Recruiter in murder-suicide was 9-year veteran

Recruiter in murder-suicide was 9-year veteran
Apr. 9, 2013
By Ben Nuckols
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A military recruiter who police say fatally shot a teenage girl he signed up for the Army Reserve before committing suicide was a nine-year veteran who had served overseas, the Army said Tuesday.

Staff Sgt. Adam Arndt, 31, was found dead of a gunshot wound Monday morning inside his Germantown, Md., home. Also dead was Michelle Miller, 17, a senior at Rockville High School.

Police believe Arndt fatally shot Miller, who was signed up to enter the Army Reserve after graduation, before killing himself. A handgun was found at the home, police said.

Miller's father, Kevin Miller, told The Associated Press on Monday night that he had not met Arndt but that his daughter had seemed “a little smitten with this guy.” He said she met him about four or five months ago.

Kevin Miller said his daughter left their Rockville home Sunday night, saying somebody in her platoon was suicidal. He said she stopped responding to his calls and text messages.
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Daughter charged in Army recruiter’s death

Daughter charged in Army recruiter’s death
The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Apr 8, 2011 7:22:19 EDT
BRASELTON, Ga. — The 15-year-old daughter of an Army recruiter has been charged in the shooting death of her mother after police said the two got into an argument.

A 42-year-old soldier and recruiter with the Army was found dead in her home Thursday by a neighbor, said Braselton assistant police chief Lou Solis.

The girl’s father is also in the Army but stationed in Alabama.

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Daughter charged in Army recruiter’s death

Top colleges reconsider ROTC after DADT repeal

Top colleges reconsider ROTC after DADT repeal
By Eric Gorski - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Dec 23, 2010 15:08:19 EST
Three days a week, Yale sophomore James Campbell rises at 5 a.m. for ROTC drills on a college campus that isn’t his own.

He would gladly do push-ups and run circles on Yale’s campus.

But even if that were an option, he wouldn’t have much company. Campbell is Yale’s only Army ROTC cadet.

Like other ROTC members who attend colleges that do not host the program, Campbell trains at another school — in this case, the neighboring University of New Haven. Because Yale does not fully recognize ROTC, he does not earn any academic credit toward his Yale degree for the military science course he must take at New Haven for his commission.

Forty years ago, ROTC units disappeared from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and other elite schools, casualties of Vietnam-era tension and academic power struggles. Now, those same schools are moving toward welcoming ROTC units back thanks to the imminent demise of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
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Top colleges reconsider ROTC after DADT repeal

Facebook Virginia Tech blogger ordered by judge to join military

Judge orders man to join military

By Scott Johnson - The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser
Posted : Friday Aug 27, 2010 13:00:19 EDT

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A judge ordered an Alabama man to join the military as a condition for of his probation for a provocative Facebook message about the mass killing at Virginia Tech.

Zachary Lambert pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of harassing communications, and a judge in Montgomery placed the 23-year-old man on probation.
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Judge orders man to join military

Army ends GED program for aspiring soldiers

Army ends GED program for aspiring soldiers

By Susanne M. Schafer - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Aug 26, 2010 8:42:49 EDT

FORT JACKSON, S.C. — The Army is ending a program that helped nearly 3,000 high school dropouts earn high school equivalency certificates and become soldiers.

The GED pilot program known as the Army's prep school started here in summer 2008, when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan left the service scrambling to find soldiers. But since then, with the economy in a downward spiral and jobs hard to come by, more people with diplomas have been enlisting.

In 2008, 82.8 percent of people who enlisted for active duty were high school graduates. That number jumped to 94.6 percent in 2009.
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Army ends GED program for aspiring soldiers

Military enlistment a popular option during recession

Military enlistment a popular option during recession
With the nation's economy suffering and unemployment hovering near 10 percent, many are remaining in uniform longer than they planned. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines exceeded their retention goals last year and this year despite the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Army met 124 percent of its goal last year, compared with 102 percent in 2001.

Report: 90% of youth in Philly cannot serve

Report: 90% of youth in Philly cannot serve

The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Jun 15, 2010 11:49:03 EDT

PHILADELPHIA — A nonprofit group says that up to 90 percent of young Philadelphians are ineligible for military service because of criminal records, obesity or lack of education.

Pennsylvania-based Mission: Readiness released its report Monday. It says 1 million Pennsylvanians are ineligible for the same reasons.

Mission: Readiness is made up of more than 150 retired generals and admirals. The group wants state and federal funding for pre-kindergarten programs that it says give children a solid foundation for academic and personal success.

The report says 145,000 Philadelphians ages 18 to 24 cannot meet the military’s medical, moral and mental standards.

Nationally, the Defense Department estimates that 75 percent of young adults are disqualified from military service.
Report: 90% of youth in Philly cannot serve

Marine recruit dies trying to lose weight

Local Marine Recruit Dies Trying To Lose Weight
A young Tracy resident was only days away from leaving for boot camp in the U.S. Marine Corps, and now the military is investigating his death.

According to the Tracy Press, 22-year-old Danny Ruf was working out with Marine recruits at In Shape City, trying to lose weight for boot camp.
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http://cbs13.com/local/marine.recruit.collapses.2.1097403.html

Austistic Marine shines light on meeting quotas

Story update July 21, 2009

Autistic Marine from Orange County pleads guilty to fraudulent enlistment, other charges
By Tony Perry Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:57:13 PM


Case of autistic Marine brings recruiting problems to the forefront
Faced with quotas, a few recruiters are taking shortcuts that allow those unfit for service into the military.
By Tony Perry
July 6, 2009
Reporting from San Diego -- A few days after he arrived at boot camp here, Joshua Fry no longer wanted to be a Marine.

He was confused by the orders drill instructors shouted at him. He was caught stealing peanut butter from the chow hall. He urinated in his canteen. He talked back to the drill instructors. He refused to shave.


Finally, he set out toward the main gate as if to head home. He was blocked, but now he had the chance to tell his superiors a secret: He was autistic. Fry figured this admission would persuade the Marines to let him return to the group home in Irvine for disturbed young adults where he was living when he enlisted.

Instead, he was sent back to Platoon 1021, Company B. The drill instructors became more helpful, and in April 2008 he finished the grueling 11-week regimen and was sent to Camp Pendleton for infantry training.

Within weeks he was under arrest for desertion and possession of child pornography.


Documents in Fry's court-martial case detail a troubled upbringing and a Marine career that was both improbable and misbegotten.

But far from being a routine instance of a young man unable to adjust to military life, the Fry case has exposed an awkward issue for the Marines and other military services: Recruiters sometimes take ethical shortcuts to make their quotas at a time when Americans have tired of the nation's wars and finding recruits is difficult.

According to court documents, Fry's recruiter knew he was autistic. The Marine Corps is investigating the recruiter's conduct.
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Case of autistic Marine brings recruiting problems to the forefront

Pvt. William Andrew Long came from military family

Slain soldier came from military family

By Jon Gambrell - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 4, 2009 10:37:51 EDT

CONWAY, Ark. — The father of a soldier slain outside a recruiting center sought a quiet life for his family in rural Arkansas after years of military service, but the battlefield came home to find them.

Daris Long’s son, Army Pvt. William Andrew Long, was shot Monday in suburban Little Rock while he stood and smoked a cigarette, far from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Long, 23, died in an attack that also wounded Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula, 18. The alleged gunman, Abdulhakim Muhammad, also 23, told investigators he wanted to kill as many Army personnel as he could “because of what they had done to Muslims in the past,” police said.

But Ezeagwula and Long had never seen battle. Both only completed basic training recently and had volunteered to help attract others into military service. Long was heading to South Korea, not even the Middle East, for his service.

“He was a hero. The other young lad that’s in the hospital, he’s a hero,” Daris Long told Little Rock television station KATV. “They weren’t on the battlefield, but apparently, the battlefield’s here.”

Long’s service adds to his family’s military tradition, his father said. The elder Long served in the Marine Corps while his wife, Janet, was in the Navy.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/06/ap_recruiting_center_shooting_2_060309/

Recruiting center shooting suspect had other targets

New info released on recruiting center suspect

By Chuck Bartels - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Jun 3, 2009 14:27:26 EDT

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A Muslim convert accused of killing a soldier outside a recruiting center may have been considering other targets including Jewish and Christian sites — and had the firepower to carry out more attacks, according to law enforcement officials.

A joint FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press said officers found maps to Jewish organizations, a child-care center, a Baptist church, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia.

“Out of an abundance of caution, and in light of newly discovered information, the FBI cannot rule out additional subjects, targets, or the potential for inspired copycats who might act out in support of the original act,” the intelligence assessment said.

Abdulhakim Muhammad, 23, of Little Rock had targeted soldiers “because of what they had done to Muslims in the past,” authorities said, saying he had said he wanted to “kill as many people in the Army as he could.”
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/06/ap_recruiting_center_shooting_060309/

Military using Facebook and Twitter to recruit

Services turn attention to Facebook, Twitter

By Sagar Meghani - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday May 1, 2009 14:10:45 EDT

FORT MONROE, Va. — You don’t often hear a three-star general using the word “friend” as a verb.

But for Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley and other Army brass, a new era has brought a new language — and new tools like online social networks Twitter and Facebook — for seeking out young recruits and spreading the military’s message.

Freakley, who heads the Army command that oversees recruiting, says social networking sites offer another way to reach tomorrow’s soldiers.

“They live in the virtual world,” Freakley said. He cited Facebook as a key component in targeting 18- to 24-year-olds. “You could friend your recruiter, and then he could talk to your friends.”

Even Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has a new Facebook page to answer questions about the mission in Iraq and spread the word about what the troops are accomplishing there.

The Army isn’t the only branch of the military with Facebook friends or that has a following on Twitter. The Air Force has also established a Facebook page, Twitter feeds and a blog, while the Marine Corps is using various networking sites mainly for recruiting purposes. The Navy is “experimenting” with several forms of online media, and some of its commands are using Twitter, a spokesman said. Even the Coast Guard commandant regularly updates his Facebook status while traveling.
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Services turn attention to Facebook, Twitter

Someone needs to reclaim Army Standards

This goes with what I wrote the other day about problems in the military.

Reclaiming Army Standards
by: Brandon Friedman
Tue Jan 13, 2009 at 18:20:54 PM EST
The fact is, while the Army has been lowering its entrance standards with regard to education, physical fitness, and crime since the end of the Cold War, that process has accelerated since the invasion of Iraq. And this is something that the incoming Army Secretary should address.
The numbers are shocking when you actually see the scope of the issue:
Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer, points out that in 1992 98 percent of recruits had a high school diploma. By 2004, that number had fallen to 86 percent. In 2007, only 79 percent of Army recruits had completed high school. Whereas nearly everyone in the Army had a diploma 15 years earlier, by 2007, fewer than four out five soldiers did.





Standards
by: Brandon Friedman
Fri May 23, 2008 at 12:54:34 PM EDT
WTF is this?

This is a full-blown, four-alarm, Army-wide emergency as far as I'm concerned. I swear to God somebody needs to answer for this on Capitol Hill. The Defense Department, the Army, the generals. . .I don't care. Just somebody. This is a failure in leadership from top to bottom.

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4 recruiter suicides lead to Army probe

Amanda Henderson holds a photo of her late husband Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Henderson in her home in Henderson, Texas, Nov. 20, 2008. Patrick Henderson, afflicted by flashbacks and sleeplessness after a tour in Iraq, hanged himself in a shed behind his house as his wife and her son slept. (AP Photo/Herb Nygren Jr)

4 recruiter suicides lead to Army probe

By MICHELLE ROBERTS

HENDERSON, Texas (AP) — Sgt. 1st Class 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.

Less than a year into the job, Henderson — afflicted by flashbacks and sleeplessness after his tour of battle in Iraq — went into his backyard shed, slid the chain lock in place, and hanged himself with a dog chain.

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.

"Over there in Iraq, you're doing this high-intensive job you are recognized for. Then, you come back here, and one month you're a hero, one month you're a loser because you didn't put anyone in," said Staff Sgt. Amanda Henderson, herself an Iraq veteran and a former recruiter in the battalion.
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Recruitment costs rise 25% for Army, Marines

Recruitment costs rise 25% for Army, Marines
By Lolita C. Baldor
Associated Press / October 3, 2008

WASHINGTON - The Army and Marine Corps doled out nearly $640 million in the past year in recruitment bonuses, as the two service branches continue to bear the brunt of providing personnel for the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Led by incentives that can be as high as $40,000 per person, and coupled with the promise of thousands more for education or home down payments, the annual cost of enticing new recruits grew by 25 percent over last year's totals for the two services, The Associated Press learned.
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Rare father-son team, from Van Nuys and Whittier, joins Army

Rare father-son team, from Van Nuys and Whittier, joins Army


Recruits Gary Rankins, 40, and his son Joseph, 19, sign up together. New age limits make such a pairing possible, and the tough economy provided a nudge.
By Jia-Rui Chong, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 8, 2008
At the Van Nuys Army recruiting station last week, Gary J. Rankins ordered his son Joseph M. Rankins to drop to the floor and do some push-ups. As the 19-year-old pumped up and down, the 40-year-old father checked out his son's form.

"You shouldn't go down so far," the elder told the younger. "You'll only wear yourself out."

Gary Rankins should know. He served in the Army from 1986 to 1994. About a month ago, he got frustrated about his job prospects and decided to enlist again. He persuaded his son to join the Army a few weeks after that.

They plan to swear in together this week. "We're just waiting on my blood work," Gary Rankins said Monday.
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PTSD:Army recruiter committed suicide, then his wife did

Nils Aron Andersson married Cassy Walton on March 5, 2007.

Walton killed herself the day after her husband's suicide.
COURTESY OF CINDY WALTON

May 18, 2008, 7:35AM
A SOLDIER'S TRAGIC TALE
A victim of the war within
Suicides of Houston Army recruiter and his wife leave questions of struggle that endured after Iraq


By LINDSAY WISE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Army recruiter Nils Aron Andersson sat behind the wheel of his brand-new Ford F-150, firing round after round into the truck's CD player and radio with a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Spent cartridges littered the seats and floorboards, along with a paper pharmacy bag holding a prescription for the antidepressant Lexapro.

Andersson's wife, Cassy Walton, had been trying to reach the 25-year-old sergeant on his cell phone for hours. He finally picked up about 2 a.m. and told her he wanted to kill himself.

Walton begged him to keep talking to her. Andersson told her he was on the top floor of a downtown Houston parking garage and ended the call. Then he put the pistol to his head, just above his right ear.

Minutes later, Walton raced up the stairs of the garage to find her husband of less than 24 hours slumped on the driver's side of his truck, bleeding from a single bullet wound to his right temple.

Sobbing, she unlocked the truck with her own key, climbed onto his lap, and started CPR.

"Why did you do this?" she screamed.

When Andersson killed himself on March 6, 2007, he became one of at least 16 Army recruiters to commit suicide nationwide since 2000. Five of those suicides occurred in Texas, including three at the Houston Recruiting Battalion, where Andersson worked after serving two tours of duty in Iraq.

Police found her sprawled on her bed wearing Andersson's fatigue jacket and dog tags. She was pronounced dead at 7:45 p.m. March 7, 2007 — one day after Andersson killed himself, and two days after their wedding.

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5788103.html