COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: General
Cost of War
JUDITH SCHERR, archive.com
March 25, 2005
The military recruitment budget is $3 billion annually; 90percent of the people killed in war are civilian
noncombatants; 91 percent of Berkeley High students believe
the war in Iraq is wrong and illegal; 65 percent of veterans
never get their education benefits; 33 percent of homeless men
are veterans....
It was more than these factoids splashed across the screen in
the school auditorium and the anti-war rap pulsating in the
background that kept the Berkeley High students riveted to
their seats Wednesday. It was the real life lesson in war,
taught by some who touched battle up close and by others who
escaped it that kept the teens' attention.
The idea of the anti-war teach-in-four different presentations
given to four groups of about 300 students-was hatched by
students studying social justice and social action in CAS,
Berkeley High's Communication Arts and Sciences school. The
project was guided by CAS teacher Joanna Sapir.
The first presenter, Aidan Delgado, a 23-year-old
conscientious objector, brought the war home to the audience,
which sometimes gasped in shock, other times tittered with
discomfort, as they viewed images depicting the graphic
reality of war they had never seen on the evening news.
Delgado was 19, just a bit older than the students he was
addressing, when he signed the Army Reserve contract that
changed his life. The son of a diplomat who grew up in Egypt
and other countries abroad, he said he did not go into the
service for college money-his family was paying his way-but
because he wanted a change in his life. He thought he'd join
the reserves and put on a uniform a couple of days each month.
Soon after the war began in March 2003, Delgado's unit was
deployed to Iraq. "I got to Iraq and felt totally unprepared,"
he said.
He told the students that he had always been opposed to war
intellectually, but in Iraq he began to understand the meaning
of pacifism and began studying Buddhism. After three months,
he told his commanding officer that he wanted to apply for
conscientious objector status. The process took two years and
he was honorably discharged in January.
Delgado said he was upset by many things he observed in Iraq.
On various occasions he would see a group of civilians walking
and U.S. soldiers would tell them to stop. "They didn't
understand. (The soldiers) would shoot them down," he said.
Delgado knows Arabic and was able to communicate with the
people. For most of the soldiers, though, "every Iraqi was an
enemy," he said.
They would call them "Hajjis," (normally a reference to those
who have made the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca), using the term
to denigrate them. He saw a fellow soldier whip children who
had annoyed him with a Humvee antenna. He would watch soldiers
break bottles over the head of Iraqis as they drove by.
His unit spent six months working at Abu Ghraib, where
prisoners were punished with the removal of their tents and
blankets during the cold months. Once when the prisoners
rebelled and started throwing stones, the guards responded by
shooting several of them dead and wounding others.
Delgado showed the Berkeley High students pictures of dead
children, and of soldiers degrading corpses. "That's the
reality of war," he said. "This is what you have to think
about."
Student organizers also invited a recruiter for the Army
Reserve, Sgt. First Class Marco Ramos. Responding to a
question about what he had thought of Delgado's presentation,
he said, "I don't know anybody who agrees with war. War is
bad. But unfortunately, war is going on in the world. It's
always a challenge to go to war."
Ramos said he has never seen combat and does not feel
responsible for sending people to war. His job is to recruit
them. Others are responsible for deploying the units. He
underscored the positive aspects of soldiering: "Helping build
schools, hospitals, taking care of people."
The panels explored military recruitment, the question of a
possible draft and how people can resist it if they choose to
do so.
Evelyn Chang of the American Civil Liberties Union said she
wanted students to know their rights when approached by a
recruiter. She said the ACLU hears reports of students who are
coerced and misled. Students need to understand, she said,
that "the military is a contract, not a job, like others. You
can't quit. It's a commitment for eight years, even though
active duty is two-to-four years."
Chang said students need to understood the No Child Left
Behind Act. Unless a parent signs an "opt out" form, schools
must turn over to recruiters the names, addresses and phone
numbers of every student in order to get federal education
money. (Berkeley High, however, has adopted an opt-in strategy
whereby parents sign up to have their students' names turned
over to recruiters.)
On Tuesday the Alameda County Board of Education postponed
voting on a resolution to encourage parents to opt out of
releasing their children's information to military recruiters
on high school campuses. The board is expected to take up the
issue again at its April 26 meeting.
The possibility of a draft was on the minds of students and
panelists. Speaking from the audience, one student asked if a
draft would be more equitable than recruiting low-income youth
as is done today. (A bill with this intent, authored by Rep.
Charles Rangel, D-NY, was defeated in the House in October.)
Ed Hasbrouck, from the National Resistance Committee, served
six months in a federal prison camp for refusing to register
for military conscription. Millions do not register, but the
government wanted to make an example of 20 vocal opponents,
Hasbrouck told the students.
On Thursday Associated Press reported that the Army, which has
increased recruiting bonuses, raised the number of recruiters
on the streets by 33 percent and increased the maximum age of
National Guard and Reserve recruits from 34 to 39, missed its
February recruitment goal by 27 percent and is predicting that
the goals will fall short in March and April.
Oakland City Council candidate Aimee Allison, who was
honorably discharged as a conscientious objector from the Army
during the First Gulf War, counseled students who think they
might have moral or religious grounds for opposing the war.
She told them to begin a file now to prove their beliefs in
case of a draft. For example, they might include papers
they've written for school, a letter to the editor, proof of
membership in a social activist club, pictures of them at an
anti-war march.
As panelists took audience questions, the students who spoke
seemed generally against war and against serving in the
military. However, student Mateo Guttierez challenged the
panel, asking, "Do you think it's immoral or unpatriotic to
use tax-payer time during school to give information on draft
resistance?"
Ed Hasbrouck answered the question, saying that he believed
the country was founded on principals of resistance. "Schools
give people a chance to grow and learn," he said. "It would be
an immoral use of schools to educate people to kill."
A Counter-Military Recruitment Forum and Conscientious
objector workshop will be held at 1:30 p.m. March 27 at
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924
Cedar St. Panelists will include Cindy Sheehan, who lost her
son in Iraq, Steve Morse, of the GI Rights Hotline, Jeff
Paterson, of Not in Our name, Robert Reynolds, a Berkeley High
School student, and the Rev. Craig Scott, UU minister.
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of