COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: JROTC/ROTC
Junior ROTC falters under fire
Sonia Nazario, LosAngelos Times
February 18, 2007
First Sgt. Otto Harrington ? tall, muscular, his head cleanshaven ? has
>soldiered through battles in Bosnia, Kuwait and Somalia. He has
>patrolled Korea's DMZ.
>
>None of that prepared him, though, for the attacks he has faced as
>senior teacher in the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps at
>Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, where students and tea chers
>have launched a crusade against military recruiting and JROTC.
>
>Harrington blames their campaign for cutting the number of cadets at
>Roosevelt by 43% in four years, from 286 to 162. Some teachers urge
>students not to sign up for JROTC, he said,and have worked to end
>involuntarily placement in the program.
>
>"They seem to think I'm some evil, horrible soldier down here trying to
>sacrifice our kids to Iraq," Harrington said in describing the
>increasing tensions on the Eastside campus.
>
>The program's critics see JROTC as a Trojan horse targeting students in
>low-income minority schools with high dropout rates. "We are a juicy
>target," said Roosevelt social studies teacher Jorge Lopez.
>
>At Roosevelt and other schools in the L.A. Unified School District, the
>anti-JROTC movement has helped drive a 24% drop in enrollment since
>2003-04, Harrington and his critics said. The decline runs counter to
>enrollment nationwide, which grew 8% to 486,594 cadets between 2001 and
>2006, fueled by a 57% jump in federal funding, according to the
>Department of Defense.
>
>Roosevelt's "Rough Rider Battalion" was once among JROTC's finest, a
>powerhouse that routinely bested rivals in citywide competitions. In
>1990, when the program had 400 cadets, the battalion's girls' drill
>team won the national championship.
>
>JROTC students have uniforms and attend one cadet class each day,
>learning skills that include financial planning, map reading and how to
>give a PowerPoint presentation.
>
>The Department of Defense-sponsored program, which is in 30 of L.A.
>Unified's
>61 high schools, also includes physical education, target practice and
>marching drills. JROTC participants have no obligation to join the
>military, but students who complete the program are entitled to higher
>starting pay if they enlist.
>
>Roosevelt 11th-grader Jesse Flores said that as recently as his
>freshman year, students didn't think less of kids for being in JROTC;
>some even stopped cadets to admire ribbons and medals pinned to their
>uniforms. "Now," Jesse said, "everyone says JROTC is bad."
>
>*Teacher opposition
>
>*Many teachers are openly hostile toward JROTC, Jesse said, and some
>wear T-shirts that say "A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
>
>Arlene Inouye, a speech therapist formerly at Roosevelt, said she
>thinks anti-military advocacy by teachers is a counterbalance to a
>strong military presence on campus. She said she once counted 14
>recruiters approaching lunchtime crowds of students in Roosevelt's
>quad, handing out "Join the Army" book covers and promising adventure,
>travel and money for colle ge.
>
>In 2003, concerned that students weren't hearing the other side, she
>founded the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools. The group has
>spread to 50 Los Angeles-area schools, providing member teachers with
>literature, speakers, films and books.
>
>Their efforts are possible in part because of a U.S. 9th Circuit Court
>of Appeals ruling in 1986 that requires public schools that allow
>recruiters on campus to give counter-recruiters a shot at addressing
>students.
>
>At Roosevelt, the coalition teamed with United Students, a group of
>students and teachers working to improve education on the Eastside and
>get more Latinos into college.
>
>United Students' 100 Roosevelt members began keeping track of when
>military recruiters were scheduled to visit so they could conduct
>counter-recruiting the day before.
>
>At its annual Education Justice We ek, students in the group invite
>college recruiters to campus and encourage students to continue their
>schooling rather than enlisting. They also have presented in 60
>classrooms a program called "Students Not Soldiers," which aims to
>expose the dark side of military life.
>
>Nearly two dozen teachers have also shown the films "Arlington West,"
>put out by Veterans for Peace, and "The Ground Truth," a documentary in
>which veterans condemn the war in Iraq and their treatment by the
>military on their return home.
>
>Lopez, the social studies teacher, keeps a stack of glossy brochures
>propped on his chalkboard titled "Don't Die in a Dead-End Job!
>Information for Young People Considering the Military" that show a
>soldier saluting flag-draped coffins. Prominent on his wall is a poster
>called "Ten Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment
>Agreement."
> ;
>"I want to see more Latinos go to college," Lopez said.
>
>*Lunchtime maneuvers
>
>*The warren of six JROTC rooms at Roosevelt is decorated with drawings
>of tanks. On the front wall of Harrington's classroom is a row of
>brown- and gold-framed photographs of the chain of command, from
>President Bush to the secretary of Defense to JROTC instructors.
>
>At lunch, cadets stream in, grab unloaded Springfield rifles from four
>gun racks and practice spinning them. The four people in the color
>guard, wearing white gloves and chrome helmets, maneuver their rifles
>in unison.
>
>Teacher Gillian Russom said this kind of training instills the wrong
>values:
>following orders, dressing the same and relying on rote memorization
>rather than critical thinking. "That's necessary for a successful
>military, but does it create the kind of citizens we want?"
>
> ;A 1999 Center for Strategic and International Studies report, the last
>comprehensive assessment of JROTC, found that about 40% of students who
>graduated from high school with two or more years of JROTC ended up in
>the military.
>
>Harrington said few of his Roosevelt students join the armed services.
>Only 5% of his cadets would even qualify to enlist, he said, because
>the rest are in the country illegally, couldn't pass the military
>aptitude test, are in trouble with the law or are overweight.
>
>"This is the worst school on the planet for a recruiter to come and
>think they will be successful," he said, adding that only three
>Roosevelt cadets in three years have enlisted out of high school.
>
>Still, many Roosevelt students and teachers are angered that JROTC
>programs are concentrated in low-income, primarily minority
>communities, and they tell potential cadets that JROTC is a thinly
>disguised effort to make more Latinos cannon fodder. Nationwide, 59.9 %
>of JROTC participants are students of color, according to a study by
>Cal State Northridge. In Los Angeles, the program is in nearly half of
>the city's high schools, but none on the affluent Westside.
>
>Teachers who oppose JROTC are also dismayed that despite a
>zero-tolerance policy on weapons, 10 Los Angeles high schools,
>including Roosevelt, have JROTC firing ranges. "This is learning to
>shoot at a target, preparing a mind-set to be able to kill," said
>Inouye, the founder of the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools.
>
>Harrington said the air rifles, which shoot pellets, are used as a
>sport, not for combat training. "Some people," he said, "don't
>understand shooting an air rifle isn't shooting an M16."
>
>Opponents of JROTC say it drains resources from more important cou rses.
>Although the Defense Department pays half of JROTC instructors'
>salaries, L.A.
>Unified pays the rest, as well as benefits, for a total of $3.1 million
>this school year. That money, United Students said, should instead be
>spent adding more of the 15 academic courses students need to go to
>college, which make up 52% of the offerings at Roosevelt.
>
>But many JROTC students can't imagine Roosevelt without the program.
>
>*A second chance
>
>*"For some students, the biggest reason to come to school is for JROTC,"
>said
>Harrington, noting that his students often come in at 6:30 a.m. even
>when they are off track.
>
>Daniel Segura, a soft-spoken 16-year-old with a mop of brown hair and
>an easy smile, is one of them. He said his grades spiraled after his
>father died of diabetes two years ago. "I felt there was no point," he
>said.
>
>H e started ditching class to go to the Santa Monica Pier and failed
>half his classes. Urged by a counselor to enroll in JROTC, he was at
>first resistant and defiant during class time. Harrington told him not
>to attend the program, then agreed to give him another chance if he
>followed the rules.
>
>Slowly, Harrington gave Daniel more responsibility, putting him on the
>flag and armed drill teams and on JROTC's courtesy patrol, which helps
>translate for parents at teacher conferences.
>
>Hoping to be named to the JROTC staff and earn more responsibility,
>Daniel said, he plans to pass all his classes this semester and is
>getting a B in English.
>
>Roosevelt students tell him he is being brainwashed to go into the
>Army, but he said he thinks they don't understand what the program
>really is. It has taught him leadership and discipline, he said, and he
>has thrived on its boundaries and rules. In a bewildering school with
>nearly 5,000 students, JROTC has been a beacon, a place to belong.
>
>"JROTC made me try again," he said. Several JROTC cadets describe
>feeling as if they are under hostile fire from anti-military teachers.
>
>Last year, Jesse, the 11th-grader, a master sergeant and JROTC flag
>detail commander, was the only student wearing a JROTC uniform in
>Martha Guerrero's first-period world history class. He said that
>Guerrero, who often wears a "War is not the answer" T-shirt and has a
>flag of the revolutionary Ernesto "Che"
>Guevara hanging in her classroom, sometimes asked him pointed questions
>in the middle of class.
>
>"Jesse, are you going to go to Iraq and die?" she asked. "Why are you
>wearing a uniform? Aren't you embarrassed? " Jesse said he felt singled
>out by the question and told his JROTC instructor about it.
>
>Angered by what he saw as bullying of his student, he confronted
>Guerrero, who apologized to Jesse. She said she wasn't harassing the
>student. "I just tell them things I know are right or wrong. I stand
>against war, against JROTC."
>
>In July, after hearing about a United Students talk in the classroom of
>social studies teacher Carlos Castillo, Harrington was fed up.
>
>He stormed into Castillo's classroom.
>
>"I have a problem with you calling me a recruiter," he told the other
>teacher. A flier handed out in Castillo's class contained distortions,
>Harrington said, adding that he believes Castillo shouldn't be allowed
>to discourage students from enrolling in his class.
>
>Castillo told Harrington that JROTC's only purpose was to promote the
>military.
>
>*Ground rules
>
>*Principal Cecilia Acosta Quemada told the two sides they had to g et along.
>She also established ground rules: Working against enlistment of
>students was acceptable; overtly telling them to drop JROTC class was
>not.
>
>But the battles are likely to continue. Some Los Angeles activists are
>pushing to follow in the footsteps of San Francisco and Lowell, Mass.,
>both of which have taken steps to abolish JROTC.
>
>"I want to get them completely off campus," Castillo said.
>
>If that happens, Harrington won't be around to see it. Sick of the
>battles, he is leaving Roosevelt ? and JROTC ? at the end of the school
year.
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