COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Counter-Recruitment: General
An Army of None
Jeremy Brecher, Zmag
July 29, 2007
Army of None is a manual for opponents of the Iraq war who want tocut off its supply of cannonfodder. It presents how- to guides, hot
tips, and successful examples of counterrecruitment strategies in
schools and communities around the U.S. It argues that such actions
can be a critical part of ending the war by depriving the military of
soldiers to fight it. It presents this strategy as part of a more
general "people power" approach to combating war and transforming
society based on the withdrawal of popular compliance with authority.
The authors argue that without enough soldiers, it is impossible to
sustain a large, long-term occupation in a country like
Iraq.[1] Anyone who doubts this argument should read the recent
speech by Senator Richard Lugar - the one that heralded the stampede
of Republican politicians away from support of Bush's Iraq
policy. Along with the intractable political situation in Iraq and
the loss of support for the war by the American people, Lugar listed
a third factor that makes current policy untenable: "The fatigue of
our military." Indeed, the window for employing American troops
"without damaging our military strength or our ability to respond to
other national security priorities," according to Lugar, "is closing."
Lugar confirms the Army of None's assertion that the unwillingness of
young people to join the military is creating intense pressure to end
the war. According to Lugar, the war has worn down the American military:
"Iraq is taking a toll on recruitment and readiness. In April, the
Defense Department announced it would lengthen tours of duty for
soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan from 12 to 15 months. Many
soldiers are now on their way to a third combat tour. . . . Instead
of resting and training for 3 to 12 months, brigades coming out of
the field must now be ready almost immediately for redeployment. "
The military is meeting its quotas by recruiting those that they
believe are not good military material:
"Statistics point to significant declines in the percentage of
recruits who have high school diplomas and who score above average on
the Army's aptitude test. Meanwhile, the Army has dramatically
increased the use of waivers for recruits who have committed
felonies, and it has relaxed weight and age standards."
Anti-war and anti-military attitudes among young people are central
to the deepening erosion of national military might:
"Filling expanding ranks will be increasingly difficult given trends
in attitudes toward military service. This has been measured by the
Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies Program, which produced
a "Propensity Update" last September after extensive research. The
study found that only 1 in 10 youths has a propensity to serve - the
lowest percentage in the history of such surveys. 61 percent of youth
respondents report that they will "definitely not serve." This
represents a 7 percent increase in less than a year. These numbers
are directly attributable to policies in Iraq."[2]
Lugar's warning was underlined a few days later when the Army
indicated that it had missed its recruiting goals this June for the
second straight month.[3]
The military's current "manpower" crisis is a direct result of the
lessons that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and their colleagues took
from the Vietnam war. They concluded (based in part on social
science research) that the American people would not turn against the
war as long as there was no draft and casualties remained relatively
low. They therefore initiated a war without a draft; insisted on
troop levels their own generals regarded as ludicrously low for the
proposed mission; hired "contract" mercenaries whose numbers in Iraq
now exceed those of combat soldiers[4]; and kept sending the same
small group of soldiers back over and over again with barely a break
between deployments.
Army of None provides a fascinating deconstruction of military
recruiting mindgames. It describes how public relations superstar
Leo Burnett- responsible for the Marlboro Man, the Jolly Green Giant,
the Pillsbury Doughboy, and Tony the Tiger -developed the "Army of
One" TV ads to appeal to young people's desire for individual
significance. According to Army Secretary Louis Caldera, "What we
are telling them is that the strength of the Army is in individuals.
. . . You as an individual make a difference." [5]
Counterrecruiters have had a field day parodying such absurd and
blatant manipulation. The Army's recent attempt to re- brand itself
under the slogan "There's strong, and then there's Army Strong,"
recently met this match:
"There's wrong and then there's Army Wrong. The courage to resist
today. The courage to resist tomorrow. There is nothing on this
green earth that is strong than integrity."[ 6]
Increasingly, military recruiters have direct access to
schools. Half a million high school students are part of Junior
ROTC. The No Child Left Behind Act provides that high schools must
give military recruiters the names, addresses, and telephone listings
of their students - and schools often give other information, even on
extracurricular activities, as well.
But these military incursions have provided terrific organizing
hooks. For example, the No Child Left Behind Act has a caveat kids
or their parents can request that contact information be withheld;
counterrecruitment activists have responded with successful campaigns
for schools to provide, and kids or parents to sign, "opt out" forms
denying their consent. And counterrecruiters have been able to go
into the same schools the recruiters haunt on the basis of a 1986
court decision stating that the question of military service (whether
voluntary or compulsory) is a controversial political (not economic
or academic) issue, and if a school establishes a forum for one side
to present its views on the issue, it must give opponents equal
access to the forum.[7]
The counterrecruiters let kids in on a dirty little secret: Military
recruiters lie. According to the New York Times, nearly one in five
Army recruiters was under investigation in 2004 for offenses varying
from "threats and coercion to false promises that applicants would
not be sent to Iraq."[8] When an ABC television investigation sent
undercover students into ten recruiters' offices, they found that
more than half of the recruiters were "stretching the truth or even
worse, lying." One told an NBC student investigator, "You have a
10-times greater chance of dying out here on the roads than you do
dying in Iraq." Another told a student that his chances of going to
war were "slim to none."[9]
Of course, there's nothing new about military recruiters lying to
their prey, as a 19th century English ballad, The Press Gang, illustrates:
"As I walked out on London Street A press gang there I chanced to
meet They asked me if I'd join the fleet On board of a man- o-war, boys"
"When I got there to my surprise All they had told me was shocking
lies There was a row and a jolly old row On board of a man-o-war, boys"[10]
Encouraging resistance to military service has a long and rather more
honorable history. In 1915, opponents of World War I organized the
Anti-Enlistment League; thousands of young men pledged, "I, being
over eighteen years of age, hereby pledge myself against enlistment
as a volunteer for any military or naval service in international
war."[11] Eugene Victor Debs and other socialists and anarchists went
to jail under the Espionage Act, which penalized anyone who
"interfered" with conscription or enlistment.[ 12]
Despite the broad popular support for World War II, a dedicated group
of resisters including David Dellinger, Jim Peck, and Bayard Rustin
opposed participation in the war; many later became well-known
pioneers of the civil rights movement. Historians have confirmed the
major impact of Vietnam-era draft resistance; for example, General
William Westmorland' s March, 1968 request for 200,000 more troops was
turned down in large part because of the massive draft resistance and
consequent social and political turmoil it would provoke.[13]
Army of None's straightforward presentation is grounded in what it
describes as a "people power strategic framework." "Power," its
authors' write, "is not something that those in power hold but is a
fragile relationship between those in power and the rest of us." The
power of the powerful depends on the compliance of the rest of
us. We can identify the "pillars that support the war" -- such as
corporate war profiteers, the corporate media, and of course the
troops themselves -- and then work to eliminate their role as
pillars. They quote Lieutenant Ehren Watada, the first commission
officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq: "To stop an illegal and unjust
war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it."[14]
A long time ago the American poet Carl Sandburg prophesied just what
Senator Lugar fears is happening now:
"Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come."
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