leavemychildalone.org

I love Bob Herbert. Here is a man who understands the connections between this immoral, illegal, unjust war and the class issues he writes about every day.

The all-volunteer Army is not working. The problem with such an Army is that there are limited numbers of people who will freely choose to participate in an enterprise in which they may well be shot, blown up, burned to death or suffer some other excruciating fate.

The all-volunteer Army is fine in peacetime, and in military routs like the first gulf war. But when the troops are locked in a prolonged war that yields high casualties, and they look over their shoulders to see if reinforcements are coming from the general population, they find - as they're finding now - that no one is there.

Herbert speaks with Sandra Lowe, of the Sonoma Valley (California) Unified School District. Sandra and other parents are disturbed by the calls flooding their homes from military recruiters, who are "on campus all the time," giving away perks like "very violent video games". Interesting connection there. Aren't these games cool? Come play our game!

Ms. Lowe said she was especially disturbed by a joint effort of the Defense Department and a private contractor, disclosed last week, to build a database of 30 million 16- to 25-year-olds, complete with Social Security numbers, racial and ethnic identification codes, grade point averages and phone numbers. The database is to be scoured for youngsters that the Pentagon believes can be persuaded to join the military.

There oughta be an "Amber Alert" for military recruiters, who pose a much greater danger than stranger-with-candy abductions. Khaki Alert?

Parents all over the country are organizing to fight these dangerous and insidious intruders. One resource Lowe mentions is Leave My Child Alone, which links to Military Free Zone.