COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Student Privacy
counter-recruitment a success Newport
Joel Gallob, News-Times
Sep 30, 2005
An effort organized by the Newport High School Youth for Peace to inform students and their parents of their right not to give the student's name, address and telephone number to U.S. military agencies was a success during registration last month, according to Eric Johnson, president of the peace group."People ought to know exactly what they're getting into," Johnson said. "We had a table at the school registration, so we could tell them how they can avoid having the school send their information to the military."
Under an initially little-noticed provision in President Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) educational reform act, every school must provide the name, address and phone number of each of its students to the military, unless the student or his or her parents "opt out."
"We talked with about 500 families at registration," said Johnson. "The response was great. For every single person (who) said, no, they disagreed with us, we had 20 people who said yes, they would sign the opt out clause. And most had no idea it existed."
Alice Warner, the teacher serving as the adviser to the 20-plus member student peace group, explained "most parents do not even know that they're making a decision about their child's future with this. "
When signing up a child for school, noted Warner, the forms generally ask parents to sign on the dotted line if their child wants to get into this or that program, class or club. However, the reverse applies under NCLB: The child is presumed to want to give his or her information to the military, and the parent or child has to sign a statement asking for that information to be withheld. Otherwise, the school must give the information to the armed services for use in recruitment.
"A lot of people didn't understand," said Johnson, "if you don't sign this will happen. It's not like with fluoride, where if you don't sign for fluoride, you won't get it."
Further, Warner said, "Kids are being recruited for the military with offers of things like getting a scholarship in return for military service. But it's often not what it seems to be. You usually do not get money for a four-year college program. They may give you no money, or not enough, or funds only for community college."
Warner points out a surprising provision in another enlistment document - a disclosure given by the government's enlistment agreement to those young people who come to them as prospective young warriors. "Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay, allowances, benefits and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces regardless of the provisions of this enlistment/reenlistment document," the enlistment contract states.
"People really should think about what giving their information, or the kids' information, to the recruiters can mean now," said Warner.
"One Oregon man has already lived through this nightmare, and tried to challenge it as unfair," said Warner. "He is Emiliano Santiago. But he lost his fight in an Oregon federal district court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals." Santiago served honorably, and made it to sergeant. Even though his eight-year stint with the Army National Guard was completed, he was sent to Afghanistan, under the military's "stop-loss policy," Warner said. The appeals court found there had been no breach of contract because of provision allowing the government to change the enlistment contract's terms.
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