COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch
Be all you can be: Military recruitment targets poor, uneducated youth
Justi Montague, The Current
Novebmer 26, 2007
Have you ever thought about joining a branch of the military to help
out with college costs? I have.
It seems like the perfect ride, you are offered stability,
employment, a college education, personal development and even a
chance to see the world.
Who could turn that down? Poor children in urban schools cannot. That
is how the poverty draft was created.
The poverty draft is a policy that targets young people in low-income
communities for military recruitment. The military uses the rampant
poverty and the uncertain futures of high school students as a means
to entice them into military service.
It all looks good on the outside right? Wrong. The poverty draft has
a hard racist edge to it. The military specifically targets schools
that have a large population of African American and Latino students.
There is one large reason for the joining up of these low income high
school students by the thousands. It is the deliberate cut in funding
for public schools in America to give more money to corporations, the
wealthy and the military.
The Bush administration claims there is no money for programs like
Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, or employment programs, but
somehow, there is always money to fuel the war in Iraq.
By taking money from education, Social Security, and employment
programs, the Bush administration has put the life of high school
students on an uncertain path, and what looks better to them than the GI Bill?
Here is the worst part-the average payout on the GI Bill is a little
less than $2500 a year. Here in America, we really know how to thank
our soldiers for their loyalty!
The second, although not as prevalent, reason for the poverty draft
is the excessive and aggressive military recruitment campaign. You
cannot drive down the street without seeing a billboard of some fine,
upstanding looking college age kids looking like a kid in a candy
store in their fatigues.
You cannot turn on the TV without seeing an ad about how the army
will make you more efficient, more knowledgeable, more courageous,
and most of all, "all that you can be".
The military spends an approximate $3 billion dollars a year on
advertisement. It is becoming more and more frequent to see common
items from youth culture like video games, cars, music and concerts
as a way for recruiters to approach young people about joining the
military. It is even worse for high school students.
No Child Left Behind is another contributor to this phenomenon. You
know, the funny thing about laws being passed in Congress is that
little things get added on to bills that most people never even know
about. NCLB seems like a great law from afar.
Get the children a better education? That is a no brainer. But there
is a catch.
No Child Left Behind mandates that the names and contact information
of students wishing to receive federal aid for college are given to
military recruiters.
Until activists began educating high schoolers on how to have their
names removed from this list, public schools were basically selling
students' names to the military in exchange for federal funding.
Choosing military service is literally a life or death situation for
young people. There have been over 2,000 American men and women
killed in Iraq, while over 15,000 have been wounded.
When we notice that 58% of soldiers killed in Iraq were between the
ages of 18 and 25, it becomes clear that the rise in recruitment
tactics for young people is working.
I am not saying I am against the military whatsoever, but I think,
for people of all ages, joining the military should be a choice of
service to our country and not a means of escaping a low
socio-economic neighborhood.
If we want to end the push for the poverty draft, we have to stop the
military from preying on low income youth and youth of color, and
create real alternatives to military service. This means better
funding for public schools and colleges so that everyone, regardless
of race, sex, religion, or socioeconomic status, has the prospect of
an equal education and the opportunity to fulfill the great American
dream-without going to Iraq first.
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