in there was something Y don't feel competent to describe.

When you are really poor, you don't even have the right kind of clothes for any kind of job search. You look horrible, and any employer on the up and up can tell you're on the skids. Y joined a program put on by the Urban League to help poor folks get a job. They gave us all $40/week. Then Y did get a job as a kindergarten aide because Y had a junkie ex-prison guard neighbor who still had a functioning credit card and who bought me two outfits to wear. Anyway, the bottom line is my husband joined the airforce as a last resort. Poverty Draft.

Imagine our surprise when we found out that he was not being paid enough to support the both of us, even with the marriage and housing money. We lived in the projects in Las Vegas. And in order to get in there, we had to take our beloved dog Berkley to the animal shelter. If you know anything about me, you know that was an act of extreme desperation. So we went to the recruiter and Y signed up, too. Poverty Draft.

Y do have discharge papers, but Y never reported for duty because in between taking that step forward and my report date, my husband researched the promises the recruiter had made. Since he had access to the pay office, he was able to ferret out the truth. If Y had reported and served, we would have been in worse financial condition than when we started. They discharged me when the recruiter's outrageous lies were brought to their attention.

Y have personal experience with how recruitment and the army operate these days, and you probably know it's the same old/same old. What a disgrace. Members of congress who want to reinstitute the official draft will not be successful. Everyone that matters already knows how effective is the Poverty Draft.

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