Are you a poor, able-bodied, young American willing to risk your life and limb for $20,000? The U.S. Army thinks so:

More than 90 percent of the Army's new recruits since late July have accepted a $20,000 "quick ship" bonus to leave for basic combat training by the end of September, putting thousands of Americans into uniform almost immediately. Many recruits who take the bonus -- scoring in many cases the equivalent of more than a year's pay -- leave their homes within days, recruiters said. The initiative is part of an effort by Army officials to meet year-end recruiting goals after a two-month slump earlier this year. With the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the Army hopes the extra cash motivates those interested in joining or entices those just considering enlisting. The program began on July 25, and in three weeks the Army had enlisted 3,814 recruits using the bonus, according to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command in Fort Knox, Ky. Those recruits accounted for 92 percent of the 4,149 recruits who signed contracts between July 25 and Aug. 13. The $20,000 bonus is a hefty sum for many of the individuals the Army targets most aggressively: young men and women who have not settled on a career. The Army estimates that soldiers coming out of initial training are paid $17,400 a year on average. But the effort, experts said, could pose problems for the Army in the coming months, because those who might have helped fill recruiting quotas later this year or in early 2008 are instead joining now....

We (the dirty rotten fucking liberal hippies) been outraged for a long time by the way the military preys on potential recruits in high schools and shopping malls of our poor neighborhoods, enticing them with promises (generally not fulfilled) of bonuses and college educations, and the real kicker: "You won't have to go to Iraq". This just raises the outrage bar even higher. Probably only half of the recruits will come back from Iraq dead, disabled or with PTSD, so I guess it's a 50/50 gamble many of our poorest youth willingly accept.

Jesus Christ on a breadstick, just what kind of dehumanized country have the Neocons/Fundagelicals turned us into?