Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More

[CptSternn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us...s.html?_r=3&hp



IMPERIAL, Calif. — Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

One participant, Felix Arce, 16, said he liked “the discipline of the program,” which was something he said his life was lacking. “I want to be a lawyer, and this teaches you about how crimes are committed,” he said.

Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

If there are critics of the content or purpose of the law enforcement training, they have not made themselves known to the Explorers’ national organization in Irving, Tex., or to the volunteers here on the ground, national officials and local leaders said. That said, the Explorers have faced problems over the years. There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them.

Several years ago, two University of Nebraska criminal justice professors published a study that found at least a dozen cases of sexual abuse involving police officers over the last decade. Adult Explorer leaders are now required to take an online training program on sexual misconduct.

Many law enforcement officials, particularly those who work for the rapidly growing Border Patrol, part of the Homeland Security Department, have helped shape the program’s focus and see it as preparing the Explorers as potential employees. The Explorer posts are attached to various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police and fire departments, that sponsor them much the way churches sponsor Boy Scout troops.

“Our end goal is to create more agents,” said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.

Membership in the Explorers has been overseen since 1998 by an affiliate of the Boy Scouts called Learning for Life, which offers 12 career-related programs, including those focused on aviation, medicine and the sciences.

But the more than 2,000 law enforcement posts across the country are the Explorers’ most popular, accounting for 35,000 of the group’s 145,000 members, said John Anthony, national director of Learning for Life. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many posts have taken on an emphasis of fighting terrorism and other less conventional threats.

“Before it was more about the basics,” said Johnny Longoria, a Border Patrol agent here. “But now our emphasis is on terrorism, illegal entry, drugs and human smuggling.”

The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,” Deputy Lowenthal said. “I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid.”

The law enforcement programs are highly decentralized, and each post is run in a way that reflects the culture of its sponsoring agency and region. Most have weekly meetings in which the children work on their law-enforcement techniques in preparing for competitions. Weekends are often spent on service projects.

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Authenticity seems to be the goal. Imperial County, in Southern California, is the poorest in the state, and the local economy revolves largely around the criminal justice system. In addition to the sheriff and local police departments, there are two state prisons and a large Border Patrol and immigration enforcement presence.

“My uncle was a sheriff’s deputy,” said Alexandra Sanchez, 17, who joined the Explorers when she was 13. Alexandra’s police uniform was baggy on her lithe frame, her airsoft gun slung carefully to the side. She wants to be a coroner.

“I like the idea of having law enforcement work with medicine,” she said. “This is a great program for me.”

And then she was off to another bus hijacking.

[CptSternn]

There is something disturbing about a country handing out automatics weapons to 14 year olds and teaching them how to 'take down' people.

Whats ironic is they pull games like GTA off the market and ban businesses from renting/selling them to people under 18, but if you want to handle a real gun and get a class in beating on people, they fully support that.

[Tam Li Hua]

Well, that's certainly different; If they had that when I was in Girl Scouts, it certainly would have been more interesting!

On a more serious note, I'm caught in-between on this. On the one hand, I think it's good for a kid to learn the proper way to handle dangerous weapons. On the other, I veheminently disagree with the idea of shooting down illegal immigrants. It's just ridiculousely cruel.

Also, I can't see how this can -possibly- be legal. Wouldn't the parents have to, at the very least, sign some kind of waver?

Whats ironic is they pull games like GTA off the market and ban businesses from renting/selling them to people under 18, but if you want to handle a real gun and get a class in beating on people, they fully support that.

Really? And you know this based on what exactly? Because I'm pretty sure that the folks who are against violent video games would also be against putting weapons in the hands of teenagers. :/ Also, I'm pretty sure that the kind of people that would be -for- this kind of thing aren't the least bit concerned about videogames.

[Malice In Wonderland]

Originally Posted by Tam Li Hua

Really? And you know this based on what exactly? Because I'm pretty sure that the folks who are against violent video games would also be against putting weapons in the hands of teenagers. :/ Also, I'm pretty sure that the kind of people that would be -for- this kind of thing aren't the least bit concerned about videogames.

I wouldn't be so sure.
The type of parents who complain are very often the parents who are all up on gun laws and the suchlike.

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by Tam Li Hua

Also, I can't see how this can -possibly- be legal. Wouldn't the parents have to, at the very least, sign some kind of waver

When they're running around they're using airsoft stuff, which they can probably do outside of Explorers anyway. Though then it would be paintball type games, not training to arrest people. At that age they probably do need consent from their parents too.

Also, in that picture one of those kids has a magazine in his weapon and none of them are wearing eye protection. That's just asking to lose an eye.

[KontanKarite]

Ah...

But we're responding more towards the image of a child with a gun and barking orders at a suspect. In reality, this is no different than the several other countries that teach their children the art of warfare.

Let's take away the stigma of America being the bad guy and teaching their teens on how to fight like SWAT members and identify that EVERY country in one way or another teaches their youth some kind of structured form of violence. China, for example, teaches their youth as early as four years of age on how to kill people through use of hand to hand techniques and melee weapons.

Granted, every country teaches a kind of martial art to their youth in one way or another, but what of the inclusion of guns?

What's the difference between teaching a child how to kill someone with their bare hands or with some kind of bladed weapon or how to kill a person with a gun?

[Madarame]

I agree that isn't that much difference between instructing children in the use of firearms or in the use of martial arts, it's the setting that I'm not too sure about. Being trained in self defense techniques is one thing, being trained to bring down terrorists and illegal immigrants is somewhat different as they are being prepared for law enforcement type jobs. It is not that much different elsewhere, however, I think here we have cadets or something, which does a fairly similar thing but for the army.

[Raptor]

I don't think anyone here would claim that your China example is good either, but it's Stern's thread therefore it's about the US.

As for firearms vs bare hands, firearm training isn't going to help them out in any dangerous situation if they're too young to be carrying a firearm. Plus I thought that generally martial arts teach not to cause more harm than needed?

[Madarame]

Originally Posted by Raptor

Plus I thought that generally martial arts teach not to cause more harm than needed?

I can't speak for all martial arts, but yeah, that's generally what they teach. That doesn't mean that they don't teach to kill or seriously injure as there are situations that they consider it necessary. I used to do Ninjutsu and they pretty much flat out said that if you're attacked by multiple opponents every attack has to result in someone being dead, unconscious, or so badly injured that they can't get up, otherwise you don't stand a chance.

[KontanKarite]

Perhaps I'm being a bit too post modern in thought with this.

As for being taught martial arts. Your taught to injure/kill your fellow human. That is what it is at its core. As for using it as a means of self defense, yes, this is true. But that is also a modern afterthought of integrating the ideology of force equaling force.

Can we agree that violence is violence?

Can we also agree that the instruction of violence is at its core, a means of teaching destruction?

Martial arts is reactionary violence.

It's not like America is taking its youth and forming militias out of them. Most of those kids are going to grow up, go to college, and be some kind of something that has nothing to do with their scout training.

The main crux of this is: This is not an indication of the United States trying to create warriors out of their youth. This is NOT a threat to the security of the world.

If these children were running border checkpoints and performing convoy missions in the middle east, then I think we'd have something to worry about. But they're not. This is about as dangerous as taking your kids to martial arts class on Saturday or having them enrolled in JROTC.

As for what I think about the article itself... sensationalism.

[gothicusmaximus]

Originally Posted by Madarame

I used to do Ninjutsu

Man, I hate when people claim to have studied 'Ninjutsu'.

[Madarame]

Yeah, it was a bit stupid to say that, ninjutsu encompasses about eighteen different martial arts, at least half of which aren't taught at all anymore. I was only learning taijutsu, bojutsu and kenjutsu, didn't learn much of the second two and none of it to a proficiency were I could actually use it.

[KontanKarite]

Well... I must say, it's wonderful to know that we're all not assuming that any day now, these kids wont be asking for our papers and doing house raids on us with airsoft guns.

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

The main crux of this is: This is not an indication of the United States trying to create warriors out of their youth. This is NOT a threat to the security of the world.

As for what I think about the article itself... sensationalism.

This. Especially when a kid could do all of those things outside of explorers anyway, assuming there are ranges that let younger people shoot real weapons under supervision. Some airsoft sites run "training" of their own accord.

[KontanKarite]

Dude, it's America. It's highly accessible for people under the age of 18 to get firearms training.

I was taught to shoot a gun at the tender age of 12. :-/

[Saya]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

Perhaps I'm being a bit too post modern in thought with this.

As for being taught martial arts. Your taught to injure/kill your fellow human.

Just to be a smartass, what about Aikido?

[PortraitOfSanity]

Aikido isn't technically a martial art, since it's not "martial". It's just a collection of techniques from other arts that avoid injuring your opponent.

[Duane]

Isn't Aikido also about using your opponent's force against them, or is that something else entirely?

[PortraitOfSanity]

Yea pretty much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Saya

Just to be a smartass, what about Aikido?

Seriously Saya? You want to nitpick with this? This post doesn't prove anything at all except that you're trying to be an obtuse smartass.

As for Aikido, you can go offensive with it. It's a system of self defense that uses force to cause bodily harm. Therefor, it's still violent.

Not only that, your post doesn't prove or disprove that the OP's insinuation was that America is making a child militia or police force.

Sorry, Sternn, but America is still not quite a dictatorship or a perfectly evil entity in the world.

[Duane]

With some of the stuff they learn, they are somewhat prepped for military-esque training. They're not making a child militia, but they could, couldn't they?

[KontanKarite]

Originally Posted by Duane

With some of the stuff they learn, they are somewhat prepped for military-esque training. They're not making a child militia, but they could, couldn't they?

Okay, you know what... That's a retarded concern.

First off, if the US wanted to do something like that, then they could already take the troops they have, go door to door and "police handle" the shit out of every home. That doesn't happen.

But sure... go ahead. Believe that it's really about making child soldiers and brainwashing our youth into doing nothing but police work and soldiering. When they come to my apartment looking for my identification and locks me up for hearsay then I'll tell you that you and Sternn were right.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by KontanKarite

Seriously Saya? You want to nitpick with this? This post doesn't prove anything at all except that you're trying to be an obtuse smartass.

As for Aikido, you can go offensive with it. It's a system of self defense that uses force to cause bodily harm. Therefor, it's still violent.

I did start the sentence with "Just to be a smartass...", sheesh. And since its a self defense that was designed to prevent bodily harm while still defending oneself, thats why I brought it up.

Not only that, your post doesn't prove or disprove that the OP's insinuation was that America is making a child militia or police force.

It was already mentioned that Canada has a cadet program, not quite the same thing as we don't arm them (although I do THINK at camp they do get training with rifles, I'll have to check), its really not special to America, we'd probably do the same thing if our gun control laws were not strict. This is more dramatic what Canadian Cadets does, but pretty much along the same lines. But once again, was already mentioned so there wasn't much point to bring it up again.

EDIT: Ah, Madarame is from Wales, not Canada, nevermind.

[Sir Canvas Corpsey]

"Don't be afraid to use your nails boys!"

[PortraitOfSanity]

Originally Posted by Sir Canvas Corpsey

"Don't be afraid to use your nails boys!"

Corpsey wins the thread.