I've been reading an article this morning about Kimberly Rivera from Mesquite, Texas, who is the first known female Iraqi war resister who fled to Canada with her husband and two kiddos. The article is from the Toronto Sun, and mentions a statistic about about 200 soldiers who have fled to Canada to avoid being deployed to Iraq. The author is not sympathetic because "it's hard to bleed for US Mom who should have known better than to join army". You'll have to read the article to see why she decided to change her mind and flee to Canada; I'm pulling out this one part.

But with just a high-school diploma and two little children at the time to support with her husband, Rivera concluded that a career in the army still beat her photo lab job at Wal-Mart. "I wanted my life to be better for my kids."

Her husband, Mario, insists the recruiter promised that she wouldn't be sent to Iraq and even if she were, it wouldn't be to a combat zone. "That's why he let me sign," the 26-year-old says, cradling their Canadian-born daughter Katie, born six weeks ago.

That's baloney. Military recruiters will say anything to get someone to sign. If you look at the contract, you'll see that it isn't binding, and the military can change anything about it at any time. Just ask the people who ended up being sent back multiple times through stop-loss.

The Americans are running out of soldiers, forcing units to redeploy over and over again, and she wasn't going to be sent to Iraq?

Even Rivera wasn't that naive.

"In my mind, I knew I was probably going to Iraq," she admits after the rest of the media have packed up their cameras and left the news conference at the office of the War Resisters Support Campaign. "I was very gung ho. I wanted to make this a career."

Her goal was to be a warrant officer but when she didn't score high enough on her entrance exams, she was relegated to gate guard duty when her unit was deployed to Iraq in October 2006.

That's another thing. There's a place on the contracts where you can speciify what you want to be and what type of training, etc. Even if you are told that's what you will get, it's not 1. Some may, but the military will put you where it wants, in whatever job.

More from the Courage to Resist website.

She had never thought of becoming a soldier until she was seventeen and the Army recruiters visited her home to meet with Kimberly and her parents. The recruiters offered money for college that her family did not have. Her mother was supporting Kimberly, her father, and her two sisters after her father suffered a work related accident. She took an aptitude test for job placement out of “curiosity”, but later signed up to be a mechanic. She was given an enlistment date following graduation for the Army Reserves.

Part of the No Child Left Behind program, no doubt, that not only has military recruiters on high school campuses actively recruiting regularly, but also gets information automatically on all high school students so that they can be called at home, unless the students or parents opt out on information.

Just before Christmas 2001, three months after entering AIT training, the commander released her because of her pregnancy. Because Kimberly was not active duty, she had only part time benefits which did not include health care or dental, or any of the other things that she needed to be a mom and a soldier—and the military agreed.

She returned home to Mesquite and to her job at Wal-Mart. Within the next two years she had two children, a boy and a girl. "I still felt like a 24 year old loser because our jobs were not paying the bills for the apartment, food, car, car insurance and health insurance and credit card bills." They moved in with her parents, which created additional stress.

She thought about the military again. The Army offered job security, sign-on bonuses, a food and clothing allowance, medical benefits, housing allowance, "Everything I needed, they had. It's the best form of socialism" she thought. After talking to an Army recruiter in January 2006, she joined up for a second time—this time active duty to receive full benefits for her family.

One of the saddest facts about today's economy is that many people believe that they should join the military merely to have a job and get benefits. Not the best reason to join.

Look. I've said here before that I believe in just wars. I don't believe in professional armies that have little to do with the populace in general and are apparently merely a different job choice, like one would become a plumber or dentist.. or go overseas as a trained killer. Unlike going to work at your local Wal-mart, however, once one signs up for the military, he or she is the property of the US military and not free to decide to quit, unless, like Ms Rivera, did, you run to another country that may or may not grant you amnesty.