My sister Kat, the mother of a child with autism, sent me this story of how a young autistic man got caught up in the Army’s desperation for recruits.
Jared Guinther is 18. Tall and lanky, he will graduate from Marshall High School in June. Girls think he’s cute, until they try to talk to him and he stammers or just stands there — silent.
Diagnosed with autism at age 3, Jared is polite but won’t talk to people unless they address him first. It’s hard for him to make friends. He lives in his own private world.
Jared didn’t know there was a war raging in Iraq until his parents told him last fall — shortly after a military recruiter stopped him outside a Southeast Portland strip mall and complimented him on his black Converse All Stars.
“When Jared first started talking about joining the Army, I thought, ‘Well, that isn’t going to happen,’ ” said Paul Guinther, Jared’s father. “I told my wife not to worry about it. They’re not going to take anybody in the service who’s autistic.”
But they did. Last month, Jared came home with papers showing that he not only had enlisted, but also had signed up for the Army’s most dangerous job: cavalry scout. He is scheduled to leave for basic training Aug. 16.
Officials are now investigating whether recruiters at the U.S. Army Recruiting Station in Southeast Portland improperly concealed Jared’s disability, which should have made him ineligible for service.
This wouldn’t be the first time that desperate recruiters’ desperate tactics made news.
Jared’s story illustrates a growing national problem as the military faces increasing pressure to hit recruiting targets during an unpopular war.
Tracking by the Pentagon shows that complaints about recruiting improprieties are on pace to approach record highs set in 2003 and 2004. The active Army and the Reserve missed recruiting targets last year, and reports of recruiting abuses continue from across the country.
A family in Ohio reported that its mentally ill son was signed up, despite rules banning such enlistments and the fact that records about his illness were readily available.
In Houston, a recruiter warned a potential enlistee that if he backed out of a meeting he would be arrested.
And in Colorado, a high school student working undercover told recruiters he had dropped out and had a drug problem. The recruiter told the boy to fake a diploma and buy a product to help him beat a drug test.
Violations such as these forced the Army to halt recruiting for a day last May so recruiters could be retrained and reminded of the job’s ethical requirements.
The pressure on Army recruiters to hit their targets is immense. They come from the ranks of the best and brightest soldiers, and they’re breaking down from the strain:
The Army’s recruiters are being challenged with one of the hardest selling jobs the military has asked of them in American history, and many say the demands are taking a toll.
A recruiter in New York said pressure from the Army to meet his recruiting goals during a time of war has given him stomach problems and searing back pain. Suffering from bouts of depression, he said he has considered suicide. Another, in Texas, said he had volunteered many times to go to Iraq rather than face ridicule, rejection and the Army’s wrath.
An Army chaplain said he had counseled nearly a dozen recruiters in the past 18 months to help them cope with marital troubles and job-related stress.
“There were a couple of recruiters that felt they were having nervous breakdowns, literally,” said Maj. Stephen Nagler, a chaplain who retired in March after serving at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, where the New York City recruiting battalion is based.
. . .
At least 37 members of the Army Recruiting Command, which oversees enlistment, have gone AWOL since October 2002, Army figures show. And, in what recruiters consider another sign of stress, the number of improprieties committed – signing up unqualified people to meet quotas or giving bonuses or other enlistment benefits to recruits not eligible for them – has increased, Army documents show.
“They don’t necessarily have real bullets flying at them,” said Major Nagler. “But there are different kind of bullets they need to contend with – the bullets of not producing numbers, of having a station commander shoot them down.”
The Army is seeking 101,200 new active-duty Army and Reserve soldiers this year alone to replenish the ranks in Iraq and Afghanistan, elsewhere around the world and at home. That means each of the Army’s 7,500 recruiters faces the grind of an unyielding human math, a quota of two new recruits a month, at a time of extended war without a draft.
It was a recruiter likely facing this kind of pressure who saw in Jared an opportunity to meet his quota:
Jared required extensive tutoring and accommodations to pass, but in June he will graduate alongside his younger stepbrother, Matthew Thorsen.
Last fall, Jared began talking about joining the military after a recruiter stopped him on his way home from school and offered a $4,000 signing bonus, $67,000 for college and more buddies than he could count.
Matthew told his mother that military recruiting at the school and surrounding neighborhoods was so intense that one recruiter had pulled him out of football practice.
It seems that the recruiter, like many other people, did not understand the nature of autism:
Brenda said she called Jared on his cell phone to check what time he’d be home.
“I said ‘Jared, what are you doing?’ ‘I’m taking the test,’ he said — the entrance test. I go, ‘Wait a minute.’ I said, ‘Who’s giving you the test?’ He said, ‘Corporal.’ I said, ‘Well let me talk to him.’ ”
Brenda said she spoke to Cpl. Ronan Ansley and explained that Jared had a disability, autism, that could not be outgrown. She said Ansley told her he had been in special classes, too — for dyslexia.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, there’s a big difference between autism and your problem,’ ” Brenda said.
Brenda worries, rightly, that Jared does not understand what he’s gotten himself into or what the job he’ll be asked to do entails.
When they asked Jared how long he would be in the Army, he said he didn’t know. His enlistment papers show it’s just over four years. Jared also was disappointed to learn that he wouldn’t be paid the $4,000 signing bonus until after basic training.
During a recent family gathering, a relative asked Jared what he would do if an enemy was shooting at him. Jared ran to his video game console and killed a digital Xbox soldier and announced, “See! I can do it!”
“My concern is that if he got into a combat situation he really couldn’t take someone’s back,” said Mary Lou Perry, 51, a longtime friend of the Guinthers’. “He wouldn’t really know a dangerous thing. This job they have him doing, it’s like send him in and if he doesn’t get blown up, it’s safe for the rest of us.”
Steve Gilliard has a description of what a Calvary Scout’s duty entails:
The Cavalry Scout is the commander’s eyes and ears on the battlefield. When information about the enemy is needed, they call on the Scouts. They are responsible for reconnaissance and you will learn about various weapons to include explosives and mines. Cavalry Scouts engage the enemy with anti-armor weapons and scout vehicles in the field, track and report enemy movement and activities, and will direct the employment of various weapon systems onto the enemy.
Here are a few of the duties of a Cavalry Scout:
* Secure and prepare ammunition on scout vehicles
* Load, clear and fire individual and crew-served weapons
* Perform navigation during combat
* Serve as member of observation and listening posts
* Gather and report information on terrain, weather and enemy disposition and equipment
* Collect data to classify routes, tunnels and bridges
* Employ principles of concealment and camouflageREQUIREMENTS
Cavalry Scouts are required to constantly lift heavy objects and endure many stressful situations in combat. Being in top physical and mental shape for this job is crucial.
TRAINING
Job training for Cavalry Scout requires Basic Training, where you learn basic Soldiering skills, and Advanced Individual Training, and 16 weeks of One Station Unit Training (OSUT). The training will take place primarily in the field with some classroom training. Cavalry Scout training never really stops. Whether it’s taking part in squad maneuvers, target practice or war games, Cavalry Scouts are constantly working to keep their skills sharp and are in a constant state of readiness.
Jared did just well enough on the Army’s test to move onto the next stage of enlistment. However, he should never have been given the test at all:
Military rules prohibit enlisting anyone with a mental disorder that interferes with school or employment, unless a recruit can show he or she hasn’t required special academic or job accommodations for 12 months.
Jared has been in special education classes since preschool. Through a special program for disabled workers, he has a part-time job scrubbing toilets and dumping trash.
Jared scored 43 out of 99 on the Army’s basic entrance exam — 31 is the lowest grade the Army allows for enlistment, military officials said.
The paperwork submitted by the recruiters to the processing center did not indicate anywhere that Jared was autistic or that he had required special accommodations in work or school. The recruiter, Cpl. Ansley’s, supervisor, Sgt. Velasco, reacted strongly when questioned by a reporter about the case.
On Tuesday, a reporter visited the U.S. Army Recruiting Station at the Eastport Plaza Shopping Center, where Velasco said he had not been told about Jared’s autism.
“Cpl. Ansley is Guinther’s recruiter,” he said. “I was unaware of any type of autism or anything like that.”
Velasco initially denied knowing Jared but later said he’d spent a lot of time mentoring him because Jared was going to become a cavalry scout. The job entails “engaging the enemy with anti-armor weapons and scout vehicles,” according to an Army recruiting Web site.
After he had spoken for a few moments, Velasco suddenly grabbed the reporter’s tape recorder and tried to tear out the tape, stopping only after the reporter threatened to call the police.
With his parents’ permission, The Oregonian faxed Jared’s medical records to the Recruiting Batallion commander, who ordered an investigation. Cpl. Ansley then told the Guinthers that he was going to lose his job and possibly be dishonorably discharged if the paper ran the story. He probably never set out to do things like sign up autistic kids and hide their disabilities from the processing center, and he probably felt at one point like he had a good future with the Army. And now he’s broken.
Calvary scout?
I could see a mathematical genius with high-functioning autism or Aspberger’s in cryptography, or maybe even aviation for a borderline case, but calvary scout?
She said Ansley told her he had been in special classes, too — for dyslexia.
(head desk)
It is disgraceful, the military is going down with the Bush administration.
I was considering posting about this too. This was front page news here on Sunday. Portland’s not exactly a hotbed of sympathy for military recruiters anyway.
One of the big things about autism is a lack of initiative, so it doesn’t sound like the Cavalry Scouts would be a good fit for somebody even with higher functioning autism.
Anyway, this is the kind of thing that really makes the chickenhawk argument fly. When the military is meeting recruitment goals, being a chickenhawk is somewhat defensible. When the military is basically trying to recruit everything with a pulse so they don’t fail miserably, then it’s really time to put your money where your mouth is.
You think that’s bad?
Locally, a young autistic man was walking home one night–the same night the police were searching the area for an armed criminal who, unfortunately, matched his description. Well, the police rolled on him, pointing their guns, flashing their lights, and screaming at him (you know how cops are). And you can imagine what that would be like for a kid with autism. Well, when they told him to get down on his face and put his hands out, he became confused and got down on his back. And when he put his hands in his pockets one state police officer unloaded his shotgun. Dead kid.
Does anyone ever explain to LEO’s that some “suspects” may have learning disabilities, hearing disabilities, physical disabilties, etc. that may keep them from following orders? No need to shoot them. The autistic kid was unarmed, of course. And that shining example of a law enforcement officer was charged with negligent homicide (a misdemeanor in my state) and pled not guilty.
This continuing tragedy is up there – yah gotta read this
Bombs Kill GI, Seven Iraqis
I’ve never understood the whole primal screaming thing that American cops seem to do, judging by TV reality stuff and dramatised reconstructions.
Here our cops bellow and yell, but they don’t scream in my experience. And they seem to be trained to have the senior officer be the one person talking to a suspect once the initial “STOP! POLICE!” bellow has got the suspect’s attention.
Which all seems fairly sensible. Why can’t American cops be trained to respond that way?
Thanks Zuzu for posting this! You are a good Auntie! And its definitely in need of widespread attention. Its shameful.
As a mother of a child with Autism, I see so much wrong with this on so many levels. For one thing, the Army has SO MANY specialities. If they are going to recruit him (and I’m not convinced that is a good idea anyway) why not as a database guy or a food service person or even a hospital speciality? Shoot, I gave birth in an Army hospital, and I had a soldier who came around who was a “Nursery Specialist” that taught me how to breastfeed!!! After my initial shock, I realized the Army had taught him well and I went with it. (You have not breastfed until you have a big burly soldier in camoflage telling you how to roll your nipples. But I digress…. )
In other words, there are tons of jobs in the military that do not equate to time in battle. Where the HECK did Calvary Scout factor into this picture??
I really want my Autistic child to have every opportunity that is out there for him. But I cringe to think he will fall victim to a scam like this someday. And at what cost? Not only will he put his own life in danger, but he will endanger the lives of the other soldiers.
And, as a mother of another son, who does not have Autism, I cringe that this is going on. If my neurotypical son somehow lands in the military (and breaks his mamma’s heart) I hope he is fighting next to someone who is equipped to do so. Not someone who has been snuck in under the radar.
Honestly? I think too many people saw Forrest Gump.
And absolutely, I think that with some care, jobs can be found for autistic soldiers that can use their talents well. Cryptography or cartography or computer work.
I think Calvary Scout figured in because of the intense pressure on the recruiters. And one of the commenters at Gilliard’s blog expressed surprise that corporals and low-level sergeants were doing this work, which has apparently usually been the domain of first and master sergeants. This commenter wondered what this meant in terms of the NCO corps, which is the backbone of the military and which trains not only the enlisted men, but also the junior officers.
Would some one square this circle for me?
I don’t think candidates who are incapable of doing a job should be recruited for it, but autism in and of itself shouldn’t (indeed, can’t, legally) be prohibitive. And it isn’t inherently disgusting that he should have been recruited, or that the recruiting didn’t cease when the mother demanded that it stop. Either disabled people are real people who can and ought to be treated as such, or they’re not. I know which side of that argument I’d like to defend.
The problem was that he had required educational or occupational assistance within the past year, in contravention of the Army’s recruiting rules. And yet the desperate recruiters suppressed that information (which I’m sure the drill sergeant would have figured out in boot camp) so that the processing center and the recruiting battalion had no idea.
By the way, would *you* feel comfortable with someone who doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between real deaths and Xbox deaths having *your* back?
And, yes, it *is* inherently disgusting that he would have been recruited in the face of the information that he was severely autistic and had required assistance inconsistent with Army recruiting regs. And it *is* inherently disgusting that the recruiters didn’t just drop him once the mother provided proof of such (because, let’s face it, autism is a not-visible disorder).
Where, exactly, are you getting the idea that disabled people aren’t “real people”? Please, provide links and (full) quotes.
My sister is severely autistic. In terms of academics, she’s actually fairly well advanced, but she has severe behavioral difficulties. I can’t picture anybody thinking she was suitable for this type of military service. Honestly, I don’t know that Kelly would be fit for any type of military service, just because her behavioral impairments are really severe, but I know a lot of higher functioning people with a range of developmental disabilities who could serve in different military capacities than calvary scout. This poor man was definately taken advantage of and it makes me very sad that these recruiters are being pushed so far to get recruits that they would start actively recruiting people with disabilities, despite their actual ability to do the job they are pushing on them. I work at an agency that helps people of all ability levels with developmental disabilities and it’s my job to write training programs to teach them the highest level of independence possible. So on that hand, I think anything that increases independence and opportunities for people with developmental disabilities is a good thing. However, it’s not what’s happening here, which is a very sad situation where someone is being taken advantage of simply to meet recruiting goals.
I support disability rights. That doesn’t, though, mean that I support people being hired for jobs that their impairments prevent them from doing. I don’t believe that blind people should be hired to drive military transports, for instance.
It’s fine by me if this kid joins the military, provided that someone who understands his impairment makes an assessment that he can do the job. (I also think it’s important to make sure that he understands the commitment he’s making, but I’d say the same for anyone.) But the person who hired him didn’t understand his impairment and didn’t make any effort to understand him impairment. And that’s not any different from assuming that since a dyslexic person can drive a bus, a blind person can, too.
When I read the article about this young man, Jared, I do not read about a mother who is unnecessarily restricting him from, well, life. He actually seems to have quite a lot of independence.
The mother didn’t run to the recruiter and say, “don’t take my baby”. She ran to the recruiter and said, “you are breaking your own policy if you take my baby… and here is the proof”.
I teach my son that he is differently-abled, not disabled. But Autism is a spectrum disorder that is characterized by certain common traits, such as social impairment, sensory integration issues, communication deficits. These are attributes that are inherently a liability on the battlefield, and the Army has recognized this in its own policies.
My experience with the military has always been that Senior NCO’s are recruiters, not junior enlisted. And its always been a high-stress job. Families hate it. The active duty member is gone more than if he/she was on sea duty or deployment. Pressure is high. Its not that much different than commision sales.
This is a top-down policy problem, skating around the rules at the local level is just the manifestation. These corporals/sergeants are kids. Who are being bullied to make quotas. At any cost.
And its short-sighted. This kid will never make the cut for the speciality they have recruited him for.
So does that mean that LD or ADHD people can’t serve?
Also, there’s a subtext to the article that kind of makes me uncomfortable–like with the scrubbing toilets line, there’s kind of an ableist subtext to it-like why would the army want this barely human thing?
I don’t think that learning disabilities are generally categorized as mental disorders. ADHD could, I think, probably be disqualifying, if it were serious enough to interfere with school or work.
Also, I think “accommodations” may refer to those provided by the school rather than those provided by the pharmacist. As in, other-provided vs. self-provided.
So does that mean that LD or ADHD people can’t serve?
There is are remedial reading and math programs offered in the military. I am thinking of a program in the Marines specifically. My friend actually taught the class. She said some of these guys were great at what they did… mechanic, heavy equipment operator, whatever… but had reached the point where their almost-illiteracy was keeping them from making promotion. Many of these Marines did not do well in high school because of things like LDs, ADHD, etc. but have found their niche in the military and are doing very well. So I think the military is making some efforts to accommodate some things.
I think in some ways the military is a great equalizer. You can come from any background–economic, education, family, culture–and build a career in the military.
The problem with a disability like Autism is that it can’t be “outgrown”. Its a neurological disorder, not a learning disability. Its not going away.
Besides, the methods used to drill training into a recruit just seem to fly in the face of Autism. My son has issues with personal space. I cannot imagine what kind of meltdown he’d have the first time a drill sergeant screamed in his face (and they do this). And things move quick at boot camp. I can’t imagine how they would react to his meltdown. I doubt they’d have time to pull out their accommodation page to make sure they used appropriate ABA techniques with him.
I don’t think the recruiter cared; the only important thing was to get the kid in. The Army is in such a recruting bind that they will probably find something for him to do
The Army won’t take someone who’s obese, but they’ll take someone with autism? I’m in favor of disability rights, but I’m not so sure about extending those rights to the military, especially for combat positions. Everyone serving in the military has to be in excellent physical and mental condition. They have to be able to defend themselves and other soldiers in combat. It’s life or death out there and I don’t blame the military for discriminating under those circumstances.
Also, there’s a subtext to the article that kind of makes me uncomfortable–like with the scrubbing toilets line, there’s kind of an ableist subtext to it-like why would the army want this barely human thing?
Frankly, I think the article’s line is more of pity–this kid doesn’t even know what war means. And he’s being recruited for a position that he’s neurologically incapable of doing–can someone so uncomfortable with communication act as a commander’s eyes and ears on the battlefield? Can he even handle battlefield conditions?
Hell, can he even handle basic? I’ll tell you what’s going on: people are coming back injured from Iraq, and they’re boarding them out rather than spend the money needed to ‘fix’ them. Too much trouble. I’ve seen senior NCOs with twenty years’ experience get boarded out because an injured soldier made the stats look bad.
My son’s high-functioning autistic, and I could see him in the military as an aerial or maritime navigator, a comms specialist, a missile technician in the navy – all sorts of positions where his technical affinities could be put to good use and it would take less time to train a HFA like him than it would take to train a neurotypical recruit lacking the natural geekitude. I simply cannot imagine him in field combat – his communication difficulties and sensory hypersensitivities would overwhelm him, guaranteeing his rapid demise probably taking platoonmates with him.
The problem appears to lie mostly with the inexperience and lack of nous of the recruiting corporal.
The recruiter couldn’t know the mother’s motivation for insisting that he not recruit her son. The recruiter couldn’t know how severe the young man’s autism was. The degrees are difficult (I’m hedging because I don’t want to cause any more trouble than I have) for doctors to discern, much less a military recruiter with, presumably, no medical training. Should recruiters have to go through med. school before taking the job?
If the man couldn’t make the grade at boot camp, he’d have bounced out. If he couldn’t make it beyond that, he’d have been bounced out. The danger that an inherently incompetent man or woman (for whatever reason) would be put in a job he or she can’t do, in the military is relatively very low.
Because among the liberties granted to each of us by G-d (or whomever) are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There are two parties, and two only, who have any say in whether a person enlists in the Army. The person himself, and the Army. Robbing him of his choice (without regard to what choice the Army would have made) is robbing him of a part of his humanity. It offends me.
I should say that I overstepped in that comment–clearly I don’t need to defend disabled people from the people on this board, and I don’t need to play holier than thou. I was just angry at what I took to be the imposing, on this young man’s choice, anger at the war, that is not his fault. Absent this war, the quoted story never gets written. It’s convenient to argue that he wouldn’t have been recruited, but for the war, but there’s no evidence of that. A good friend of mine joined the Marines after high school, despite personal challenges that, while not autism, could be considered in the same league as some of the less severe degrees of autism. That was ten years ago.
It occurs to me that while I disowned the tone of my prior post, I didn’t apologize for it, as I ought to. I’m sorry. That this piece hit a nerve is my problem; I should have calmed down before commenting.
I also think there is a larger issue being presented in this article. I don’t believe they are definitively taking the stance that Jared should not be in the military at all because of his disability. The article brings up several other examples of extreme maleficence on the part of military recruiters across the country. And yes, I do believe the activities are evil. The man who taught a young recruit how to beat a drug test and mock up a fake high school diploma because he’d gotten kicked out of school, for example. Or the one who threatened an enlistee who was getting cold feet by claiming he’d be arrested if he didn’t follow through with the process.
One of the most basic responsibilities of our military is to provide a standard level of care to its soldiers. Putting mentally disabled people on the front lines isn’t fair to them or to the other soldiers who depend on them for their very survival. This isn’t an attempt to say that disabled people are “sub-human,” so don’t even go there. As others have said above, there are likely many jobs that Jared can perform, and it doesn’t necessarily have to mean menial labor–although coming from a blue collar family I have to point out that there is no shame in a hard day’s work, no matter what the task.
Nobody, the recruit’s mother in the story showed the recruiter evidence that he’s violated military policy; she didn’t just insist he not recruit her son. Given that, it doesn’t matter what her motives were or what he thought they were. It’s not about her; heck, it’s not even about the son.
You’d think that the word “autism” would raise big red flags for a conscientious recruiter, who would then go on to investigate further. But it looks as though people doing the recruiting are not only under unreasonable pressure to get the numbers in, but they’re also conveniently underinformed. I feel for the recruiters in this story, and the others, but they screwed up.
Exactly Kat. My sister has many of the same issues and she would have a melt down if someone was screaming in her face like that.
You know, there has been some speculation by my son’s various specialists (he is HFA) that his father may also have been HFA. And his father retired from military service after 20 years in the Submarine Force. One told me that “the submarine force didn’t find him, he found the submarine force”. My ex-husband most was very comfortable in the highly ordered subculture of this elite force, which had a straight-forward pecking order and standardized expectations. He worked as an electronics technician and eventually earned his MS in Info Systems–the technical side of his brain was highly valued in this capacity. Drilling made even emergencies almost rote. He has never been tested, so this is just anecdotal but makes sense to me.
So I can definitely see a niche for HFA’s in the military. I think there are many already serving.
But there has to be some accountability in the recruiting procedures.
This is exactly the danger. Not only for my autistic kid, but for any kid.
Absolutely. And, of course, an enlightened individualized approach to training, placing, and interacting with HFA recruits. I doubt very much that the Army has any plans to get on that, though.
I heard on OPB on the way home from work today that Jared will not be serving in the military and there’s going to be an investigation into how he got recruited in the first place.