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The Telling Of A Story With A Wee Bit Of Blarney
by Kathy Waldon
Originally posted to BNN 3/8/2005
Waging a war of the minds, counter-recruiters are adding to the recruiting plight of the American military through media coverage. The counter-recruiters would have us believe they claim success one youth at a time. Take for example, the story of Greg McCullough a 19 year old from Brooklyn who was a member of the Junior ROTC honor guard at his high school. On McCullough's third attempt (through the Delayed Entry Program offered by the Military to high school students) he passed acceptance for the Marines. McCullough supposedly wanted to be a Marine MP and he kept trying to get in because he believed in the Marine history and wanted to wear the uniform. McCullough then met Jim Murphy, an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War, high school administrator and a member of Veterans for Peace.
McCullough now wants out the story reports. McCullough credits counter-recruiter Murphy with his 180 degree turn around. At face value, the story spins an effective yarn by telling how Murphy was able to advise McCullough to take a different road in life that didn't include military service, in fact Murphy supposedly has so thoroughly convinced McCullough to give up his military ambitions that he is now planning to go to college to study international criminal law and Arabic. This could be an impressive story of how counter-recruiting wins a solid American kid from the clenches of war. But there is more to the story here than what has been reported or how it was reported. Appearances may be deceiving.
The story relates that McCullough successfully entered into the Delayed Entry program after completing both physical and entrance exams last June at age 18 AFTER two failed attempts because he was TOO YOUNG, which was used to illustrate how badly McCullough wanted to join the Marines and how effective Murphy had to be to convince him to abort his plans. To qualify for the Delayed Entry program students must be 17 years old, have successfully completed junior year studies and be promoted to senior year, and have parental permission to take the military physical and entrance (aptitude) exams. The story fails to relate this information. So McCullough was entering his senior year at the age of 18 and was finally accepted by the Marines for the Delayed Entry program having met the requirements not for age, as the story would have the readers believe, but because he finally had been promoted to senior high school year level and had completed the military entrance exams. Age was not the determining factor in McCullough's case of being rejected twice by the military, his educational status was. In other words, McCullough needed an extra year of schooling to make the grade.
The story stretches the truth regarding McCullough's attempts to join the Military in failing to point out that the military has required educational standards that must be met for all recruits, and elaborates instead upon a crusading counter-recruiter who influenced a high school kid to change his simple dream of being a cop for the Marines for the far more glamorous and politically correct(?) job of specializing in Arabic and international criminal justice. Could it be that McCullough isn't the sharpest knife in the block? If so, then that would make anyone who believes that this story is about a stellar student that has been saved from war by the counter-recruiters a little bit on the dull side themselves. Telling an incredible story painted with fanciful prose and filled with untruths, in such a way that people believe it, is what makes a story good by blarney standards. With St. Patrick's Day drawing near, welcome to this wee bit of blarney.
Reference:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-07-counter-recruiters_x.htm
Kathy Waldon blogs at Is It Just Me?.
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