yaponczyk1
10.01.07, 17:22
Juz nawet w lokalnych codziennych gazetach czerwoni siedza i
liberalowie....kiedys to tylko NYT byl zakomuszony.
Artykul napisany przez: Michael Daly
Zeby nie bylo, ze cos ukradlem znowu.
The retired New York City Firefighter Flip Mullen tells of an encounter with
a 19-year-old soldier named Keith whose only complaint had nothing to do with
having lost a leg in Iraq.
"He said, 'I can't get a drink,'" Mullen recalls.
Keith meant he was considered old enough to go to war but too young to go
into a bar or a nightclub. He is among some 5,000 G.I.s who were wounded in
Iraq when they were not yet 21. Exactly 550 have been killed before they were
of an age to have a legal beer.
Which is not necessarily to say the legal drinking age should be lowered. The
law has done little to reduce alcohol consumption among those under 21 and
indeed may encourage binge drinking because it keeps them from imbibing
in "socially controlled situations" such as a licensed premises. But the age
limit does seem to significantly reduce drunken driving deaths, especially of
the single-vehicle variety.
An alternative would be to institute the same age limit in the military that
we have in the NYPD, where a recruit must be at least 21 at the time of
appointment. A sign reading "YOU MUST BE 21" could just as easily go up on
the wall of a military recruiting station as on the wall of a gin mill.
The problem is, the military presently needs every pair of boots it can
muster for an increasingly unpopular war. The need will become all the more
pressing if the predictions concerning President Bush's revamped strategy are
correct. The 130,000 troops already in Iraq include a good 25,000 who are too
young to drink legally or, for that matter, become cops.
Even with the military taking them as young as 17, the recruiting station at
Times Square had but a single prospect yesterday afternoon, and he was
sitting by the Air Force cubicle. The Marine Corps recruiter was on the phone
with his mother. The two Army recruiters looked about as busy as overcoat
salesmen this season. They seemed happy to answer a visitor's inquiries
regarding his 18-year-old daughter.
"All ages are deployable," one of the Army representatives said.
The Marine got off the phone, and the visitor inquired how the Corps felt
about young recruits.
"As a matter of fact, it's encouraged," he said. "By the time they're 21,
they're in leadership positions."
One Bronx Marine who did not quite reach the age of leadership was Ramona
Valdez. She had a job at the fast-food counter at Liberty Island when the
attack on the World Trade Center prompted the government to close the statue
to the public. She was 17 when she joined the Marine Corps. She was 20 when
she was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.
Valdez died a year too young to get past the doorman at one of those fun
Manhattan nightspots where the police are cracking down on underage patrons,
holding some in jail overnight. Had she escaped with just a missing limb or
two, she would have gone from surviving an IED to needing a fake ID.
The powers that be are not likely to lower the drinking age, or raise the
dying age, but there is one recourse for under-21 Marines and soldiers
wanting a drink. They need only seek out premises where a retired or off-duty
New York City firefighter is present. The response will almost certainly be
the same as when the 19-year-old solider with one leg told Mullen that he
could not get a drink.
"I'll fix that," Mullen said.
Indeed, firefighters tend to be surprised when vets return from Iraq without
a certain thirst. Firefighter Mike Moran took in a seriously injured solider
as part of a program involving the Wounded Warrior Project and a charitable
outfit called Greybeard. Mullen reports the following exchange:
Moran: "Hey, Flip, my soldier doesn't drink!"
Mullen: "What?"
Moran: "Yeah, I got no Plan B. I told the wife maybe you ought to go out and
buy some food."
Meanwhile, the President is expected to announce tomorrow his intention to
send as many as 20,000 more troops to Iraq. That would mean sending some
3,000 soldiers who are too young to enjoy a legal drink but old enough to
lose limbs and die in a war Bush tells us is still not lost.
