COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Counter-Recruitment: General
Counter-Recruitment Deserves Higher Priority on the Peace Agenda
Pat Elder, Common Dreams
March 25, 2007
The mainstream peace and justice movement is beginning to see thatcountering military recruitment deserves a higher priority and should be
viewed in strategic, rather than tactical terms. Resisting the
unprecedented and relentless militarization of American youth transcends
the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Countering military recruitment
confronts an ugly mix of a distinctively American brand of
institutionalized violence, racism, militarism, nationalism, classism, and
sexism. It gets to the root of the problem.
Confronting the work of military recruiters, particularly in the nation's
public schools will provide a catalyst for activists to shift gears from
the traditional antiwar tactics of vigils, protests, sit-ins, and CD
actions to the long-term strategy of opposing the militarization of
youth. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One however, treats
symptoms; the other addresses causes.
Simply put, the strategy of the counter-recruiting movement is to put the
imperial armed forces of the United States into a kind of vice that
squeezes new recruits from the ranks. One end of the vice is the near
universal rejection of the return of the military draft. Remember how the
House voted 402-2 against reinstating the daft back in October of
2004? Bringing back the draft is unthinkable. Conscription would result
in demonstrations of millions that would ultimately end the war and result
in a political revolution. The crushing steel on the opposite side of the
vice is the counter-recruitment movement, aided by an American public that
increasingly recognizes illegal and immoral wars.
Counter recruitment activists are putting on the squeeze. They're doing it
by learning about high school policies that favor military recruiters and
they're organizing their communities to change it. They're providing youth
with training, employment and educational alternatives to military
service. They're engaged with community leaders and the press in promoting
a greater awareness of encroaching militarism. And they're being
successful across the country.
The military is feeling the pressure. The Pentagon has seriously dumbed
down its enlistment qualifications and lowered its monthly quotas. The
Army is dredging the bottom of the barrel by dramatically lowering the bar
for enlisting. The percent of all Army recruits without a high school
diploma has risen to 18.8%, the highest level since 1981. The Army has
also relaxed the minimum scores necessary on the standardized Armed Forces
Qualification Test, (AFQT). The percent of soldiers who have been granted
waivers for alcohol or drug abuse, criminal misdemeanors, and various
medical conditions has been raised from 10% to 15%. The Army has also
increased its maximum age for enlistment from 35 to 42. The vice is turning.
Do you know the policies of your local school system regarding military
recruitment? This is how we turn the vice. The pentagon must approach
vulnerable 16 and 17 year olds and convince them it's in their best
interest to join. It is an insidious practice and chances are you're
allowing it happen.
The military may request a list of the names, addresses and phone numbers
of all the high school children in your town. What's your school
district's policy regarding the military recruitment "opt out"
form? Federal law says your schools are supposed to tell parents they have
the right to remove their children's names from lists being sent to the
Pentagon. What's your high school doing? Can students opt themselves
out? The law says they can. Once a parent or student removes his or her
name from such a list, do they have to repeat the process every year? The
law says once is sufficient.
Does your school have a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC)
Program? Your local high school has probably been forced by the Federal No
Child Left Behind Act to hire highly qualified teachers. Many school
districts are requiring classroom teachers to have master's degrees after a
few years of service. Meanwhile, JROTC instructors need only a GED to
teach credited courses. The stringent "No Child Left Behind" regulations
exempt JROTC instructors. There's usually little or no curricular
oversight to the program. What are they teaching? Certainly more
Clausewitz and Machiavelli than Jefferson and Thoreau! What kind of
curricular oversight does your high school exercise over this program? If
you want to stop wars, you might start asking.
Over 600,000 school children in public schools take the Armed Forces
Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test every year. Does your school
offer the test? Why is the Pentagon testing children in the public
schools? Military recruiting manuals admit it is primarily to produce
leads for recruiters. The ASVAB is supposed to be voluntary, but many
schools require all juniors and seniors to take it. Students are forced to
sign a "Student Privacy Statement," to take the test. This may violate
your state's laws. One Maryland school district thought so and requires
its students to have a signed permission form from their parents to take
the test. Does your school automatically forward the results from the
four hour test to military recruiters? Most do. Some school districts
have stepped in to protect student privacy and have stopped this practice.
Are military recruiters allowed to greet children as they enter the
cafeteria during lunch while college recruiters are required to meet with
students by appointment in the Guidance Office? Federal law calls for
military and college recruiters to have equal access to children. Schools
across the country have ordered the military to meet with students in
guidance and career centers, rather than allowing recruiters to have access
to the entire student body. This is the toughest nut to crack in some
districts.
Do you know if your local high school lets children out of class to shoot
M-16 rifle and M-9 pistol simulators in the increasingly popular Army
recruiting vans? You should! Are military recruiters frequenting some
schools more than others due to racial and economic factors? You ought to
know. Call your local high school principal and start asking
questions. They're your schools and you're paying for them, even if your
children don't attend. The war starts in your community and it can end
there too.
Pat Elder is a co-founder of the DC Antiwar Network (DAWN) and is a member
of the Steering Committee of the National Network Opposing the
Militarization of Youth, (NNOMY). Pat is currently involved in
counter-recruitment projects in a dozen jurisdictions in the DC
metropolitan area. Pat's work has prominently appeared in NSA documents
tracking domestic peace groups.
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