I live in Berkeley and I was actually there at a few of the protests. One was outside my high school and one was a few days later and was downtown.

My opinion: I don't like the Marines much, mostly because I absolutely oppose war, and also because they try to trick young college or high school kids to sign up and join the army. While that can be a good choice for many people, they can find the Marines themselves. The Marines should just stay in their offices.

However, many of the actions taken by Code Pink and other organizations at the protests seemed downright absurd. Some of it seemed unrelated to the current issue, such as a few people yelling about how Bush should be impeached (I agree with this, but it had nothing to do with the problem at hand). Many people seemed to come just for the sake of yelling. The "Conservatives", for lack of a better term, were just standing around, screaming, and the "Liberals" were doing stupid stuff like burning flags.

Also, now City Hall is threatening to take away huge taxed money that would go to schools, even though none of the kids did anything.

So, I disagree with Marines in general, but I think both sides are being way too uptight and angry; and at the protests, nobody was really debating or keeping an open mind to any other possible points of view.

Very interesting, doonis. Thanks for the input!

I disagree with the war, but I can't help but respect the marines in general. Maybe it's because I grew up with them, or because plenty of my friends are part of the armed forces, but it's really impressive the things they can do and are trained to do. I've always said, "I could never do that!" so I'm always impressed by people who do.

What these protesters seemed to think (from my brief and biased view on the Daily Show) was that eliminating the marines would eliminate war, but that's not true. Every country has a standing army, even if they aren't at war, and that's a good thing. I acknowledge their right to protest and ask for the marines to leave, I just don't understand the motive.

OK, marines do recruit at high schools and the morals of that are definitely debatable-- maybe I should make a pick. But the fact of the matter is that the most recruits that result from this tactic are from small towns where the teens can't really think of anything else to do after high school. Or they want to pay for college. Or they just want to serve their country. Whatever the reason, in the end the recruiters can't FORCE you to sign your life away to the US Military. They can wheedle you into it maybe, but if you're slow enough to fall for that propaganda then you deserve to see what the military is really like if you ask me.

Still, I see what you're saying about letting kids go to them rather than have them go to the kids. But... I don't know.

No but... the recruiters do lie like the dickens to potential recruits. I've seen it. Not just the Marines, but all branches.

Still. Let them remain, but truth should be mandatory in all recruiting offices.