Related: Surprise!: Boston Globe Discovers Anti-War Protests
Occupation Iraq: An American Family's Story
"Selling war was his undoing, widow says; Army investigates four recruiters' suicides in Texas" by Michelle Roberts, Associated Press | December 23, 2008
HENDERSON, Texas - Sergeant Patrick Henderson, a strapping Iraq combat veteran, spent the last, miserable months of his life as an Army recruiter, cold-calling dozens of people a day from his strip-mall office and sitting in strangers' living rooms, trying to sign up their sons and daughters for an unpopular war.
He put in 13-hour days, six days a week, often encountering abuse from young people or their parents. When he and other recruiters would gripe about the pressure to meet their quotas, their superiors would snarl that they ought to be grateful they were not in Iraq, according to his widow.
Like the Nazis used to tell the western European troops -- be thankful you are not on the Russian front.
Less than a year into the job, Henderson - afflicted with flashbacks and sleeplessness after his tour of battle in Iraq - went into his backyard shed, slid the chain lock in place, and hanged himself. He became, at age 35, the fourth member of the Army's Houston Recruiting Battalion to commit suicide in the past three years - something Henderson's widow and others blame on the psychological scars of combat, combined with the pressure-cooker job of trying to sell the war....
Yeah, SELLING LIES is NEVER a GOOD THING for someone on the FRONT LINES!
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Like most recruiters, he began his day with paperwork, followed by cold calls to high school graduates and college students. He spent lunches trying to chat up high schoolers outside the cafeteria, and then, more phone calls - often 150 a day, according to his widow.
He spent evenings on the living room sofas or at the dining room tables of the few interested young people, trying to sell them and their families on the Army's opportunities while easing their fears. Some recruits' parents were hostile.
"They are completely outright nasty to you. That's stressful to you right then and there because you have some mother or father just ripping you apart," Amanda Henderson said.....
Well, maybe SOMEONE should RIP INTO BUSH and his band of WAR CRIMINAL CRONIES!!!!
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And to add INSULT to INJURY, the photo the web site won't give you:
