Need work? Cartels are hiring
Several of you folks sent us links to the Fox News story that some former soldiers have been convicted of some work that they’ve done for the Mexican drug cartels including “murder for hire” schemes;
Michael Apodaca, 22, was a private first-class stationed at nearby Fort Bliss Army Base and was attached to the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade when he was recruited and paid $5,000 by the Juarez Cartel to shoot and kill Jose Daniel Gonzalez-Galeana, a cartel member who had been outed as an informant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Apodaca, who was the triggerman in the May 15, 2009, hit, was sentenced in El Paso District Court July 25.
Last September, Kevin Corley, 29, a former active-duty Army first lieutenant from Fort Carson in Colorado, pleaded guilty in federal court in Laredo, Texas, to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire for the Los Zetas Cartel after being arrested in a sting operation. Ironically, that cartel was itself founded by Special Forces deserters from the Mexican Army.
Arrested with Corley in connection with the case was former Army Sgt. Samuel Walker, 28. He was convicted of committing a murder-for-hire in November 2012 and sentenced to 15 years in prison June 21.
I’m not sure how much marksmanship training Apodaca had received in an Air Defense Artillery unit beyond basic training, but it looks like he was a member of a gang before he joined the military according to a paragraph further down the article;
A spokesman told FoxNews.com that current recruiting efforts are much more stringent than even four years ago, and that anyone sporting a gang-related tattoo is no longer accepted for enlistment.
“A person like Michael Apodaca would not even be allowed to enlist today,” Army Maj. Joe Buccino, spokesman for the Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, told FoxNews.com. “We’re more selective than during the height of Iraq.”
The article mostly blames soldiers’ low pay for the spate of cartel hirings, but that’s pretty hard to believe. Even the lower grades are making more money than I made at the height of my career and I was never tempted to engage in illicit activities. I think it’s more a function of society and since we don’t raise soldiers on farms somewhere in the Midwest, they’re a product of popular culture and it has little to do with the military. Just like suicides are more related to the culture than military service.
Category: Military issues
i would blame this more on the social experimenting on the military than on low pay. a private now makes as much as i did as an e-5 just 7.5 years ago. pay is greatly improved but discipline is vanishing. instead of making soldiers, we ‘nurture’, instead of multi-hour smoke sessions, we have group hugs and other gay shit (oh wait, im not allowed to say that anymore). we can not yell at privates or we are ‘bullying’ them, smoke sessions are replaced with paper work. a 18 year old kid doesnt understand paper work nor does he care. stick his ass in the pits until he is wallowing in mud made from his own sweat and he gets the idea. we allow these kids to hold onto their idea of who they think they are, instead of making them into who the army needs them to be.
Pay has nothing whatsoever to do with this. The mere suggestion is outlandish and spurious. And that “more selective explanation” sounds like crud too. If a guy is eligible, and not DQ’ed by criminal or drug-use history, I guess, he’s in. If there is someone here who can speak to this with some authority, I ‘d love to hear it.
I see one of the problems is the some of the guys we are letting in the military. It seems I have seen in recent years, as far back as OIF Hispanic soldiers throwing known gang signs to cameras. Some of these troops came right out of known gangs. Can we not to a better recruiting job than to at least look at tattoos and backgrounds and determine that if you were a known gang member you cannot serve. The last thing we need in the gang communities around the nation is hardened combat vets who come home and go right back to the gang life. Just MHO.
Even the lower grades are making more money than I made at the height of my career
Not far from the truth for me either. An E-3 over 3 or E-4 over 2 makes more than what I made as an E-6 when I got out.
And while I can’t speak to recruiting standards for the Army over the past few years, I know when I was toting the bag in the Navy that gang-related and/or racist tattoos were a no-go, and I’m not sure that ever got relaxed for Navy recruiting.
Hey, here’s a wild thought–maybe they were just shitbags!
“Money talks…bullshit walks.”
In the civilian life that is true. Our military is becoming too “civilianized.” With all of the social experiments, yes men generals who tout a 1% over a 1.8% pay raise, weak officer corps who punch not only tickets, but also seemingly a time card, NCOs who are caught between a rock and a hard place and the only answer is a “safe” one… what do you expect?
I dunno, soldiers have been doing stupid stuff forever. I am surprised that a first lieutenant and a sergeant were caught trying to work for the Zetas- nuts. But play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as the saying around here goes.
Example of stupid stuff planned by those who should know better:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/25/soldiers.charged/
sad thing is, I helped bring the Stryker brigade from Ft Lewis to Rose Barracks Germany. From the beginning they warned us that the brigade had a “gang related problem”. No joke, about a week after the main body arrived, one of the buildings set back from the road near the gym on motor pool row was covered in gang style tags. I was on that post almost 3 years and never once saw any graffiti on post.
This is so funny, not in the Ha Ha way but in the scares the crap outta me way. Just last night I was watching some documentaries (yeah, I’m a nerd) and I watched 3 on the Los Zeta cartel. They are crazy violent and I won’t lie, I’m terrified of the way things have been going. It took them just 10 years to take over Mexico and get a foothold in America. Cartel is not a word that I come in contact with everyday, since we call them Gangs here but that word has popped up in my daily life for about a week now and last night watching those shows and now this article. I hope it’s not some “Foreshadowing” going on.
Go ahead and make fun of the “silly woman” worrying about stuff she can’t understand or control. I’ll go paint my nails and wait.
The gang problem that’s been able to grow in the US military is the result of feel good policies. For a long time it was ignored to focus on preventing white racist organizations from operating within while minority based gangs grew. It’s become such an issue that the M.O. for certain gangs has been to enlist to get small arms training and access to weapons then bring the training back to the gang and often still operate in the gang while in uniform. There was a high profile case of this regarding some shitbag infantry marine that used his military training to gun down officers.
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YOW2h0umw
@3. You describe one of the problems very well. Even the NFL has decided that maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to run the tatts that their players have past a few gang squad cops, to see if gang tatts turn up. Can anyone say Aaron Hernandez? Maybe the military ought to give that some thought?
Gangs and mobsters and our military have a long association. Back in 2006 and 2007, everyone at HQDA was shocked (shocked!) to find the Army had a criminal element within it.
http://www.stripes.com/news/powerpoint-presentation-educates-leaders-about-gangs-1.60146
Gangsters outsource training, medical/dental, and education to DoD, who obliges them.
As for me, I was shocked (genuinely shocked) to discover the extremely close working relationship of the New Black Panthers and the KKK. But that was 2000, and nowadays it all seems so very obvious.
@11, my brigade commander told me a wonderful story about his plebe summer at West Point. Seems the son of some mafia Don in New York got his son an appointment to the academy. Guy even arrived in a limo. Yea, he didn’t last past plebe summer before he quit and went home.
Probably a mouth-breathing CAT IV 14T with a hefty bonus to join… freed up sharper dudes to be infantry, armor, etc.
I understand that an individual we all know and wish we didn’t is looking for work.
Should we let him know about the cartels?
I’m sure they can always find a use for a bully.