10 Minutes to Tikrit…definitely 10 minutes to Tikrit

I ran into Army Recruiter Lt. Vic Easel the other day. He’s looking disappointed and concerned again.

“What’s wrong today, Lt. Vic?” I ask. “Are they sending you to Iraq for not hitting your recruiting goals?”

“Not yet, but my superiors stopped up one my potential recruiting hotbeds the other day,” says Lt. Vic. “Apparently you can’t recruit autistic kids into the armed forces.”

“Duh,” I say to the Lieutenant. “Rain Man’s not going to do you any good when the RPG’s start flying in fucking Fallujah.”

“Yeah, but they’ve got great powers of concentration,” says Lt. vic. “Give them auties a task and they’ll keep on it for hours without complaint.”

“And that’s all they’ll do,” I say. “They’ll spend eight hours alphabetizing the contents of their foot locker over and over again. You’ll never get them out to the training course. You ever try yelling at an autistic kid? It ain’t pretty.”

“I was pretty sure my batch of auties weren’t rockers,” says Lt. Vic. “Or at least they rocked back and forth when I wasn’t around. Anyway, they passed the entrance test.”

“I think that’s more an indictment of the test,” I say. “I know wicker furniture that can score a passing grade on that test.”

“Be that as it may, these auties are the kind of people we’re looking for in the Army,” says Lt. Vic. “They’re insistent on routine, they’re fearless, and they can’t express their needs so they can’t whine.”

“What the sam hill could your autistic recruits do out on a battlefield?” I ask. “Rout the enemy in blackjack?”

“Scouting,” says Lt. Vic. “And reconnaisance.”

“Yeah, send the kid with the disability in processing sensory information to go out and report what he sees,” I sarcastically quip. Then the switch goes off. “Wait a minute…you’re talking about using them as Canaries. Send them out into an area and if nothing happens to them, it’s safe to proceed.”

“It’s not up to me how they get used,” says Lt. Vic. “It’s up to their commanders in the field, who may or may not be sensitive to soldiers with autism.”

“I thought the modern military was above using soldiers for mere cannon fodder,” I say.

“Not until we get those cheap robot troops,” says Lt. Vic.

“Where did you even get the idea to recruit autistic people for the Army?” I ask.

“Well, ‘Mercury Rising’ was on cable last night,” says Lt. Vic. “The movie with Bruce Willis where the autistic kid cracks a secret government code and Adam Baldwin wants to kill him. Well, I thought I’d better start getting the auties in the Army before the CIA recruits ‘em.”

“That movie is eight years old and it sucked,” I say. “Next time you want to steal an idea from a movie, make sure it’s a good movie. Like ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Tron.’”

“Okay…” Lt. Vic sighed. “Say, do you know where I could find a large concentration of foster kids? Their futures are kinda shot to hell. Maybe they’d like to sign up.”

Well, at least he’s not trying to recruit people with cerebal palsy. I don’t think they can run a ten-minute mile.