Here we go again, 35 years after a small group of Los Angeles leftist Hispanics marched against and rioted against the Vietnam War in a feeble attempt to ME-TOO white middle class American draft protestors, Los Angeles leftists are rising up again.

They are now attempting to derail military recruitment in our high schools.

First, of all, let me be clear, to do so against military efforts to recruit Hispanics at least in proportion to their share of the population is counter productive to national acceptance of all Hispanics. In other words, the leftist jerks are setting another national perception about Hispanics that isn’t true and feeding anti-Hispanic hysteria.

LA Times: "Arguing that military recruiters are unfairly targeting minorities at high school campuses, a Los Angeles-based coalition of antiwar activists announced a national campaign Monday to fight recruitment in schools."

What’s wrong with knowing that people can qualify for a $20,000 enlistment bonus, enlistment, nor reenlistment? What’s wrong with knowing that up to $65,000 might be available to qualified people to pay back bona fide college student loans? How does an Army Second Lt. with student loans paid off sound?

Yes, some might be assigned to harm’s way and some might die somewhere in the world sometime in the future. But won’t they be safer and better educated than in their gang-infested unemployed neighborhoods where people can’t walk the streets without fear?

Ignorant fools that leftists are, volunteers make up the combat arms and many in the combat arms, infantry, paratroops, Marines, are Hispanic and they are there by choice. These guys know what they are doing. They aren’t stupid.

They make good money, far more than they would make in their neighborhoods; they get college money and schooling they might never get in their own neighborhoods. So what is the problem?

Three examples come to mind: Dr.Alex Gonzalez, President of California’s Sacramento State University graduated from an East Los Angeles high school and enlisted in the Air Force for something to do. During his time, he noticed that the men being saluted had a college education. When he left the service he drove a truck. He applied to Pomona College then did his graduate work at Harvard and Stanford. He’d still be driving a truck but for his Air Force service.

Then there is his namesake, Gonzalez, Alberto, Attorney General of the United States. General Gonzalez came from a large family parented by uneducated Mexican immigrants. He went into the Air Force and he saw the same things Dr. Gonzalez did. He attended Rice University and Harvard Law. No more need be said.

Then there is this writer. I joined the Marines after one year of college. I returned to college after my service and can truly say that everything I have done since, including writing, has been developed from my experiences, training and functioning as a United States Marine.

A few miles south of Los Angeles, we find the usual suspects doing the same in San Diego.

Once again, we find discredited and paid mouthpiece of the "peace movement" Fernando Suarez de Solar. His claim to "peace" fame is that he is the father of Jesus Suarez de Solar, one of the first Marines killed in Iraq. He joins the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities in bringing its don’t join the military message to the old Mexican part of San Diego.

San Diego Union Tribune: "My son (Jesus) entered the military because he wanted to go to college, and I couldn't afford to send him. He was killed in Iraq. There are other ways to go to college without risking your life."

So, because this immigrant Mexican now says his son joined the Marines to earn college money, others should stop joining the military? Please, Fernando, don’t insult us with guilt-ridden crocodile tears. You, and only you, are at fault for not providing your son’s education. You could have worked two or three jobs to raise the money. It isn’t that expensive at your local community college. You failed your son, not the military.

Your son was a grown man and joined as a volunteer. We know from his friends who survived that Jesus would disapprove of your efforts as we disapprove of your words, methods and insult to your son. So, get off it!

Hispanics make up about 32.5 percent of Army recruits in Southern California, according to Army spokesperson Capt. Laurie Medina (who probably earns several times more than Fernando ever has). The goal, she says, is to increase this to about 35 percent, which the estimated percentage of Hispanic residents in the region.

Jorge Mariscal, director of the "Chicano studies" program at UC San Diego and Vietnam veteran, joins and defends Fernando Suarez de Solar in this anti-military recruitment drive. He does so with extravagant and highly suspect claims that Fernando is a "well-educated" Mexican schooled in an elite Mexican military academy he does not name nor provide proof of.

Between "activists" in Los Angeles and San Diego, Hispanics are under fire not only in Iraq but here at home. They are under fire by the dry rot among us who would sell out like Fernando for money or like Mariscal and the leftist women of Los Angeles for radical leftist whining.

After September 11th, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that 89 percent of Hispanics supported the President. We now know who the 11 percent that didn’t are—they are the ones campaigning against the American military, a military full of Hispanic Americans, who are proud to be Americans and Americans to be.
 

Contreras’s newest book—THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA published by Floricanto Press is available and reviewed at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com