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ROTC Cadet Killed

By VVAW

JOIN NOW! FREE SCHOLARSHIPS! Become a pilot or a skipper of a nuclear sub. Remember, we offer you three hots and a cot plus an officer's commission that entitles you to give Mickey Mouse orders to enlisted men... The military is the biggest hype show going. Michael Cooper, like many other high school kids, said that it beats working eight years at McDonalds in order to save up enough to get through college. But on November 3, Michael Cooper's lifeless body became the repossessed property of the US Navy. He had decided the Navy wasn't his bag after being lied to and ripped off.

The death of this rural Waunakee, Wisconsin man in a shoot out with Dane county sheriffs which wounded three of them and cost Mike's life is a stark example of the Navy's don't give a damn attitude. It doesn't make a difference to them if you die fighting a rich man's war or die to be an example for refusing to serve.

Mike resisted the three deputies who tried to take him into custody for failure to report for active duty. His resistance was one that built up for four long years. He originally enlisted to be a pilot in the Navy ROTC program, in which the Navy paid for college and a small living expense. In his second year he went off to pilot training school where he became proficient at flying the Sky Hawk jet. After passing his training period he was told by the Navy he couldn't become a pilot due to hayfever. They knew this tow years previously when he took his enlistment physical.

But Mike still felt he was getting a good deal from Navy ROTC. He took a test to become eligible for a nuclear engineering position. Then he was told that he ranked thirtieth in the nation and that they didn't need him in that position either. Subsequently, Cooper dropped Navy ROTC as they dropped all their hotshot recruiting pitches.

The Navy and Dane County sheriffs would never admit they murdered Mike Cooper. It was quite obvious from Mike's wounds and the shots that were found in the walls of his room that the Dane County sheriffs did him in. But at the inquest these guys acted like Starsky and Hutch. They should have won and Academy Award for their lies about how this so called mad man wounded three sheriffs and then took his own life. Hell.. when was the last time anyone shot three cops and lived to tell about it? That doesn't even happen on Adam-12!

The Navy can't stand the number of guys who have deserted or went AWOL. Navy AWOLs have reached the highest rate ever in 1976. This is two per cent higher than 1975 and more than double the previous highest rate which was during the Vietnam War.

Someone in the Navy Department finally said, "Freeze this stuff off." And that's just what went down. Mike Cooper was killed as an example for refusing to be lied to and abused.