A felon can't vote, but he can serve in Iraq

The Army is so wanting to replenish its ranks that it has lowered its' standards in seeking and enlisting those who have committed and been convicted of crimes and those who have a General Equivalency Diploma instead of a High School Diploma. This very telling maneuver by The Army speaks volumes about the military's efforts being waged in Iraq and them not being popular ones within the US community. This method of recruitment tells of how many soldiers have done several tours of duty and are refusing to re-up for another thus forcing The Army to find a body, any body, to replace the ones that are refusing to return to fight in a war that has been declared over. With these several tours of duty done, sometimes unwillingly as The Army sometimes extended a soldiers enlistment period without any recourse for the soldier to thwart that effort, these soldiers return with tales of what has gone on in the communities of Iraq and do not have a clear understanding as to why they were there as long as they were. The communities of The United States are being flooded with soldiers returning home with stories of the non-war that is being fought, and The Army is unable to woo them back for more tours of duties, so they now must make moves to get those who are willing to go.

The Army is now hedging that those who will be most willing to go are those who are the disenfranchised. For many the make-up of the disenfranchised is a person to whom opportunities do not present themselves willingly. The disenfranchised are thought of as persons who live in poor communities that have inept schools that these persons ultimately drop out of before completion of their scholastic programs, and because these were unable to finish school, often because of the hopelessness of the school, they then have a greater possibility of a life of crime because they are less employable without a high school diploma than someone who attended and graduated from high school.

Those same recruits that The Army is seeking are the same persons that society does not want to deal with. They are the same individuals who do not have the same funding pumped into their schools that those living in the suburbs have. They are the same people who do not get their fare share of tax dollars to fund the paving of their streets, the upkeep of their transportation, and the better super markets that their suburban and down town neighbors may have. These are the same persons that if convicted of a felony cannot vote to change these things but can be recruited by The Army to replenish the ranks for a war that was declared over months ago. Is there not blatant irony in this situation? One wonders.