Awesome! I'm totally good at rape!

j/k anyway I have a tattoo.

First, the main mission of anyone in the military service has alwasy been to kill people or assist in the demise of people through logistic support. In the past 15 years, nation-building has also been a new assignment, with decidedly mixed results. When the first President Bush sent in troops, later kept there by President Clinton, it was to establish order. They failed and that ensured that President Clinton did nothing about the genocide in Rwanda, only a short time later.
Later in that same decade, it was reportedly (now Senator) Hillary Clinton who got her husband to work with NATO to stop the slaughter in the Balkans, largely due to the fact that rape was being used as a tool of war - which historically and unfortunately, it has been, to various degrees.
The current occupation in Iraq, now involving nation building is, to most people reading this blog (and most Americans period, if the polls are reliable), a major error in nation-building, one designed to mold a country with different traditions and religion, into our image. We tried that in Vietnam and it didn't work then; and it likely won't work today.
However - and this is a BIG however - rape is not allowed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. If the allegations against this Marine recruiter proves true - and it sounds as if they are - then he will be spend time in a military jail (known as a "brig") and be thrown out of the Corps with a Bad Conduct Discharge. He will have been hoisted on his own petard, as the old saying goes.
Admittedly, that is scant comfort to the women who were raped.
But the military is indeed a legitimate career choice, not for everyone.
Full disclosure: I spent four years in the U.S. Navy, on active duty. I learned photography there and met some good people and learned a lot about myself. But after four years, I was glad to get out, go on inactive duty for two, and go back to school. As I said, a career in the military is not for everybody. But we do need such people. And they are not all rapists or thugs. Some are decent people just doing a thankless task.

Correction: word in first 'graph should be "always."

Clarification: Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton sent troops into Somalia, circa 1992 and '93.

Actually they just got slapped on the wrists then discharged. Sounds like they got away with it.

The drunken "sleep over" at the recruiting office sounds like the shittiest party ever. Don't they have woods in Ukiah? Don't parents ever go on vacation there?

Don't know these people, never read this story until now, am talking out my ass.

But these tales don't sound very rapey. When my sister was raped, she was physically attacked by someone she barely knew and there was blood and a visit to the hospital. These just sound like regrettable encounters with scumbags.

And if they were dishonorably discharged, that's way better than going to prison, but it is hardly "getting away with it".

Ah, the joys of recruiting... Rape aside, recruiters lie to potential recruits to get them to join because the recruiters have a monthly quota, and if they don't make it, they get in trouble. Unfortunately, once the recruits get to bootcamp, they're often found wanting in some regard, and are sent home having wasted several months of their lives, and possibly with a lousy blot on their record. 'Dishonorable' or 'bad conduct' discharges can bar someone from other civilian careers.

In my case, I spent 11 months getting ready to leave for Navy bootcamp. I scored 99% on the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) and went for Cryptotechnician-Interpretive. I wanted to be a translator/interpretor and go to the Defense Language Institute in Monteray Bay, CA. Except, because I had seen a counselor (not a psychiatrist or phycologist), I had to take the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory), which I flunked. They booted me for "Borderline Personality Disorder", which I doubt is even a real mental disorder, and eventually I'll legally challenge the diagnosis.

In the meantime, that was more than a year of my life down the train, plus a medical record stating I have a mental disorder, which bars me from ever being a federal employee (including civilian jobs, like postal worker).

I had to laugh, 3 months later, when USA Today reported that the military was lamenting the lack of qualified recruits for language training. Well, duh, because they're sending all the bright ones home (the MMPI is unreliable if your IQ is over 130, which mine is).

On the other hand, I'm glad that I got kicked out, because otherwise I would have spent the last year sitting on a destroyer in the Persian Gulf with headphones over my ears.

But, if I had gotten shitcanned for testing positive for cocaine or heroin, I could have come back after a year. So the military's cool with ex-drug users.

Kate-- that is totally fucked!

And-- really? About the MMPI being unreliable if your IQ is over 130? I ask because mine is, and I too flunked it in the past.

But if you know how to rape, you’re in!

Not necessarily. Only heterosexual rapists are allowed.

On the unreliable MMPI: If your IQ is over 130, you can probably "see through" the test and manipulate the results.

RE: On the unreliable MMPI: If your IQ is over 130, you can probably "see through" the test and manipulate the results

The manipulation only succeeds if you have time. What happenes is that most people "see through" then become anxious. Their manipulation, without benefit of time or abstraction, primarily succeeds at the question level, not at the test level. Meaning they do not manage, due to anxiety, to achieve consistency in their manipulated responses. This is why the most common mis-diagnosis of people with higher IQs is, in fact, a borderline diagnonsis - smart people can be a little arrogant about how they are seen, thus they try to render themselves a little smart, a little arty, a little sensitive, quite reliable, etc., on MMPI the "a little of this, a little of that" routine is the very essence of borderline.

There is no "self important smarty pants" diagnosis unfortunately, because even though it's embarassing, it's not really a bad thing.

Chris-

You are talking out of your ass. I'm too furious to add anything to that.

Nice site