Young men of Mississippi - ideal Iraq cannon fodder

standard/washingtonpost: ... When United States President George W Bush calls for sacrifice in Iraq, this is a place that listens. Here, where the gnats swarm and the magnolias blossom, and where locals pin their hopes on a Kia Motors assembly plant that would bring 2,500 jobs to the sagging economy, only to have it go to another state instead.

Military recruiters talk of Mississippi as a special place, a patriotic place and the envy of other states. The recruiting battalion commander for the Mississippi Army National Guard says his force is as large as the one in Georgia, which has triple the population. Patriotism aside, bleak demographics make the state a ready labor pool. More than 30 percent of high school students fail to graduate. The median household income - US$32,397 - ranks lowest in the nation. When the Cooper tire plant in Tupelo cuts employee hours, the Mississippi Army National Guard experiences a bump in enlistees.

A few weeks ago, some mail came for Blake Johnson. A cold front had blown through the working-class community of Meehan Junction, outside Meridian, and the daffodils of early spring shivered in the wind. Sticking out of the mailbox across the road from Johnson's trailer were two recruiting letters, one from the Army and the other from the National Guard - the Guard offering a US$10,000 signing bonus. All of Johnson's senior year, the local recruiters have come after him; the national mailers were the latest enticements.

As his mother said, as she placed them on the counter, "That's a whole lot of money when you are in the 12th grade." Read more