January 25 2009 / NNOMY / National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

There are many different ways to go about organizing in high schools.  The most important aspect is gaining access to a school.  Your group should utilize as many tactics as possible to reach young people.  The topics listed on the other pages are projects/campaigns that your group can take on within a school.  The following are some basic ideas for folks to do in schools, especially if you are just starting out.  And because we cannot stress this enough, young people relate and respond to their peers more than anyone else, student/youth involvement and leadership is ESSENTIAL!!

Here are some ideas and tips to get you started, and then just get creative:

• Gaining access to a school

• Tabling/leafleting

• Student organizing

• Classroom presentations

• After school programs

• College prep workshops

Equal Access (in schools)

By law, school administrations must allow both the military and people that are offering alternatives to the military to have space and time in the school.  This means that if the military recruiters are in a school for 5 hours per month, then you are allowed just as much time.  Sometimes, the school uses the excuse that by allowing college recruiters in, they are balancing the military recruiters. You could argue that you are providing an alternative perspective, the truth about military service (especially if you bring veterans), the things recruiters do not tell students and more options than just the military or college.

Once again, many administrations do not know that you are afforded these rights by law and will make you prove it to them before allowing you in.  In that case, you should site (and bring a copy of) No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 Section 9528.  Most organizers utilize this right by setting up a table with CR literature in the lunchroom/lobby during lunchtime.   See Equal Access for more info.

Tabling/Leafletting

Leafleting at high schools is a very effective counter-recruitment activity. Students can do it inside their schools (see info on students' rights), while non-students can do it on public property near school entrances (see leafleting guide).

When leafleting is done as students arrive in the morning, it can stimulate discussions in classrooms throughout the school day. It's also a good way to reach and empower students who might become involved in further counter-recruitment activities.

Here are some quick tips to make the best out of your efforts

• Its about education – offer info, answer questions

• Ask questions - encourage dialogue, critical thinking

• Don’t bore them, be excited, passionate,

• Say something when you hand students flyers

Things you should always have:

• Opt Out forms

• Info/stories from veterans

• Alternatives to the military (college, job training, activities)

• Flyers for upcoming events

• A way to get in touch with your group

• YOUNG PEOPLE!!!

Good to have, FUN stuff:

• Gimmies, goodies

• Candy

• Pens

• Key chains

• Having a competition

• Artistic expression

• Music

Student organizing

Start a club to do CR work.  Talk to your friends or folks you think might be interested in participating.  Have a meeting with a few people to start the process.  Click here to get info on a High School Peace Club Starter Kit!  (link to South Bay Youth for Peace page in database)

Assign tasks like:

• Find out about the rules regarding clubs/organizations at your school

• Begin the process of starting a club (paperwork if necessary, etc.)

• Make a flyer about the group

• Make copies of the flyer

• Pass out flyers

• Hang flyers up at the school, around town at libraries, events, stores, etc.

• Get an advisor - talk to some teachers who might be supportive and are willing to help out (make copies, reserve meeting rooms, talk to the administration, offer advice, etc.)

Classroom presentations/discussions

Find some teachers who would be willing to have someone speak to their classes.  Ask teachers to ask other teachers they know.  Suggest it to instructors who teach history, government, current events, psychology, sociology, etc.  Invite veterans to come to and talk about their experiences in the military.  Invite counter recruitment activists to talk about their work.  Invite after school program coordinators, sports coaches, art instructors, college and financial aid professionals, etc.  Schedule discussions about the military, war, peace, human rights, etc.  Show films followed by discussions.  

After school programs/community involvement

Help promote and provide students with opportunities for community involvement, being part of a team, leadership skills, using energy and talents for positivity and healthiness.   Some ideas are sports, tutoring, art workshops/training (music, poetry, paining, theatre), mentoring and clubs (book, chess, singing).  Some of these programs are offered in the community, while some of them you might have to initiate and/or coordinate.  There are also community service programs that students might be interested in (such as reading to kids, highway cleanup, working with the elderly, etc.)

College information sessions/workshops

You could invite a representative from a college to lead, or have anyone who has been in college (especially a young person) info sessions/workshops on college including some of the following topics:

• What is college for? Why go to college?

• What is college like? The basics

• Can I afford college?  How to get financial aid

• Figuring out what to study/Choosing a major

Click here to learn about The California Student Opportunity and Access Program which is instrumental in improving the flow of information about postsecondary education and financial aid while raising the achievement levels of low-income, elementary and secondary school students or geographic regions with documented low-eligibility or college participation rates, and who are first in their families to attend college. Want flyers/brochures?  Click here to go to the resources page .

January 25 2009 / NNOMY / National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

Equal Access refers to the lawful activity of counter-recruitment in our high schools.  It is explained in the 1986 ruling in San Diego Committee v. Governing Board of Grossmont Union High School District [790 F.2d 1471 (9th Cir.1986)].  In simple terms, equal access rests on the principle that once a government agency creates a forum for expressive activity on a controversial topic, access to the forum can be limited only so long as it is reasonable not a façade for viewpoint-based discrimination. If the presentation of one point of view has been allowed, the forum must also be opened to those with an opposing view.  See.  “Using Equal Access to Counter Militarism in High Schools ”

 The above document explains the following:
 
In the last decade, and in particular since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there has been increasing concern over the growing presence of the military in K-12 public schools.  Groups in cities all around the country have formed to address the problem on a grassroots level, with more students, parents, educators, military veterans, and other individuals getting involved.  In the effort to counter the military in secondary schools, three main organizing models have developed:

• Educational activities organized in schools by students themselves (e.g. clubs and campaigns)
  
  

• Educational outreach conducted by students and/or non-students outside of official school channels (e.g. by leafleting on public property at school entrances)
  
  

• Attempts by non-students to get information to young people through the school system itself.  For non-student organizations pursuing the latter approach, the greatest challenge has been gaining access to schools.  

    
    The military has maximized its presence in the educational system by seeking the widest possible access to classrooms, career centers, counseling offices, student records, student newspapers and even elementary school playgrounds.  For those wishing to counter the influence of the military, it is logical to seek ways to communicate with students on a similar scale.  Clearly, it is not possible for community groups to match the resources of the military, but it IS possible to conduct an effective educational campaign once counter-recruitment activists get inside schools with their alternative message.  In addition CR activists are concurrently providing specific information about higher education, jobs, apprenticeships and service options.


  Resources

• Orgs

• Campaigns/projects – (leafleting description and link to the page)
  * CCCO's Military Out of Our Schools Campaign
  * Not Your Soldier Action Camps
  * Students pass on Uncle Sam

• School board policies
  * Equal Access - Legal Precedents for Providing Alternative Information About the Military
  * Getting a Voice at Your Public School
  * Ninth CIRCUIT COURT RULING:. EQUAL ACCESS TO HIGH SCHOOLS (PDF)

• Stories from the ground
  * 'Counter-recruiters' shadowing the military
  * Peace Activists Plan to Counter Recruiting by Military in Palm Beach Schools
  * Counter-Recruitment Deserves Higher Priority on the Peace Agend

• NCLB
  * NCLB says schools must give military recruiters access (PDF)
  * At a Glance: NCLB and High Schools (PDF)
  * On Recruiting and Law: Frequently Asked Questions

February 02, 2009 / Education Not Arms Coalition

School Board Vote Ends Weapons Training

On February 10, 2009, San Diego Unified banned rifle training by the military’s high school JROTC program. Eleven schools with rifle ranges were affected.

Before the board meeting, 200 student activists and supporters rallied and heard speeches outside the board auditorium (see PHOTOS). When the weapons training issue came up for discussion, students testified in front of the board about the zero-tolerance double standard, the concern about continued violence in the community and the need for academic programs rather than weapons training. One school board member said that in all of his many years on the board, this was the most impressive student effort he had ever seen.

The resolution passed by a vote of 3-2. It immediately banned all marksmanship training activities, whether they occur on or off campus, and required that on-campus shooting ranges be converted for other educational uses by the beginning of the next school year. On Feb. 24, the school board discussed the matter again and decided marksmanship activities could continue until the end of the current (2008-2009) school year. After that, the ban will be implemented.

High school students have played a central role in the effort to end weapons training. They educated and mobilized their peers, and got support from teachers, parents, community and college groups. Participants first came together in 2007 as the Education Not Arms Coalition. The coalition has worked to convince the San Diego Unified School District to:

• stop placing students in military science (JROTC) classes without their informed consent.
• stop telling parents and students that the class will help them qualify for college, when it won’t.
• ban weapons training and JROTC gun ranges in San Diego schools.

The first two goals were achieved by a superintendent’s directive in the fall of 2008, the third by school board action on Feb. 10, 2009.

The coalition will continue to monitor implementation of the new JROTC enrollment requirements and remain vigilant in case there are attempts to reverse the ban on marksmanship training.

Facts:

· Military science courses (i.e., JROTC) are taught in many San Diego County high schools. They are not required to include weapons training, yet many of them have high-powered pellet gun ranges on school grounds. This is despite zero-tolerance policy on weapons in schools and community efforts to teach young people NOT to use weapons.

· Some students are being placed in military science courses without their or their parents' informed consent, violating Calif. Education Code sec. 51750.

· To get the minimum number (100) of students required for JROTC, school staff are sometimes telling students that military science will help them qualify for college. In fact, JROTC credits do NOT count toward meeting admission requirements for Calif. colleges and universities.

· In some schools, students are being denied adequate academic electives—like advance placement, honors, AVID and A-G courses—while being steered toward JROTC. This amounts to tracking students into the military since, despite denials by JROTC, the Dept. of Defense has testified to Congress that it is a highly effective military recruiting program.

We are a coalition of parents, students, teachers and community activists who believe that weapons training should not be sponsored by our schools and should be removed from military science courses. This same action was taken in 1999 by the Chicago school system, which has the largest JROTC program in the country. We also want school districts to comply with California law and make sure that students are not placed in military science courses without informed consent from students and parents. We want students and parents to be correctly informed that JROTC credit does not count toward California college admission requirements, and we want students to have adequate alternatives that actually can help them get into college. 

Campaign Information

February 10, 2009 photos: Students and community supporters finally convince school board to end weapons training

February 10, 2009 video: Video of the school board hearing on weapons training in schools. Hearing begins a few minutes into this 2nd part of the meeting video (at 2:51:19): https://youtu.be/pMdfKlJvFqA?t=2h51m19sl

October 14, 2008 photos: Large protest against campus gun ranges at school board meeting

The Militarization of Our Youth: They're Targeting You, a PowerPoint slide show, created by ninth grade students at Lincoln H.S. in San Diego (2.9 MB)

Coalition rebuttal to claims made by JROTC and school district personnel, May 27, 2008

April 22, 2008 school board meeting audio:

Part 1--Board member de Beck makes proposal re. JROTC (MP3, 9.6 MB)
Part 2--Community testifies (MP3, 18.9 MB)
Part 3--Mission Bay HS Principal Seelos is allowed extra time to speak after agenda item was supposedly closed. (MP3, 10.6 MB)

April 22, 2008 photos: School board meeting and large protest

March 26, 2008 student walk-out at Mission Bay High Walk-out organized by students to support peace walk by Guerrero Azteca Project for Peace and protest military recruiting and JROTC

March 11, 2008 school board meeting audio: Testimony by Lincoln and Mission Bay high school students and a parent asking the board to remove weapons ranges from schools and stop tracking students into JROTC (mp3, 8.5 mins.)

March 11, 2008 photos: Protest at San Diego Unified School Board Meeting

Feb. 12, 2008: Video of school board meeting testimony [video no longer available from SDUSD]

Feb. 12, 2008 photos: Protest at San Diego Unified School Board Meeting

Petition presented to San Diego School Board (English and Spanish)

Coalition's Feb. 2008 general flier in PDF file format (English and Spanish)

Local Articles/Media:

A Cool Elective You Can't Get Out Of, San Diego Weekly Reader, June 4, 2008

Scheduling of Military-Linked Classes Spurs Debate, Voice of San Diego, May 2, 2008

Students Say They're Getting Placed into Junior ROTC Against Their Will, Kpbs Radio, April 28, 2008

San Diego School Boards Allow Air-Rifle Training to Continue, KPBS Radio, April 24, 2008. San Diego Unified’s JROTC air-rifle training program will continue to take place at local high schools despite mounting community pressure to end the practice.

Mission Bay High School Students Protest ROTC Program, KPBS Radio, March 26, 2008. Student was placed in JROTC not by choice.

Struggle Heats up in San Diego Schools Over Military Training Programs, Draft NOtices article, Jan.-March 2008.

Parents Mounting Campaign to End ROTC Program, KPBS Radio, Jan. 14, 2008

Other related links:

'Students First In Line' Program To Offer Job Training At Needy Schools, video, The Onion. The logical extension of military training in schools (satire).

Pols stunned shooting range operating at high school, Boston Herald, Jan. 5, 2008

Chicago Schools End Riflery Program, AP Nov. 9, 1999

California Education Code, section 51750 (military science), bans involuntary enrollment in JROTC.

Cal Grant eligibility standard excludes JROTC grades (page 2)

The Recruiting Function of JROTC, excerpts from official documents and Congressional reports

January - March 2008 / Paula Hoffman / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Aren’t shooting ranges on high school campuses in complete contradiction to the “zero weapons tolerance” rules? Is JROTC, in reality, a well-planned, back-door recruitment tool that targets vulnerable young people? Do parents and students have a clear understanding of what JROTC is all about? Are students being offered fair and equal educational support by school counselors, administrators and teachers? These are the issues being tackled by a coalition of parents, students, teachers and community organizations in San Diego, California.

The new Marine Corps JROTC program at Mission Bay High School opened in September. During the summer, Principal Cheryl Seelos and strongly pro-military board members pushed for its initiation. MBHS was one of the few schools in San Diego never to have had JROTC. Now, as hundreds of low-income Latino students are bused in daily, the military sees fresh opportunities to brainwash and recruit. Despite passionate speeches by many opponents of JROTC at two summer school board meetings, the final vote was four to one in favor of JROTC, with board member John de Beck casting the only nay vote. Subsequently, picketing and leafleting outside the school during class registration in August was the beginning of outreach efforts to inform students and parents of what was happening.

At the same time, the doors of the beautiful rebuilt Lincoln High School campus were about to open — and so were the doors of its JROTC program. Within the first few weeks of school, it was observed by UJIMA Institute for Civic Responsibility founder Mshinda Nyofu that Lincoln High was quickly building a new shooting range to go with its JROTC program. The absurdity was obvious. Why are we teaching students to shoot and carry arms on campus, even as we attempt to deal with the painful on-campus and off-campus violence affecting communities everywhere? UJIMA began raising questions about the issue in the community around Lincoln High.

In late September, the San Diego County-based Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (Project YANO) held its annual community advisory meeting. Since it had recently been involved in organizing opposition to the new JROTC unit at MBHS, a discussion was begun at the Project YANO meeting about how to address the concerns shared by people affiliated with both Lincoln and Mission Bay High. In October and November, the hard work started. Parent outreach and education began with dozens of long phone calls. Then there were meetings, e-mails, more meetings, more e-mails, community forums, more e-mails. During September, October and November, meetings were held in Barrio Logan’s Mercado Apartments Community Room, at a Pacific Beach taco shop, at Chicana Perk Coffee House, at Memorial Academy (middle school), at Lincoln High, at Tubman-Chavez Community Center, at Jacobs Center. Several of these locations hosted multiple meetings.

At these often three-hour meetings, parents and students came to understand the realities of JROTC, shooting ranges and recruitment. They became outraged each time new testimony by parents and students was heard. There were cases of misrepresentation and lies by JROTC instructors, manipulation and pressure by counselors to encourage enrollment in JROTC, changes in student behavior noted by parents of JROTC students, cases of moving students from college prep programs such as AVID and Advanced Placement into JROTC, and limitation of alternatives to JROTC through the reduction of college prep/A-G classes (A-G classes are necessary for acceptance to California state universities).

The coalition that has formed has agreed to focus on three issues: 1) the shooting ranges, 2) violations of California Education Code 51750 (prohibiting involuntary enrollment in military science), and 3) the inadequate offering of college prep classes and academic electives that students could take instead of JROTC. Many outreach strategies have already been tried, some successful and others not. The high school leafleting project of San Diego Coalition for Peace & Justice has been to both schools with information on JROTC. An attempt was made by students at MBHS to use a survey to document how many students were placed into JROTC without requesting it, but there were problems circulating the survey. Students hoping to organize on-campus clubs around the JROTC issues have found it to be a difficult, energy-consuming task. A parent/principal meeting was held at MBHS and a letter of protest was presented. The principal, after informing parents that a shooting range is indeed being built at MBHS, flippantly dismissed their concerns regarding the issues. A well-written letter addressing the Lincoln shooting range was written by the UJIMA Institute and signed by several well-respected community members. It was delivered to the principal in September. Coalition members are still waiting for a meeting to be scheduled with the principal. The press has been contacted on several occasions, resulting in an article in El Diario, a Channel 10 TV news report about shooting ranges (edited in favor of marksmanship training), and a parent interview on Televisa Channel 17. Currently, a petition is being drafted that will be circulated and taken to a future school board meeting. Parent outreach continues to be crucial and challenging, and new ideas are being explored.

In December, the determination and stamina of this new coalition was put to the test. A group of approximately ten people waited from 2:00 p.m. until 10:30 p.m. to get their chance to address the San Diego Board of Education regarding the JROTC/shooting range issue. One student, two parents and one community activist spoke. Board reaction was generally dismissive, although there was some attentiveness when the board heard a mother talk about the negative psychological effects of JROTC on her son. The goal of the coalition is to have its concerns placed on the formal school board agenda instead of having to address the issue during brief public comment periods. Preliminary meetings with board members are currently being organized to that end.

There are positive signs indicating that organizing around this issue could mushroom to a level that the school board will not be able to ignore. Attendance at some of the community gatherings has grown rapidly and reached 50 people at one meeting. There is a remarkable amount of energy among parents and others who are committed to pursuing the issue, and parents of students at schools beyond the original two are beginning to show interest. It’s also significant that most of the parents, students and others who have become involved are from African American and Latino communities, where the impact of recruiting and militarization is especially acute.

One factor contributing to the organizing progress made to date has been the involvement of groups like the UJIMA Institute, which has strong connections to anti-violence work in the African American community. Teachers have also been an important conduit for alerting parents and supporting student involvement.

Another major factor helping the development of this campaign is the general groundwork done on the issue over the past 20 years by the locally based counter-recruitment organization Project YANO. YANO's research on JROTC and its previous experience with the school board has helped the current campaign get a head start, and its resources are helping to stimulate awareness of the broader problem of militarism in schools.

June 4, 2008 / Dorian Hargrove / San Diego Reader

Eduardo Ochoa teaches social justice at Lincoln High School in Chollas View. Ochoa is also a coordinator for the Advancement Via Individual Determination program, or AVID, as everyone calls it, a high school elective designed to help midlevel students prepare for college and meet college eligibility requirements.

During this school year, six of Ochoa’s students dropped the program in favor of the military science program, the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC. According to Ochoa, military science instructors told the students that their class was easier and would also help students get into college.

Across town, at Mission Bay High School in Pacific Beach, 11th-grader Anay Barajas was placed into the newly offered Marines JROTC class at the beginning of the school year. She says she had no idea what the class was about, but when she saw it involved drills and marching, she wanted out and into the AVID and Spanish classes that she had picked as her electives. “I went to my counselor,” Barajas says, “and she told me, ‘Yeah, we’ll call you in,’ but they never did. So after two weeks I had to get my dad to call, and they finally changed me.”

It wasn’t the end of Barajas’s experience with the military program, as was first reported in online publication Voice of San Diego. “So the second term, we got all-new classes and everything, and they put me in the class again! I was, like, ‘Wow, I already got out of the class once. Why would they put me in it again?’ ”

Ochoa and Barajas weren’t the only ones in San Diego’s public high schools who found the military science program disturbing this year. Other students and teachers have objected to the course and its policies. The complaints have led community activist groups like Encinitas-based Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities, known as Project YANO, to form the Education Not Arms Coalition. According to Rick Jahnkow, a founder of both the coalition and Project YANO, support has grown, and over 150 people showed up at a San Diego Unified School District board meeting in early May to show their opposition to the military science course.

26 November 2007 / Pat Elder  / National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

A ninth grader in a suburban Washington DC classroom is delighted to be excused from Algebra class to spend a half hour shooting a life-like 9 MM pistol and lobbing explosive ordinance from an M1A2 Abrams tank simulator. At the same time 3,000 miles away in La Habra, California, a 15 year-old girl is released from English class to squeeze off rounds from a very real looking M-16 rifle. The kids thoroughly enjoy the experience, especially the part about getting out of class.

The two students have experienced the Army's Adventure Van, a 60-foot, 30-ton 18-wheeler with several interactive exhibits that bring an adrenaline rush and glorify weaponry and combat.  The Army's 19 vans frequent various community events and two thousand schools a year, generating more than 63,000 recruiter leads. In addition to the Adventure Van, the Army has three other 18-wheelers for recruiting purposes. The Aviation Recruiting Van contains an AH 64 Helicopter flight simulator and an interactive air warrior and weapons display.

The American Soldier Adventure Van has an interactive air/land warrior display and a future warrior display. The Army Marksmanship Trainer has an interactive rifle range.

In addition to the fleet of 18-wheelers, the Army has four RockWalls, the popular rock climbing wall for youth. The Army also brings machine gun toting humvees, tanks and other military vehicles on high school campuses to enhance their recruiting efforts. Both the Army and Air Force have their own recruiting motorcycles.

The interactive theatrical weapons simulators provide a mesmerizing experience for many teens, captivated by the awesome accuracy and power of the Army's killing machines. The banter between adolescent and Army recruiter is empowering for the Maryland teenager as he holds an absolutely frightening replica of the cold, metallic 8.5 pound M-16-A-2. "This is awesome!" The recruiter explains, "The weapon is a 5.56 mm caliber, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed rifle, with a rotating bolt. It is constructed of steel, aluminum and composite plastics."

Firing the simulator produces a minor kick to the weapon and a small red dot is projected on a bull's eye target about 20 feet away. The shooter is accurate from left to right on the target, but he's hitting it a few inches below bull's eye. His recruiter explains that soldiers shooting the M-16-A-2 must aim high in order to place shots on the desired target, especially at close range. "Cool!" is the reply.

Despite protests by parents and civic groups across the country, the Army defends its right to enter high school campuses with their high-tech mobile cinemas. Kelly Rowe, public affairs officer for the Baltimore Recruiting Battalion, compared the Army Adventure Van to efforts by colleges to recruit students. "I don't think it's any different from an athlete who gets 10 letters saying, 'Come play for us,' " Rowe said.

Of course, these military vehicles go beyond the access required by Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act, which states that military recruiters are to have the same access as college and career recruiters.

The Air Force and the Navy also have fleets of trucks and vans that visit high schools. The Air Force has a Raptor Trailer, with a miniature replica of the Air Force's newest fighter aircraft and two video game stations that put children behind the joystick piloting an F-22 fighter that's coming to the aid of a friendly F-4 under attack by hostile MiG-29s. Five Navy Exhibit Centers include a "Nuclear Power Van," and an "America's Sea Power Van."

Some school districts, like the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Montgomery County, Maryland Public Schools have policies that forbid military vehicles on public school campuses.

If you see a military vehicle at your high school, let your local school officials know of your concerns. These vehicles don't belong in our schools.

Pat Elder is a member of the Coordinating Committee of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

Feb. 19, 2007 / Sonia Nazario / Los Angeles Times

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 teachers 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 Los Angeles 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 college.

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 Week, 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 courses. 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. Those classes 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 on vacation.

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.

He 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 get 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.

sonia.nazario@latimes.com

Spring 2006 / Sylvia McGauley / rethinking schools

“Will you please write me a letter of recommendation for the Navy, Ms. McGauley? You’re my best class.” Thanh was enrolled in the recently established Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) at our high school and he, like many of my students, was enamored with the military’s alluring promises of a magic carpet ride away from poverty and uncertainty.

My heart ripped as I listened to Thanh’s plea. I want to do what is best for my kids. I want to support and honor them in making their own informed decisions. But, given the impact of JROTC at our school, I felt very uneasy about the balance of information students like Thanh were receiving about enlistment in the U.S. military. After much discussion with Thanh, I wrote an honest letter, emphasizing his sensitive poetic nature and his commitment to fairness. The Navy eagerly welcomed him.

The sprawling campus of Reynolds High School (RHS), the second largest high school in Oregon, rests atop a ridge at the entrance to the scenic Columbia River Gorge in tiny Troutdale, 17 miles east of downtown Portland. When I first started teaching here 23 years ago, Reynolds was an almost all white, working-class, conservative, sub-rural community, culturally distinct from its larger urban neighbor. As Portland has become more gentrified, lower rents have attracted numerous low-income families—immigrant, African American, Latina/o, and white. Today, the Reynolds School District is a high-poverty, culturally diverse district with two of the poorest elementary schools in the state—perfect prey for military recruiters who win points for filling the coffers of the poverty draft.

During the Vietnam War era, much was written about JROTC’s role in teaching military training; today JROTC high school (and even middle school) programs incorporate a broader curricular agenda and are expanding rapidly. Yet, within the education community, little has been written about the implications and effects of JROTC in schools.

The potent presence of the military at RHS shines a floodlight on educational inequity. One sees college recruiters walking the halls of affluent Lincoln High School near downtown Portland. At RHS, college recruiters are few and far between, but military recruiters, JROTC commanders, and ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) testers clamor to establish daily contact with potential recruits.

All too often I hear the refrain: “Well, the military is a good option—or perhaps the only option—for many kids.” As educators, we must ask critical questions: Whose interests do we ultimately serve by welcoming the military into our poorer schools? Is it really in any of our students’ best interests? What are the qualifications of the instructors? What does the JROTC curriculum actually teach our students?

JROTC 101

The National Defense Act of 1916 established JROTC to increase the U.S. Army’s readiness in the face of World War I. The ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964 directed the secretaries of each military branch to establish and maintain JROTC units for their respective branches. In the 1990s, the programs began expanding rapidly throughout the country. Today, there are approximately 3,500 Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard JROTC units in schools in the United States and its territories. Last year, Congress instructed the secretary of defense to expand further and to report on “efforts to increase distribution of units in educationally and economically deprived areas.”

JROTC is not about education. But by housing recruiters and JROTC in public schools and offering them carte blanche privileges, we provide them a cloak of legitimacy. Militarism was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “giant triplets” of societal destruction (along with racism and extreme materialism), yet today it appears as a legitimate component of the educational system—most often at underfunded schools.

At our school, JROTC is an actual school within a school, one that offers four levels of classes for which students earn full credits. It meets state requirements for career training. At RHS and many other schools, it is accepted as a substitute for physical education. Our JROTC instructors have also given make-up credit for writing and study skills classes, using online programs in the main JROTC classroom. The RHS program is directed by Brian James, a retired colonel from the Oregon Army National Guard, who tells me he looks forward to being able to offer health, history, and government credits as well.

Promoting Gun Culture at School

RHS has embraced school-based initiatives, including a commitment to restorative justice and peer mediation, that teach and encourage students to resolve conflicts nonviolently. JROTC’s militarism runs counter to these programs. Schools across the country are employing a variety of methods to curb bullying and violent incidents, create safe learning environments, and teach peaceful means of conflict resolution. JROTC’s introduction of weapons training, its partnership with the NRA to sponsor marksmanship matches, and its modeling of authoritarian militaristic solutions to problems contradict the schools’ stated opposition to violence.

Critics have been successful in getting JROTC to discontinue the use of live weapons in schools on a national level, but units continue to use air rifles for target practice at RHS and numerous other schools. Organizing makes a difference. In San Diego, for example, the Education Not Arms Coalition, made up of students, teachers, parents, and community groups, successfully removed target practice with air rifles from San Diego JROTC programs in 2009.

One School’s JROTC Story

In 2011, a former RHS principal, with the support of the school board and many staff members, laid down the red carpet for JROTC to create a program at our school. The JROTC contract requires the hiring of a minimum of two retired officers for the first 150 students enrolled as cadets. After 150, another instructor must be hired for each additional increment of 100 cadets. James and other retired military personnel teach courses in military science, called Leadership Education Training (LET), during the school day.

Three full-time JROTC instructors lead 13 sections of LET 1, 2, and 3 to 280 students. Last year, a new principal tried to make the JROTC class loads comparable to other teachers’ loads by laying off one of the commanders. Although the effort failed, James says he does not plan to ask for additional staffing at this time: “Even though I won that fight and she’s gone, it’s political. I’m a laid-back kind of guy, but if you push me into a corner, I’ll fight back and I’ll win. . . . I brought in the superintendent and the school board, the mayor of Troutdale, and the commander at Fort Lewis. We’re all still here, and she’s gone.”

James adds that they really should have a fourth officer since their “job is bigger than a teacher’s. We teach, mentor, and coach kids, and we take them on excursions. We take them to Florida and other places for rifle competitions.” Every teacher I know teaches, mentors, and coaches students; and if we had the Pentagon’s money, we would take them on many more excursions.

At RHS today, student loads for most non-JROTC teachers hover between 180 and 220 students (more than twice the load of the JROTC instructors) with class sizes in the 30s and low 40s. JROTC cadets often take LET in place of physical education, and a single PE teacher would normally support 250 or more students. If JROTC were eliminated at RHS, the district would hire fewer than half as many teachers to replace them—although it would be wonderful for our students if we, too, had student loads of 70 to 90. In general, the federal subsidy covers less than half the total salaries and none of the employment taxes or benefits for JROTC instructors. Schools wind up using extra money from their budgets to, in effect, subsidize a high school military training/recruiting program for the Pentagon.

JROTC instructors are not certified in the same way as other school district teachers. In some states they are not required to have more than a GED (although the commander must have at least a BA). Generally, the military decides who is qualified to be a JROTC instructor and then presents them to the school district for hiring. According to James, each of the three JROTC instructors at RHS has at least a BA. He says getting certified to teach in the program is “a double whammy because we have to be certified by both the state of Oregon and the Army.” (There is no required teacher training; Oregon simply requires JROTC instructors to take a test on the history of discrimination in Oregon.)

Teaching Militarism, Not Critical Thinking

The Reynolds LET 1 course description apprises students that they will learn “leadership, follower, and citizenship skills.” JROTC is military training. Instead of teaching toward a just and peaceful world, military training emphasizes dominance and nationalism. In fact, once students enlist in the military, they are no longer guided by the United States Constitution. Rather they are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The Pentagon contracts with Pearson to write JROTC curriculum, including social studies, health, and leadership textbooks. The local school district has no control over their content. No process exists for regular certified staff to review JROTC materials for appropriateness, accuracy, or conformity to educational standards.

Teachers focused on social justice are critical of the historical perspectives of many mainstream textbooks. But, because the JROTC curriculum is focused on developing leaders for the U.S. military, there is a specific danger to these texts. For example, Lesson 2 of the LET 3 textbook is titled “Ethical Choices, Decisions, and Consequences.” The authors compare and contrast the Vietnam and Iraq Wars. They state that the sole cause of the Vietnam War was containment of communism: “American military personnel began deploying to Vietnam in 1954 to strengthen the country against communist North Vietnam.” The authors cite then-President Johnson’s 1964 statements that North Vietnam attacked a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin as the impetus for the broader war, ignoring overwhelming evidence from declassified documents that there was no such attack.

The narrative continues: “The United States went to war in Iraq as part of its global war on terrorism.” In the same paragraph, the authors introduce Osama bin Laden and explain the creation of al-Qaeda “to dislodge American forces in the Middle East.” The implication is clear—Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were working in cahoots to attack the United States. To further cement this alleged relationship, which did not exist, they quote George W. Bush: “Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.” Nowhere in the case study or various historical timelines do the authors indicate that both Hussein and bin Laden were at one time strongly supported by the United States. Describing the arguments for the second Gulf War, the text notes a “lack of indisputable evidence” (as opposed to the presence of manufactured false evidence) that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

In outlining alternatives to these military invasions, the authors identify the only potential consequences as unacceptably negative. In the case of Vietnam, they cite the “domino theory,” which predicted one country after another becoming communist threats to the United States. In the case of Iraq, they quote then-President Bush without additional commentary: “We cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

Lesson 3 is on “Global Citizenship Choices, Decisions, and Consequences.” The authors discuss intelligence as a tool of U.S. foreign policy: “The CIA focuses mostly on countries it thinks might be unfriendly. . . . Sometimes intelligence agencies have helped overturn the government of a country. . . . For example, the CIA took part in overthrowing the government of Salvador Allende. The United States government thought Allende was not favorable to our national interest. Like defense, diplomacy, foreign aid, and trade measures, intelligence is an important tool of foreign policy.” There is no questioning of the U.S.-led coup against the democratically elected president of Chile, nor is there any discussion of the consequences and implications of the decision.

“The greatest purveyor of violence…”

The sole mission of the U.S. military is to prepare for and fight wars. JROTC in middle and high schools, ROTC in colleges, the ASVAB test, military partnerships with schools, research and development programs—all are designed as tools for fulfilling this goal. Military recruiters and JROTC personnel are notorious for not disclosing the whole truth and for making seductive promises—verbally and in writing—that can be broken at any time. For example, students and staff are often told that undocumented students will receive legal citizenship papers if they enlist. This is false. By law, undocumented immigrants may not enlist in the U.S. armed forces, or even enroll in JROTC. (Documented immigrants may enlist and can receive citizenship status for doing so if they fulfill all requirements. Last spring Pentagon officials approved a policy that would allow a limited number of undocumented young people “with critical language or medical skills” and who came to the United States as children to enlist in the military, opening a pathway to eventual citizenship.)

JROTC is a component of the U.S. military apparatus, what King called the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”—and nothing about the current world situation would encourage him to modify that statement. As educators, we need to teach students to read the world, to question, and to critically analyze the history of U.S. militarism. And we must get JROTC out of our schools.  

In June, after this article had been accepted for publication, an avid (and apparently mentally unstable) JROTC student at RHS armed himself with a semi-automatic rifle and pistol, a knife, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He fatally shot one student and injured a teacher before police cornered him and he took his own life. This tragedy highlights the importance of closing down programs that feed violent tendencies in vulnerable students and contradict school-based efforts to teach nonviolent conflict resolution.

Sylvia McGauley (sylviaalice3@gmail.com) teaches social studies at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon.

January-March 2006 / Rick Jahnkow / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Some important stories have appeared recently about disagreements between military commanders and the Bush administration over whether to begin a significant withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in 2006. A related development is the recent call for an immediate withdrawal by Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). Murtha is a decorated combat veteran who is also considered a military hawk and one of the closest congressional allies of the high-level officer corps.

Peace organizations have been quick to add Murtha’s name to the growing list of those calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but they’ve given scant attention to the true significance of his voice and the very potent implications of stories about military commanders’ dissatisfaction with their mission.

A more in-depth analysis of these developments and related issues can offer some important lessons on how the peace movement can hasten the end of the occupation and move proactively beyond the limited goal of ending one war.

Military Generals and the Peace Movement

For a couple of years now, some of us have been arguing that the turning point for the peace movement will come when it recognizes that counter-recruitment organizing is the most practical way to tangibly affect current U.S. foreign policy.

The argument is based on simple but compelling logic: The Bush administration and conservative-dominated Congress can continue to ignore anti-war demonstrations and other symbolic forms of protest, but they cannot ignore the fact that without enough soldiers, it is impossible to sustain a large, long-term occupation in a country like Iraq.

An additional assumption is that if the recruitment climate becomes sufficiently hostile, the military leadership will foresee serious, long-term damage to both the functionality and influence of their institution and will act to protect its interests. The combined criticism of military leaders and their allies in Congress could then produce a crisis that would force an accelerated withdrawal from Iraq and also diminish the likelihood of other U.S. invasions in the region. In essence, an “Iraq syndrome” would replace the deceased “Vietnam syndrome.”

In recent months, some elements of this equation have begun to come together. After an ominous shortfall in first-time enlistments last fiscal year, re-enlistment rates are now falling below quota, and some parts of the armed forces, especially the Army, continue to fall behind in overall recruiting. The prospects for turning this trend around look extremely poor for 2006, and according to reported comments by military insiders, the Pentagon is beginning to panic. This is apparently forcing the Bush administration to budge on its “stay the course” approach and begin talking about troop reductions in the near future.

Journalists Paul Richter and Tyler Marshall wrote the following in a Los Angeles Times article titled “U.S. Starts Laying Groundwork for Significant Troop Pullout From Iraq”:

Some analysts believe the potential long-term damage to the armed forces, not political pressure, could be the decisive factor for Bush and his advisors.

Andrew Krepinevich, a former Pentagon official who heads the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent defense research group in Washington, argues that these strains have become a key factor informing administration thinking.

Unlike the Vietnam era, when the military had a nearly endless supply of draftees, the Iraq experience has sharply reduced the flow of recruits into the volunteer armed forces and attrition rates are alarmingly high, Krepinevich noted.

Other factors, such as federal restrictions on the frequency of National Guard deployments, also limit available personnel.

This summer, differences between the White House and some military commanders over troop reductions were the result of these problems, analysts believe. Although divisions remain within the administration, there are increasing signs that Bush may be calculating that a faster drawdown carries fewer long-term risks.

“I think the administration will yield to the reality of an Army that is apparently beginning to buckle under the strain of these long-term deployments,” Krepinevich said.

The problem for military leaders wishing to express themselves publicly about this issue is that as long as they are still commissioned officers, they are discouraged by military convention and law from doing anything that could be seen as undermining the authority of their commander-in-chief, George W. Bush. If they wish to avoid legal and professional risks for speaking out, they have to find indirect ways to communicate their criticisms. This, in fact, is what some Pentagon insiders say was being done through Rep. Murtha. As noted by Alexander Cockburn in a piece posted at CounterPunch.org, “The immense significance of Rep. John Murtha's November 17 speech calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq is that it signals mutiny in the U.S. senior officer corps.” (See “The Revolt of the Generals,” Counter Punch, Dec. 3, 2005.)

Included in Murtha’s speech was the following statement, undoubtedly based on briefings he received from his Pentagon confidants:

The future of our military is at risk. Our military and our families are stretched thin. Many say the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on a third deployment. Recruitment is down even as the military has lowered its standards. They expect to take 20 percent category 4, which is the lowest [intelligence] category, which they said they'd never take. They have been forced to do that to try to meet a reduced quota.

One thing the Army has done to temporarily try to keep the recruiting crisis from snowballing is lower its recruiting quotas for the early part of fiscal year 2006 (33% less than the same period in 2005). This and the acceptance of larger numbers of less qualified recruits have allowed it, so far, to claim success in meeting its quotas; but it is really only a temporary public relations move, since the reduced numbers will have to be made up later in the year. One can only assume that the Army is hoping that the recruiting climate will change by then, and more young people will be willing to enlist. But short of another major attack on U.S. soil, the only thing that is likely to bring such a change is a significant withdrawal of troops from the war zone.

The Peace Movement’s Perceptions of the Issue

All of this is important for the peace movement to understand because it corrects the simplistic assumption often made on the Left that Bush, Cheney and the neocons are totally in control and will have their way. As this view holds, the occupation of Iraq will last at least a decade, Iran and Syria will be attacked, we'll probably have a draft, and, on the extreme side, some even say fascism will be the inevitable result. However, the reality illustrated by the differences between the generals and politicians is that the U.S. government is not as monolithic as many people think, and the power structure has factions that are often seriously at odds with each other.

As we are seeing right now, there are limits to how far Bush and the neocons can go with their plan for global hegemony when the resources for it are running low. Fortunately, we are in a position to help diminish those resources more IF we apply our own efforts with a sharper focus and stronger commitment to countering military recruiting. It would further limit the government’s capacity to wage other aggressive wars and, at the same time, give the generals more motivation to become, essentially, our short-term allies.

A hopeful sign is that college and community peace activists have been giving military recruiting more attention lately. Over the last two years, for example, membership in a key discussion list for counter-recruitment organizing (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/counter-recruitment) has approximately doubled to 573, and the list's message traffic has tripled to 334 postings per month. All across the country, small grassroots efforts are springing up – sometimes attached to existing anti-war organizations, sometimes independent of any other local group. Their effectiveness can be seen in accounts of schools that have tightened up recruiter access and opened their doors to counter-recruiters, and in reports of more frequent protests at recruiting stations and during recruiter visits to colleges.

Nevertheless, there are two weaknesses in what has developed so far. One is that the peace movement in general, including its financial support base, is still focusing primarily on vigils, rallies and other symbolic forms of protest that are not directly related to military recruiting and are having no material effect. And second, among those who are turning their attention to recruiting, many activists see it only as a tactic for opposing the occupation of Iraq, and they would cease their counter-recruitment work as soon as the troops came home.

It is imperative that this issue be given a higher priority and be seen as strategic rather than tactical. The larger context that surrounds it goes well beyond Iraq and relates to, among other things, economic class, race, ethnicity, immigration status and other socio-economic factors that help determine who winds up being sacrificed in our country’s wars. Responding to this aspect of the problem necessitates, for example, compiling information at the grassroots level on employment and educational alternatives that can lessen the pressure on non-affluent youths to join the military. Taking that step, as some of the more thoughtful counter-recruitment groups have done, is an important way to forge links with communities that have traditionally not been reached effectively by the peace movement.

Another important aspect of the problem that needs to be understood and addressed by the peace movement is the ongoing militarization of the educational system that is being driven by the military’s push to recruit. The ideal of democratic, civilian control is literally under assault as our schools are increasingly invaded by programs that teach military values, instead of critical thinking, to future generations of voters and government leaders. Programs like Jr. ROTC have taken over entire high schools in some cities and now have 500,000 students enrolled as “cadets” nationwide. Units of the Young Marines have spread into hundreds of middle schools, and there is a growing network of other military/school partnerships that propagandize students throughout the K-12 system.

Teaching military values in civilian schools is not just grooming a few children to become future soldiers. It is already affecting the general public’s increased acceptance of war as a valid response to the perception of attack. It is numbing the minds of civilians so that they do not ask even the most obvious questions when the government says we must invade another country. It is turning the country further to the right and making it difficult for people to see the direct link between such choices and the lack of healthcare, safe housing, rewarding jobs, and good educations for everyone here at home.

The challenge for the peace movement, then, is to recognize the critical nature of counter-recruitment and the position of strength it offers us if we devote more attention and resources to it. Furthermore, counter-recruitment should be embraced as an important opportunity for addressing the disproportionate impact of war on those who are politically and economically less privileged than the traditional membership of the peace movement. And finally, the full scope of the problem – including the general militarization of schools and youth culture – should be taken up for the long term, not just until the present military crisis subsides. By working as long as it takes to reverse militarization at this level, we can become a proactive peace movement that is capable of preventing war instead of only reacting when it becomes inevitable.

Information sources: Los Angeles Times, November 26, 2005; www.CounterPunch.org; Christian Science Monitor, December 15, 2005.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org)

01 July 2005 / Jorge Mariscal / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD)

It is an axiom among activists working in the area of counter-recruitment that the enlistment contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on. What this means in practical terms is that whatever a recruiter promises to deliver to a new recruit — specific jobs or assignment, length of service, benefits, or even citizenship — can be withdrawn or changed at any time.

Section C, Paragraph 9 of the enlistment contract states: "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."

While this loophole is well known in counter-recruitment circles, it obviously is not something recruiters emphasize to young people and their families. Major David Griesmer, public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command based in Quantico, Virginia, for example, recently described the recruitment process to the San Francisco Chronicle: "If you don't like what you're hearing, you can walk away. And I can tell you that everything is spelled out in a contract when the applicant signs."

But the Pentagon's stand-down of all Army recruitment activities on May 20 is symptomatic of widespread recruiter deception and unethical conduct. More important, the case brought by a National Guard soldier against the Pentagon puts the lie to Major Griesmer's claim and sheds new light on the true nature of the military enlistment contract, a contract that according to a recent court decision is no contract at all.

In Santiago v. Rumsfeld, the curtain concealing the realities of military service is pulled back to reveal the literal meaning of GI (government issue), or the soldier as property. Emiliano Santiago, the young Mexican immigrant who brought the case, was not a political activist and did not oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The son of migrant farm workers, he enlisted in the Oregon National Guard for one of the more intangible reasons young people sign up — the lure of the uniform. He recalls his recruiter telling him that the National Guard would never leave the United States "unless there was World War III."

For almost eight years, the recruiter's partial truth held up for Santiago, even though thousands of National Guard troops already had been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq. With only two weeks left in the Guard, Santiago was ordered to report to Fort Sill where his unit was preparing for deployment to Afghanistan.

Because his term of enlistment was technically over, Santiago decided to challenge the government. Currently more than a dozen soldiers affected by the so-called stop-loss policy have filed similar lawsuits. Between 40,000 and 50,000 active-duty, reserve, and National Guard personnel have had their terms extended under the policy.

Santiago and his attorneys lost the first round in the U.S. District Court in Oregon and immediately appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit. On May 13, 2005, a panel of three judges upheld the lower court's ruling and thereby validated the government's position.

In their opinion, the judges invoked Title 10 § 12305(a) of the U.S. Code, which reads in part: "The President may suspend any provision of law relating to promotion, retirement, or separation applicable to any member of the armed forces who the President determines is essential to the national security of the United States."

According to Santiago's lawyers, such presidential power is granted only when Congress has declared war or a national emergency. President Bush declared a national emergency on September 14, 2001, but Congress has yet to do so. The presidential decree has been renewed each year since 2001.

The 9th Circuit decision underwrites the almost limitless power of the executive branch in national security situations, affirming the government's contention that "there is no basis for the notion that principles of construction drawn from commercial contract disputes can be invoked to transform a vital federal statute into a dead letter, especially in the crucial area of the President's power to command the military and protect this Nation's security."

Of greater interest to counter-recruitment activists are the arguments made about the legal status of military personnel. In both the district court case and the 9th Circuit case, government lawyers argued that contractual obligations did not apply in the Santiago case because upon entering the military the status of a "citizen" shifts to that of "soldier."

Basing its argument on Bell v. United States (1961), itself based on an 1890 decision, the government stipulated: "Enlistment in the armed forces does not constitute merely a bargain between two parties, but effects a change of status by which 'the citizen becomes a soldier.'" Under this new status, "common law contract principles yield to federal statutes and regulations." The government further argued: "The terms of an enlistment contract certainly cannot circumscribe the authority of the President . . . to conduct the nation's military policy."

The 9th Circuit's ruling reiterated that the military enlistment contract "provides notice that changes in federal law — even if inconsistent with the written terms of the contract — would apply" given that "the contract itself specifies that unlisted contingencies may cause an alteration in the agreed upon terms." In short, every recruit who signs an enlistment contract has just signed away his or her fundamental rights as a U.S. citizen.

Acknowledging the "disruption, hardship, and risk that extension of his enlistment is causing Santiago to endure," the 9th Circuit nevertheless upheld the original decision and in effect sent Santiago packing to Afghanistan.

Post-trial comments by the Pentagon spokesmen denied that the purpose of stop-loss orders was to compensate for recent recruitment shortfalls. Rather, argued Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, "It's about teams. . . . I think most Americans would prefer that, even if they're opposed to the war, that they fight together as teams." Apparently, as Emiliano Santiago learned the hard way, the U.S. military is a "team" that recruits young men and women under false pretenses and then never allows them to quit. Santiago's new estimated date of separation from the National Guard is recorded as December 25, 2031. The government has assured him that the date is simply an "administrative convenience."

Information sources: Santiago v. Rumsfeld,9th Cir. 2005; Nina Shapiro, "Stopping 'Stop-Loss,'" Seattle Weekly,March 30-April 5, 2005; Jim Christie, "Appeals court OKs forced military extensions," Washington Post,May 13, 2005.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (http://www.comdsd.org)

01 July 2004 / Rick Jahnkow / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Over 100 activists were present in Philadelphia the weekend of June 25-27 to officially christen the new National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY). Born from a proposal made at the "Stopping War Where It Begins" counter-recruitment conference held a year earlier in Philadelphia, NNOMY is an effort to bring together the growing number of organizations and activists who are working against the militarization of young people in communities across the country. Participating in this first NNOMY conference were people from California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawai'i, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Most of the conference participants represented organizations that have officially become network members or are considering doing so. Approximately 30 local, regional and national groups have joined so far, some of which are: Veterans for Peace, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Youth Activists/Youth Allies (NY City), Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, Pax Christi USA, CHOICES (D.C.), Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (San Diego), American Friends Service Committee, Madison Area Peace Coalition, Teen Peace in Port Townsend (WA), Los Angeles Coalition Opposed to Militarism in Our Schools, Not in Our Name, Resource Center for Non-violence in Santa Cruz (CA), and Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft. Additional memberships are pending from various other organizations.

To promote more effective networking and organizing, caucuses were formed at the conference around issue and identity themes, such as women in the military, Latinos, draft-related issues, rural organizing, people of color, youth of color and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Questioning). To broaden representation in decision-making, caucuses were invited to apply for membership status that is equal to regular organizations, and some were included in a NNOMY steering committee. Ten organizations and six caucuses were unanimously approved for the steering committee, which will make between-meeting decisions that are subject to review by the larger body of voting network members. Also adopted was a proposal from the youth caucus to have at least two steering committee members younger than 25, and to pursue the goal of majority representation by both youth and people of color.

NNOMY will continue to grow and develop plans, but an immediate course was set at the conference to pursue two goals: facilitating further development of organizing and educational resources, and promoting regional training of counter-recruitment organizers. For the near future, conference participants volunteered to collaborate on some specific resource development projects, and regional caucuses met to discuss what they could do to carry out networking and training in their geographical areas. Progress in these and other areas will depend on additional post-conference communication, so the contact information for participants will be incorporated into the Stopping War email list that was established after the national conference held in 2003. Caucuses will have their own communications networks and will, hopefully, continue to work on the special issues that brought them together.

One important facet of NNOMY is its commitment to including and supporting the various communities that are especially affected by military recruiting and the violence of militarism, including people who are victims of the military's homophobia. And since the conference dates overlapped with gay pride celebrations nationally, special materials were given to conference attendees on issues relating to militarism and sexual identity. An exciting music/spoken word event was also organized and hosted by the Attic Youth Center in Philadelphia, one of the few Queer youth centers in the country.

The NNOMY conference itself was co-hosted in Philadelphia by the American Friends Service Committee and Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Conference planning and other tasks were shared by a number of groups that had served as an ad hoc steering committee, but the AFSC Youth and Militarism Program office provided the bulk of the on-site resources and logistical support, including the Friends Center where the conference was held.

It was especially appropriate that the founding meeting of this network occurred in a city where some of the most important revolutionary events occurred in U.S. history and within days of the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. While some of the decisions that went into the formation of the U.S. government over 200 years ago were tragically inconsistent with the ideals of liberty and justice for all, one thing that many of the country's founders got right was their perception that the growth and influence of a large military establishment would undermine civil society and progress toward democracy. Over the last 60 years, this lesson has been largely forgotten, and the traditional controls over the military that were once seen as necessary and even taken for granted have greatly eroded. In addition to the considerable influence that the Pentagon has over government decisions (including economic ones), our most important institutions of socialization, the public schools, are being overrun by people in uniform teaching military values, and popular culture is being saturated with messages that popularize soldiering and war. We are rapidly approaching a point where the long-term effects of militarization will be extremely difficult to reverse. A massive effort is needed to turn the trend around, and NNOMY is a crucial step in that direction.

The conference in Philadelphia was a time of sharing, discussing, strategizing and planning that left us at the end with an important opening to build a movement that speaks to the needs of constituencies that have traditionally not been reached very well by the U.S. peace movement. And because it focuses on interrupting the flow of human resources and challenging the mechanisms of propaganda that are needed to wage war, it is an effort that also offers people an effective way to move from war protest to war resistance, while at the same time working for long-term social transformation.

For more information, contact NNOMY c/o AFSC Youth and Militarism Program, 1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; 215-241-7176; http://www.youthandthemilitary.org.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)

01 March 2004 / Arlene Inouye / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

We gather near Martin Luther King Boulevard, at Manual Arts High School, one of the many heavily recruited inner city schools in the 750,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). A high school student reads her anti-war poetry and tells her audience she is friends with a murderer, a former JROTC drill team leader, who enlisted, went to Iraq, and killed five people. Vietnam Veteran Ron Kovic urges everyone to speak out against school militarization. A paraplegic, Kovic recounts how police clubbed and beat him and threw him from his wheelchair when he led the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Many others, such as Fernando Suarez del Solar, Rick Jahnkow, Jorge Mariscal, Blase Bonpane, and student leaders, add stories and personal experiences.

February 7, 2004, a pivotal day in Los Angeles. Approximately 150 counter-recruitment and peace activists, from Sylmar to San Pedro, from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, converge for a take-action workshop called "Stopping Militarism in Our Schools." Unprecedented in LA, the event features panels and workshops on Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC), conscientious objection, opt-out policies, human rights curriculums, and alternative programs. The workshop is sponsored by the Human Rights Committee of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), a teachers' union of over 44,000 members, and a recently formed Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, an umbrella organization, which in six months has grown to over 20 affiliates.

More than a workshop, we are building a movement in the greater LA area. And along with a movement come hard questions. How do we get diverse and sometimes competitive groups to work together on this common purpose? What strategies should we adopt? How does our past inform our present?

Militarism, embedded in public schools, has a long history in Los Angeles, beginning in 1916 when the JROTC marched into LAUSD. Today, JROTC is firmly entrenched in most of our district's high schools, except for those on the more affluent Westside. LAUSD's 29 JROTC programs, situated in heavily populated year-round schools, use space on crowded campuses where nomadic, roving teachers have no permanent classrooms. LAUSD pays for more than half of the $4 million JROTC budget, plus the California Cadet Corps, a National Guard training program established in 17 of our middle schools.

In 1937 my aunt graduated from Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles. She remembers the culturally diverse student population and JROTC. Today, I work as a speech and language specialist at Roosevelt, the nation's second largest high school with 98% Latino students and the reputation of being the Marines' number one targeted school.

Over the years, most teachers and other school staff members never thought twice about military officers on campus, about rifles cocked in marksmanship, or about the frequent visits by military recruiters. It was school as usual. With the exception of a few individuals who raised objections, there was no organized opposition.

But now the population is different, and the military recruiting color-coded, for the population of LAUSD has shifted dramatically. In the 1960s the majority of students, 70%, were Caucasian. Not any more. In 2002 LAUSD, the most militarized school district in California, had a student body that was 71.9% Latino, 12.1% African American, 9.4% Caucasian and 6.3% Asian American.

About nine years ago, when Navy JROTC first sailed into the adjacent Culver City School District, then-79-year-old community activist Adele Siegel and her husband Henry went before the Board of Education, asking questions about child soldiers in their backyard. Next, they lobbied the LAUSD Board of Education to take a hard look at the JROTC budget. In the late 1990s — that post-Columbine time of zero tolerance for guns at school — some LA Board members seemed receptive. But ultimately they retreated. Even UTLA turned a deaf ear, and for many years Adele continued unceasingly to ask the school district about the real cost of JROTC. Though she now relies on a walker and sometimes an oxygen tank, this 90-year-old woman forges on -- inspiring us all as she collects counter-recruitment brochures from various peace organizations and assembles them into a packet called Peace Guides.

My own involvement in counter-recruitment began during the global antiwar movement, before U.S. bombs seared Iraq, when the Human Rights Committee of UTLA, along with other labor unions, adopted an antiwar resolution and even distributed controversial T-shirts: "A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind." Previously, I had never been active in the teachers' union because I had felt that broader issues of social justice and peace were often not addressed. But these were revitalized days with UTLA, as the Human Rights Committee raised social justice issues beyond the scope of the union contract.

After helping to organize a teach-in last June, I was elected the Human Rights Committee co-chair, along with Andy Griggs, a math coach who also chairs peace and justice committees statewide and nationally. Militarism in the public schools became our focus. Last June I also attended the first national counter-recruitment conference in Philadelphia, where I learned new organizing skills and met representatives of other community groups who wanted to address the issue.

After returning home, I worked with other Southland peace activists to launch the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools (CAMS), a broad-based network to pool resources and share successful strategies. CAMS is involved in the following activities: campus tabling, passing out leaflets on enlistment myths, distributing opt-out letters through specific academic departments, protesting military logos on school supplies, presenting alternative service programs, and talking to school staff and students about the meaning of militarism.

At the district level we are collecting data and approaching the Los Angeles Board of Education on policy and budget concerns, such as the low opt-out returns (less than 1%) and the hidden costs of JROTC. Our presentations will include recommendations implemented successfully in other school districts across the nation.

Still, there are challenges. We live far apart from one another and have limited time because many of us are already committed to other efforts and organizations. Some leaders and groups prefer to do their own thing. We have met these challenges by being as inclusive as possible, consciously inviting all to work together — always mindful of diverse points of view. Sometimes this requires ongoing outreach and dialogue which is a long and tiring process. But what we have in common is the seriousness and urgency of what we are doing and the deep concern for our youth. Secondly, we have gained visibility by organizing workshops, collecting contact information, attracting media support (radio, newspaper, and Web sites), and spreading the word. Teachers and parents tell us they are so glad to finally know where to turn for help.

We want to move forward, united and focused, as we solidify our network. To this end, we have established a Web site (www.militaryfreeschools.org), developed a factual brochure on militarism in LAUSD, and reached out to developing national and regional counter-recruitment groups. Could it be that one day teachers and students talking peace will outnumber recruiters waging war? In working together as a broad-based coalition, we can provide a powerful alternative.

Arlene Inouye is co-chair of the Human Rights Committee of UTLA and coordinator of the Coalition Against Militarism in Our schools (CAMS). Thanks to Marcy Winograd (teacher and Human Rights Committee member) for editing support. Marcy has a Web site, http://www.teachin.org, for activists to share counter-recruitment strategies.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)

01 January 2003 / Sean Bell / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

They gave me the bronze star for my efforts," said Joe Queen before he snapped and opened fire onto the spectators at the opening game of the 2027 World Series.

This was the fictitious thought that entered my mind as I read about a Private First Class Joe Queen, whose job during the first Gulf War was to bulldoze and cover up the bodies of the Iraqi dead.

On February 24, 1991, in an area between Saudi Arabia and Iraq known as the Neutral Zone, the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) began the ground war to retake Kuwait, breaking through the defensive front lines of Saddam Hussein's army. This ground attack of thousands of M1A2 Abrams tanks and other vehicles followed a bombardment of howitzers and multiple-launch rockets decimating the Iraqi troops.

The media, allowed only to be officially escorted by military personnel, was not able to see the effects of this attack until the next afternoon. There had been about 2,000 who surrendered, but no bodies or bits of bodies could be seen. Months later, it was learned why the battlefield was so "clean." The Iraqi troops were buried by plows mounted on Abrams main battle tanks.

"I came through right after the lead company," said Army Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the lead brigade during the 1st Mech's assault. "What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people's arms and legs sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands."

PFC Joe Queen drove one of the massive earthmovers. His job was to clear the carnage, for which he received the Bronze Star. "A lot of guys were scared," Queen said, "but I enjoyed it."

War and the realities of such brutal horrors are hidden from those who might find it offensive, mainly the majority of the U.S. population. So as the journalists are escorted around to see only what the Pentagon allows them to see, the resulting "news" as seen through your living room TV is hardly anything more shocking than a child's movie or video game. So any potential outcry against the atrocities of war are muted by showing a staged version of the end result of the war. I do not recall seeing a single image or video of a dead human being during all the corporate news coverage. The ready-for-prime-time, sterilized version of the war presented by the Bush Sr. administration made it seem like it was a bloodless war -- a war without consequences. Thanks to the rules developed by Cheney and Powell, journalists were not allowed to move without military escorts. Everything was censored and had to be cleared by the military. So for this new world order type of war, the killers and their top supervisors control the public's perception. Cheney said that it was "the best-covered war ever." Really? Best for whom? Obviously, it was great for Bush Sr., whose ratings were high during that time, in no small part thanks to that so-called great coverage.

For many war veterans, the shock and horrors are hard to grasp and sometimes are not dealt with until decades later. Look at all the vets from the Gulf War who have since snapped. The accused Washington, D.C. sniper, John Allen Muhammed, is a Gulf War veteran. Jeffrey Glenn Hutchinson, also a Gulf vet, murdered his girlfriend and her three children in 1998. And of course, Timothy McVeigh, who murdered hundreds of people in a terrorist attack in Oklahoma City, was a Gulf War vet.

Thousands of Vietnam vets have taken their own lives or have ended up homeless because of their inability to adjust to the twisted reality of rejoining the very society that not only supports the mechanisms of war, but hardly cares to know about such things.

Observers of recent U.S. military attacks in countries such as Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan have noted that technology is making it easier for military personnel to wage war. We are more able to wage war from a safe distance, which is making it psychologically easier to kill. A military chaplain wrote, "As war becomes safer and easier, as soldiers are removed from the horrors of war and see the enemy not as humans but as blips on a screen, there is a very real danger of losing the deterrent that such horrors provide."

According to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.), a technique called "operant conditioning" is used to overcome the human aversion to killing. For example, bull's-eye targets have been replaced by human-shaped ones to make soldiers feel comfortable when shooting at people. These types of techniques are what increased the fire rate of soldiers from 55% in Korea to 95% in Vietnam.

War is simply a failure of diplomatic policy, using the military to exercise with brutal force the will of one country against that of another. The method is killing and devastation. The immediate effects of war are hidden by those who control and create the war situations. The only human faces we will see on the corporate media may be those of some of our own veterans who find themselves unable to cope with the nightmare they once participated in.

I think again to former PFC Queen who bulldozed bodies, clearing the pieces of human beings from the desert. I wonder if some day he, too, might snap and attack the society that sent him to war. Could he one day end up conflicted with the twisted reality that he was given a medal for helping to hide the face of war? And, on such a day, will society look to the real cause of such terror, or will we just call him a madman like we did with Timothy McVeigh? Will we feel secure when we administer the death penalty to the very people we taught to kill in our name?

As another war begins under shady circumstances, how will those who come face to face with the bodies and death deal with returning to a society that never knew such atrocities even happened? Maybe we can honor them with a parade and that will make everything all better.

Don't count on it.

Sean Bell is a Gulf War era Marine vet and recently co-founded a local chapter of the Veterans for Peace.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)

01 May 2003 / Lorraine Demi / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Studies suggest that domestic violence rates are two to three times higher in U.S. military families than in the country's civilian population. In fact, military domestic violence incidents increased from 18.6 per 1,000 marriages in 1990 to 25.6 per 1,000 in 1996. Rates then fell slightly from 1997 to 1999, but more moderate to severe incidents were reported, showing an increase in the severity of violence in military homes, even if reported incidents lessened slightly. Unfortunately, these numbers are still dramatically underestimated due to three mitigating factors: (1) the military only recognizes violence against a legal spouse as domestic violence -- so these numbers exclude violence against girlfriends or boyfriends and unmarried, live-in partners; (2) commanders often handle domestic violence cases informally, and then don't report the "resolved" cases; and (3) a certain number of domestic violence cases are not reported in civilian populations, but even more are not reported in military relationships due to fear, intimidation, and a forced code of silence.

"The military has simply not come to terms with the problem. They've known about it for a long time and have repeatedly acknowledged the severity of the problem, but they have not dealt with it," states Terri Spahr Nelson, a former Army psychotherapist and author of the book For Love of Country: Confronting Rape and Sexual Harassment in the U.S. Military (September 2002, Haworth Press).

As previously reported in Draft NOtices (August-September 2002), the Pentagon set up a task force on military domestic violence in 2000. Sadly, things haven't changed for victims of abuse. The task force made the following recommendations:

• holding offenders accountable — few are disciplined or punished today;

• amending the Uniform Code of Military Justice to proscribe violations of civilian protection orders (restraining orders which legally prohibit abusers from being near the victim, her family or anyone mentioned in the order, her home, her place of work, and sometimes her children's school) — these orders are not recognized by the military and violations are not currently punishable by the military;

• upgrading military police and forensics investigation of abuse; and

• providing more confidentiality to those who report abuse -- the absence of which is a major hurdle to reporting, following up, and punishing batterers in the military.

In response to these task force recommendations, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz issued a strong declaration of a "zero tolerance" policy: "Commanders at every level have a duty to take appropriate steps to prevent domestic violence, protect victims and hold those who commit it responsible." In addition to Ms. Spahr Nelson, many other women report that Wolfowitz' policy and the recommendations of the task force are not helping families, but instead the lack of enforcement is helping the military.

"The military has enormous investment in each of its soldiers, but especially for those in elite units like Special Forces. That makes [military officials] very reluctant to take any action, knowing that the military would have to shrink quite a bit if they got rid of all the known abusers," states Catherine Lutz, a University of North Carolina social anthropologist who has studied the issue. Of the 1,213 domestic violence incidents reported to military police in 2000 considered worthy of disciplinary action, the military reported 29 in which the perpetrator was court-martialed or sent to a civilian court for prosecution, said Lutz. That is a paltry 2% of reported cases. Lutz said, "There is also a culture of hostility toward women in the military which includes the rape of female and some male soldiers and civilians, lesbian and gay bashing, and brutal hazing rituals."

Further, military wives and girlfriends (the vast preponderance of domestic violence victims, 92%, are women) are especially vulnerable to domestic violence because military life prescribes many of the situations conducive to abusive relationships, which builds the aforementioned reporting barriers of fear, intimidation, and forced code of silence. First, the women are far from family and friends and may not have anyone to confide in or go to for help or refuge from the abuse. Second, they know the abuse report will quickly be passed on to unit commanders and get back to the abuser, and they fear even more brutal retaliation. Third, they feel, and are often told by military personnel, that reports of domestic violence will end the batterer's career and deprive the family of income and health benefits, and again the women fear retaliatory violence. Fourth, women have learned that the military will not help them when they are being beaten, belittled, threatened with death, and fear hourly for the safety of themselves and their children.

Laura Sandler, who lives near Fort Bragg (the recent site of four domestic violence murders, two of which were murder-suicides, at the hands of elite U.S. airborne and Special Forces soldiers), learned that the military would not help her out of two abusive relationships. It is common for domestic violence victims to enter multiple violent relationships as abusers have (1) a keen attraction to persons who might fall victim again due to low self-esteem, fear or a myriad of other results of previous family violence and (2) a well-documented cycle of violence, which often begins with a charismatic, charming period that will lure a potential victim into what seems to be a long-awaited, healthy, happy relationship and will return again after a battering incident to convince the victim to stay. Sadly, Ms. Sandler is an example of how it is also very common for the military to be non-responsive to the plight of these women when military personnel are involved. She was married to a major who abused her, and despite reports, no one in the chain of command would respond. She ended the relationship and entered another with an enlisted man on the base: "He was sweet at first, but the beatings soon started. Once, he beat me up in his barracks with four other soldiers watching. Nobody did anything. I went to his commanders. They said it was terrible, but they did nothing." Eventually, Sandler and the enlisted boyfriend were referred to a chaplain and the batterer was mandated to take anger management classes. He attended only half the sessions and continued beating her and threatening her life. With no fear of retribution or punishment, as he was getting none for his behavior, the boyfriend became bolder and more violent and began abusing Sandler in public. Still, the military did nothing to protect Sandler or punish the abuser. She was only freed from his abuse when he was honorably discharged and moved away.

In response to the hushed epidemic of military domestic violence, Fort Bragg garrison commander Tad Davis said that commanders try to spot signs of trouble and intervene before violence occurs: "We want them to seek assistance early on, before things go too far down the road to violence." Contrary to common civilian family violence intervention, Fort Bragg chaplain Bob Loring, who runs the base family life program, said that he regards nearly every marriage as salvageable, including violent relationships. Further, he states: "If the perpetrator is willing to admit that he has been violent and that he has been wrong, they could work together to save that marriage . . . The military believes in taking care of its own and taking care of its families."

The crime in military domestic violence is not only the life-shattering abuse that women and their children are forced to tolerate, but the military's abject lack of response, its cultivation of the violence (via the culture of violence formed by military training and the culture of hostility toward women that Lutz discusses), and flippant comments like the chaplain's that the military believes in taking care of its families. Clearly the military is not taking care of its families - it's taking care of its personnel, at all costs to families.

It is time that domestic violence victims with military-involved batterers are helped in the same manner, at the same level, and with the same outcomes as civilian victims. If you or anyone you know are in a domestically violent relationship with a military personnel member, please go off base and outside the military purview to seek assistance. It clearly is the only way you will receive adequate protection. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-SAFE [7233]; TDD for the Hearing Impaired: 1-800-787-3224) provides information on domestic violence, questions to ask yourself about a relationship you may be questioning, contact information for hotlines in each state, safety tips for leaving a violent relationship, and much more information. The Web site (http://www.ndvh.org) even has a feature wherein you can keep anyone else from knowing you accessed the site from your home computer. As the Fort Bragg murders have brought home, military domestic violence is a very dangerous epidemic. All victims deserve to be delivered from this hell — not just victims of civilian batterers.

Information sources: Reuters, 12-08-02; National Domestic Violence Hotline, http://www.ndvh.org.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)

01 July 2003 / Draft NOtices / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Almost 200 activists came together during June 27-29 for the first national counter-recruitment conference, titled "Stopping War Where It Begins: Organizing Against Militarism in Our Schools." With the tremendous amount of information that was exchanged, the high concentration of organizing experience that was present and the powerful energy that was generated, it may prove to be a significant watershed event for not only those organizations that focus on youth and militarism issues, but for the overall peace and social justice movement, as well.

Held at the Friends Center in downtown Philadelphia, the conference was sponsored by 11 local, regional and national organizations: the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) National Youth and Militarism Program, AFSC Washington D.C., AFSC San Francisco, Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO), Center on Conscience and War, the D.C. group CHOICES, the San Diego groups Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (COMD) and Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (Project YANO), ROOTS/War Resisters League, the college-based STARC Alliance, and the Teen Peace Project of Port Townsend, Washington. A longer list of local and national organizations endorsed the conference; AFSC and CCCO were the local Philadelphia hosts.

Adding to the value of the conference was the fact that almost half of the participants were students or youth activists, and a total of 50 organizations were represented. A significant number of the participants, presenters and organizers of the conference were from Latino, Asian and African American communities where the military focuses a disproportionate amount of its recruiting energy. Geographical representation came from 27 states, plus Puerto Rico and D.C. -- some activists came from as far away as Hawaii!

As the conference's mission statement explains, "Every war begins with the brainwashing of a nation's citizens and the recruitment of troops. The Pentagon realizes that it is never too early to start the process of instilling militaristic values in the minds of young people -- values that these young people will carry with them into adulthood." This theme was implicit in the title of the conference and underlies its challenge to the wider peace movement to develop a deeper understanding of what must be done to work with true effectiveness against war. Countering military recruiting and the militarization of young people is part of a strategy for addressing aspects of war that relate to economics, race, class and foreign policy, while, at the same time, actually interfering in a material way with government's ability to wage its wars.

The workshops and plenary presentations were all designed to inform people about these important issue linkages and provide concrete skills and resources for organizing in a variety of communities and contexts. The topics included the poverty draft, women in the military, the rights of students and others to counter recruiting inside schools, the roles of white anti-racist allies in the struggle against militarism, the No Child Left Behind Act and JROTC. Before the end of the conference, activists from dozens of cities and towns were excitedly talking about what they were going to do when they returned home.

There also were some very touching moments during the conference. One of the most heart-rending came during a plenary presentation on the military's recruitment apparatus, when Fernando Suarez del Solar gave an account of how his immigrant son, Jesús, was lured into the Marine Corps. Jesús was sent to Iraq, where he was killed by an unexploded U.S. cluster bomb in March. The military refused to cover all of the burial costs because the family insisted that Jesús be given a civilian burial instead of a military one. Now, Señor Suarez reaches out to other immigrant families and tells them why it is better for their sons and daughters stay away from recruiters and stay in school instead.

Several proposals were made for follow-up activities after the conference, including some relating to literature and youth networking. The structure for an overall national network of counter-recruitment organizations is now being discussed and should soon be developed. There will also be a national week to demilitarize our schools in early October, preceded by several weeks of leafleting and other activities to encourage high school students to tell their schools that they may not release their names, addresses and phone numbers to military recruiters. The week of action in October will include different types of protests, ranging from legal leafleting and demonstrations to possible blockades at recruiting stations.

The potential is great for this work to spread and have a powerful, long-term effect. Organizations like Project YANO, AFSC and CCCO that have been doing it consistently for years are now being joined on the issue by groups like the Student Environmental Action Network, National Conference of Black Lawyers and Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. And United for Peace and Justice, the large national coalition that sprang up when the invasion of Iraq was being threatened, decided at its recent planning conference to encourage its many member groups to take up the campaign to remove recruiters from schools.

If this momentum continues to grow, if we begin to take back civilian control over our schools and make education instead of indoctrination their primary purpose again, it will enable us to evolve into the broader, more proactive movement that we must become in order to work effectively for peace and social justice in the U.S.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)

01 November 2001 / Molly Morgan / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

San Diego area activists have been busy this fall encouraging high school students to think about the government's proposed war against Iraq and providing them with information not available to them via the corporate media. This action grew out of the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice in coordination with San Diegans to Stop the Violence Against Iraq, using COMD's leafleting experience as a model. Activists wanted to focus on providing high school students information to balance the barrage of militarism they receive from TV, radio, video games, movies, and the military in their schools. As has been reported previously in Draft NOtices, the Pentagon has been focusing on high school and even middle and elementary school children with increasing intensity in order to indoctrinate them before they become voting citizens.

On September 18, and again on October 23, teams of people handed one-page leaflets to students outside their high schools as they arrived for their first class of the day. The first time, 45 volunteers leafleted seven area schools and distributed about 3,350 leaflets. On the second date, 42 volunteers handed out 4,000 leaflets at eight schools. About a third of the leafleters were students, some of whom were able to give out fliers on school property while other volunteers stayed on the sidewalk, enabling the teams to get the fliers into the hands of more students overall. At the second event, leafleters also handed out lollipops with a label on the wrapper saying, "Don't be a sucker. No war on Iraq."

The first version of the flier asked, "Why War? Why Iraq?" and provided information about the issues involved and Web site links for more information. The second version was clearly anti-war and included specific information about the illegitimacy of the government's actions. COMD's high school students' rights brochure (which can be downloaded from http://www.comdsd.org/youth.htm) was also available for young people who were interested in more information about getting involved. COMD's Web site was included on both fliers and experienced a 50% increase in visits in the days immediately after the first leafleting.

Training was available for volunteers preceding each leafleting date. Experienced activists from COMD provided information about legal rights, safety procedures, appropriate behavior, and effective ways of educating students and school officials about the war. A Web site for volunteers was set up at http://www.anti-sheep.com/iraq, where a copy of the latest high school leaflet can be obtained.

In most cases, volunteers ran out of fliers before all the students had arrived at school. There were no major incidents with either police or school officials. Reports from volunteers included:

At Crawford HS, which has a large Muslim student population, there was a lot of positive feedback about the leafleters.

A Point Loma HS student said that the leaflets gave the social studies teachers something good to talk about for a change.

At Lincoln HS, students asked leafleters for additional fliers at the request of their teacher, and staff whom volunteers spoke to were supportive.

Students at San Dieguito Academy HS had prior approval from the principal to leaflet inside as people got off the buses. A substitute teacher told the leafleters she was glad to see them and that she would put fliers in the teachers' mailboxes at La Costa Canyon HS. At least two students at this school plan to make their own leaflets and continue the work.

At some schools, parents who were dropping their children off asked for fliers.

At Vista HS, two school officials stood near the leafleters with trash cans in order to limit littering; unfortunately, this effectively encouraged some students not to read the fliers.

At Madison HS, a student leafleter took literature in for friends in JROTC. Some hostile students made racial slurs and suggested using violence against people of Middle Eastern descent.

At Sweetwater HS, all but one of the uniformed JROTC students took flyers.

In general, the response by both volunteers and students has been positive, and more events are planned for the future.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org)

01 March 2002 / Rick Jahnkow / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

A Universal Military Training and Service Act (HR 3598) was proposed in the House on December 20, 2001, generating some concern about a possible draft. If passed, the legislation would require young males to report for 6-12 months of training and "education" in the military. Even conscientious objectors would be required to report for non-combat training in the military, a departure from previous drafts that allowed some war objectors to qualify for civilian alternative service.

It is important to know that the consensus among those who follow draft-related legislation is that this particular bill has very little chance of going anywhere. It is poorly designed and not something the Pentagon would want — at least, not in the short term (more on this below). Of course, its introduction may be used to promote a more viable proposal for some form of conscription in the future, and for this reason we need to express our opposition, even to this unrealistic bill. However, if we focus only on HR 3598 and ignore more immediate related developments, we will miss the real point, which is revealed in the details of the bill and the larger context into which it fits.

That context is the growing, and increasingly successful, effort by the Pentagon and others to militarize civilian society through youth indoctrination programs — an effort that has received almost no notice from the general public and, unfortunately, very little attention from political progressives and the general peace movement.

There is a tendency for many people, especially middle-class parents and young people, to become upset about HR 3598 because they are imagining a return to the draft of the past. In fact, however, the primary thrust of HR 3598 is not to provide a direct flow of combat-ready troops to the Pentagon. Those who would be drafted under HR 3598 would be given training and "education" while on active duty in the armed forces for only 6-12 months, a time period that is not long enough to fulfill the traditional role given to regular soldiers.

Such a short period of duty and high turnover rate would be extremely costly and inefficient and is not what the military establishment would desire. Another reason the Pentagon would not want HR 3598 is that its present facilities can barely handle training people for the current missions the military has already been given.

The real object of HR 3598 is to subject hundreds of thousands of young people to indoctrination and then channel them back into civilian society. As the bill states, the basic military training and education given to draftees would include instruction in "international relations, military tactics, homeland security, United States and world history . . . and such other topics as the Secretary [of Defense] considers appropriate."

In principle, the Pentagon is not averse to using massive youth indoctrination to extend its influence. However, the key for it to succeed in this is to be embraced and supported by civilian society, not hated by it. A draft would risk generating more hate.

So for the last two decades, the military establishment has pursued a more subtle, "benign" approach to indoctrinating young people (and the general population). High school JROTC, military academies in public schools, military partnerships with elementary schools, middle school programs like the Young Marines, military aptitude (ASVAB) testing in high schools, offering Army recruiters as youth mentors, helping to produce movies that idealize the soldier — these are the preferred and most effective ways to extend the Pentagon's influence. (Incidentally, they also prepare the ground for a future draft in case the war planners ever feel they need it.)

The problem is that young people and parents don't get as excited over this subtle form of militarization as they do over the idea of a draft, which has a lot to do with the self-centered value system of our society. Many parents and youths don't become alarmed by a threat until they feel it personally, and as long as it's someone else's kid succumbing to the tactics of a recruiter, as long as it's mostly nonwhite or low-income kids who are affected (or faceless people being bombed in another country), the alarm bells are muted and have little effect.

The Pentagon knows this, which is why it prefers expanding its presence in schools rather than instituting a general draft. That is also why its approach to fighting wars has changed to emphasize heavy, high-altitude bombing and other low-risk strategies and tactics. Clearly the U.S. military has adapted since Viet Nam.

Unfortunately, much of the peace movement has not. As the military is guaranteeing its future influence by assuming greater control over institutions of socialization, most of the peace movement is still focusing on the same old manifestations of militarism (i.e., individual weapons systems, the current armed intervention, etc.). It's as if we're watching the front door for the burglar while, in the meantime, he has walked through the open back door and is helping himself to everything in the house.

Our only hope is to help more progressive individuals and organizations to understand this trend and its very broad, dangerous implications, and to get them to join us in actively resisting it. Youth education and counter-recruitment work is a logical strategy for that resistance.

Groups that provide resources for counter-recruitment work:

AFSC Youth & Militarism Program
1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; 215-241-7176
www.afsc.org/youthmil.htm

Center on Conscience & War/NISBCO
1830 Conn. Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009; 202-483-2220
www.nisbco.org

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors
630 20th St., #302, Oakland, CA 94612; 510-465-1617
1515 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; 215-563-8787
www.objector.org

Committee Opposed to Militarism & the Draft
P.O. Box 15195, San Diego, CA 92175; 619-265-1369
www.comdsd.org

Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities
P.O. Box 230157, Encinitas, CA 92023; 760-634-3604
www.projectyano.org

• Content

War Resisters League
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012; 212-228-045
www.warresisters.org

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

A Universal Military Training and Service Act (HR 3598) was proposed in the House on December 20, 2001, generating some concern about a possible draft. If passed, the legislation would require young males to report for 6-12 months of training and "education" in the military. Even conscientious objectors would be required to report for non-combat training in the military, a departure from previous drafts that allowed some war objectors to qualify for civilian alternative service.

It is important to know that the consensus among those who follow draft-related legislation is that this particular bill has very little chance of going anywhere. It is poorly designed and not something the Pentagon would want — at least, not in the short term (more on this below). Of course, its introduction may be used to promote a more viable proposal for some form of conscription in the future, and for this reason we need to express our opposition, even to this unrealistic bill. However, if we focus only on HR 3598 and ignore more immediate related developments, we will miss the real point, which is revealed in the details of the bill and the larger context into which it fits.

That context is the growing, and increasingly successful, effort by the Pentagon and others to militarize civilian society through youth indoctrination programs — an effort that has received almost no notice from the general public and, unfortunately, very little attention from political progressives and the general peace movement.

There is a tendency for many people, especially middle-class parents and young people, to become upset about HR 3598 because they are imagining a return to the draft of the past. In fact, however, the primary thrust of HR 3598 is not to provide a direct flow of combat-ready troops to the Pentagon. Those who would be drafted under HR 3598 would be given training and "education" while on active duty in the armed forces for only 6-12 months, a time period that is not long enough to fulfill the traditional role given to regular soldiers.

Such a short period of duty and high turnover rate would be extremely costly and inefficient and is not what the military establishment would desire. Another reason the Pentagon would not want HR 3598 is that its present facilities can barely handle training people for the current missions the military has already been given.

The real object of HR 3598 is to subject hundreds of thousands of young people to indoctrination and then channel them back into civilian society. As the bill states, the basic military training and education given to draftees would include instruction in "international relations, military tactics, homeland security, United States and world history . . . and such other topics as the Secretary [of Defense] considers appropriate."

In principle, the Pentagon is not averse to using massive youth indoctrination to extend its influence. However, the key for it to succeed in this is to be embraced and supported by civilian society, not hated by it. A draft would risk generating more hate.

So for the last two decades, the military establishment has pursued a more subtle, "benign" approach to indoctrinating young people (and the general population). High school JROTC, military academies in public schools, military partnerships with elementary schools, middle school programs like the Young Marines, military aptitude (ASVAB) testing in high schools, offering Army recruiters as youth mentors, helping to produce movies that idealize the soldier — these are the preferred and most effective ways to extend the Pentagon's influence. (Incidentally, they also prepare the ground for a future draft in case the war planners ever feel they need it.)

The problem is that young people and parents don't get as excited over this subtle form of militarization as they do over the idea of a draft, which has a lot to do with the self-centered value system of our society. Many parents and youths don't become alarmed by a threat until they feel it personally, and as long as it's someone else's kid succumbing to the tactics of a recruiter, as long as it's mostly nonwhite or low-income kids who are affected (or faceless people being bombed in another country), the alarm bells are muted and have little effect.

The Pentagon knows this, which is why it prefers expanding its presence in schools rather than instituting a general draft. That is also why its approach to fighting wars has changed to emphasize heavy, high-altitude bombing and other low-risk strategies and tactics. Clearly the U.S. military has adapted since Viet Nam.

Unfortunately, much of the peace movement has not. As the military is guaranteeing its future influence by assuming greater control over institutions of socialization, most of the peace movement is still focusing on the same old manifestations of militarism (i.e., individual weapons systems, the current armed intervention, etc.). It's as if we're watching the front door for the burglar while, in the meantime, he has walked through the open back door and is helping himself to everything in the house.

Our only hope is to help more progressive individuals and organizations to understand this trend and its very broad, dangerous implications, and to get them to join us in actively resisting it. Youth education and counter-recruitment work is a logical strategy for that resistance.

Groups that provide resources for counter-recruitment work:

AFSC Youth & Militarism Program
1501 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; 215-241-7176
www.afsc.org/youthmil.htm

Center on Conscience & War/NISBCO
1830 Conn. Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009; 202-483-2220
www.nisbco.org

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors
630 20th St., #302, Oakland, CA 94612; 510-465-1617
1515 Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102; 215-563-8787
www.objector.org

Committee Opposed to Militarism & the Draft
P.O. Box 15195, San Diego, CA 92175; 619-265-1369
www.comdsd.org

Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities
P.O. Box 230157, Encinitas, CA 92023; 760-634-3604
www.projectyano.org

• Content

War Resisters League
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012; 212-228-045
www.warresisters.org

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

01 January 2002 / Lorraine Demi / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Since September 11, 2001, schools across the U.S. have increased the recitation of the "Pledge of Allegiance" in an effort to enforce patriotism. Previously lax policies have become mandatory in many school districts, making students feel pressured to pledge allegiance to a country and a flag regardless of their personal, religious or political beliefs.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has advised many school districts in recent years on the constitutional rights of students wishing not to pledge allegiance. When students at Mark Morris High School in Washington State chose not to participate in the school’s daily recitation of the pledge, Washington ACLU Legal Program Director Julya Hampton wrote in a 1998 letter to the school: "In response to legal challenges brought by students, the courts have uniformly upheld their right to remain quietly seated during the pledge. . . . Students should not be compelled to participate in the pledge by the symbolic act of standing, or be compelled to leave the classroom because of their peaceful expression of political beliefs."

The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1943 (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette) that a compulsory flag salute would violate students’ right to freedom of expression. The Court proclaimed that a state cannot "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion" and that students cannot be compelled to affirm their loyalty "by word or act." The Supreme Court also decided in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District that students do not "shed their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Due to these court decisions, students today are protected in exercising their free speech rights in school and in their wish to abstain from pledging allegiance for whatever reason.

Each state has different laws about free speech rights for students. Your local ACLU office or state department of education can provide information on local laws. COMD’s "High School Students’ Rights: What Every Student Should Know" brochure provides specific information about possible restrictions such as speech content guidelines; time, place and manner guidelines; and school officials’ right to review materials ahead of distribution. This brochure can be downloaded at www.comdsd.org/youth.htm.

Some states, like California, have special laws protecting the free speech rights of students in public and private high schools. The California Education Code (Sections 48907 and 48950) safeguards your right to:

hand out leaflets
express yourself in school newspapers, yearbooks, and "underground" or unofficial newspapers
circulate petitions
conduct polls
set up information tables
organize clubs and sponsor speakers and activities
post notices and posters on school bulletin boards
organize a peaceful rally or demonstration at your school
wear buttons, badges, insignias, patches or armbands.

To practice free speech rights, students could do any of the above, including distributing COMD’s "High School Students’ Rights" brochure at school or in youth groups. The tougher question is how to refrain from, or reframe, the pledge to fit your conscience. As discussed above, students have the right to refrain from reciting the pledge, but you may also choose to reframe the pledge instead. This could take two forms: you could stand at the time of the pledge in your classroom, and recite an alternative pledge on your own; or you could circulate an alternative pledge to students and start a movement of like-minded youth. In some states it is mandatory that students wishing to abstain from the pledge sit quietly and not interfere with those students wishing to pledge allegiance. Your local ACLU can inform you of local laws and how they will impact your alternative pledge plans. If you are interested in an alternative pledge that follows the cadence of the "Pledge of Allegiance" and is non-sectarian and globally focused, you could try something along these lines:

I pledge allegiance to humanity, and to each person for which it stands, multiple nations, sharing peace, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

If you are interested in an alternative pledge that is more environmentally focused, you could use the Women’s Environment and Development Organization of the Women’s Foreign Policy Council’s "Pledge of Allegiance to the Family of Earth":

I pledge allegiance to the Earth and to the flora, fauna and human life that it supports, one planet, indivisible, with safe air, water and soil, economic justice, equal rights and peace for all.

Or write your own alternative pledge! Please send any alternative pledges you write or come across to Draft NOtices for future articles: P.O. Box 15195, San Diego, CA 92175, comd@comdsd.org.

And please contact the following organizations if you have any questions about your rights as a student:

American Civil Liberties Union
http://www.aclu.org
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004-2400
212-549-2500

Student Press Law Center
http://www.splc.org
1815 N. Fort Myer Drive, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22209
703-807-1904

National Lawyers Guild
http://www.nlg.org
143 Madison Ave., 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
212-679-5100

Information sources: "High School Students’ Rights: What Every Student Should Know" brochure, COMD[make this a link to an anchor on our youth page]; American Civil Liberties Union, Washington, http://www.aclu-wa.org; Women’s Foreign Policy Council’s Women’s Environment and Development Organization, e-mail: wedo@igc.apc.org.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

December 2001 / Rick Jahnkow / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Another hole has been ripped open in the barrier protecting U.S. civilians from the influence of militarism. In December 2001, the U.S. House and Senate gave final approval to an education bill with a provision that severely erodes the right of local schools to control military access to campuses and personal information about students. The legislation, signed by President Bush on January 8, 2002, will go into effect soon as Public Law No: 107-110.

The military access law was part of a larger bill (H.R. 1) that provides various funds for local schools and programs to improve student performance. The bill also extends and changes programs begun under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Section 9528 of the new legislation states:

Each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students’ names, addresses, and telephone listings.

It also directs that

each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide military recruiters the same access to secondary school students as is provided generally to post-secondary educational institutions or to prospective employers of those students.

Schools that fail to conform to these requirements will lose substantial federal education funds.

Originally, the Senate version of the bill did not penalize schools for placing restrictions on military recruiting. However, the House version, which sought to coerce schools into cooperating with the Pentagon, prevailed for the most part in joint conference committee negotiations. Some believe the post-September 11 political climate was responsible for this.

On the positive side, there is a stipulation that a secondary school student or the parent of the student may request that the student’s name, address, and telephone number not be released without written consent, and public and private schools will be required to notify parents of this option. This reinforces preexisting law -- the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) -- that grants the right to opt out when student lists are released.

The Secretary of Education has until May 8 to notify all secondary schools of the new recruiter access requirements. It is possible that proposed regulations implementing the law will be published in the Federal Register, with time provided for public comment before final regulations are printed in the Federal Register.
During all of this time, school districts that have restrictive recruiting policies can consider various options for new policies.

One possible response from schools would be to make sure that information about the right of students and parents to opt out when student lists are being given to recruiters is presented to them in a very prominent way and is translated into other languages in large immigrant communities. Forms with check-off boxes could also be issued to facilitate the process of opting out, and their completion could be a required part of annual school registration.

Since schools will be required to give military recruiters the same campus access that is offered to representatives of higher education and prospective employers, schools could also make sure that military recruiters get nothing more than what the other entities are offered. For example, the military could be prohibited from sending speakers to schools unless a forum has been established for students to also hear alternative speakers. Or schools could explore policies that would set standards for nondiscrimination that would be applied equally to all outside campus and career representatives.

The different responses that will be possible to the new law will depend not only on how the final regulations are worded, but also on the politics in each community and the degree to which schools are determined to maintain their civilian autonomy. The Pentagon understands the key role that education plays in determining the future political climate in the U.S. People with progressive politics and values need to be equally aware of this role and recognize the disastrous long-term consequences we will face if the militarization of education is allowed to go any further.

Forced Militarization: a Growing Trend in Education

The latest effort by the military to force its way into young people’s lives via the new high school access law is not an isolated event. It is part of a steady progression in the militarization of education in the U.S. that goes back almost two decades. It began in the 1980s, when a law was passed to deny federal financial aid to students who refused to register for a possible future military draft. College campuses were required to act as agents for the Selective Service System and assist with the implementation and enforcement of the law. Then states began adopting their own parallel laws to deny state-sponsored student aid and even college admission, in some cases, to nonregistrants.

When college campuses began banning military recruiters and ROTC because of the military’s discrimination against non-heterosexuals, Congress retaliated. Laws were passed in the 1990s that cut off federal funds to any college or university that did not drop its opposition to ROTC and grant recruiters access to campuses and
student directory information. Such a degree of coercion was notable in that it had not been used even during the 1960s, when campus banning of recruiters and ROTC programs was much more widespread.

Parallel to its push into colleges, the military became more assertive in establishing its presence in K-12 schools in the 1990s, including kicking off a massive expansion of military classroom programs like JROTC. As this developed, and as the U.S. also became more active in military intervention abroad, community opposition to recruiting in high schools began to spread. Some secondary school districts -- really a relatively small number nationwide -- placed restrictions on recruiter access to students and campuses; partly in response to counter-recruitment activity, but also sometimes in response to incidents of extremely aggressive, inappropriate recruiter behavior.

As the propensity for young people to enlist began to diminish in the 1990s, frustrated recruiters sought to blame schools for their failure to meet their (probably unrealistic) enlistment quotas. They went to Congress with unsubstantiated stories of being banned from thousands of public high schools, which Congress accepted without question. As a result, the same coercive approach used against colleges will soon be used against high schools with the recruiter access measure signed into law by President Bush on January, 8, 2002. The only element missing this time is a requirement that all high schools accept JROTC. But don’t be surprised if that becomes the next stage in the progression.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

01 May 2001 / Rick Jahnkow / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Latest proposal would help the armed forces force their way into high schools.

Apparently, the Pentagon and its supporters aren’t satisfied with only using extreme political pressure to accomplish a military invasion of civilian high schools. They would rather employ a more familiar method: force.

That’s the underlying meaning of an amendment attached by Representative David Vitter (R-Louisiana) to an education bill that was recently passed by the House of Representatives. The amendment states:

Any secondary school that receives Federal funds under this Act shall permit regular United States Armed Services recruitment activities on school grounds, in a manner reasonably accessible to all students of such school.

Though the language of this amendment, which passed by a vote of 366-57, is not very detailed, it is clearly intended to deny federal funds to any high school that refuses to give student lists and/or campus access to the military. In introducing his proposal, Rep. Vitter explained that "this amendment states that secondary educational institutions that receive Federal funding must allow the . . . Armed Forces . . . access to students in those educational institutions." Another legislator, John Shimkus (R-Illinois), put it more simply: "No recruiters; no money."

During the floor debate, Vitter repeated the ludicrous claim of the Pentagon that 2,000 schools nationally ban recruiters from school grounds. When such figures were thrown out to House committee members last year, no one present challenged them and no documentation was provided. It has also been claimed that 25% of all high schools refuse to provide student directory information to recruiters, yet when the military was trying to regain access to student lists a few years ago in San Diego, recruiters claimed that only two school districts west of the Mississippi wouldn’t release the lists.

Ironically, the overall bill to which this amendment was attached was intended to improve the welfare of disadvantaged children and has the compelling title of "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001." Clearly, the Pentagon has its own interpretation of what this means and feels a special duty to make sure that no children are left behind — as possible cannon fodder.

The Senate version of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 contains a less aggressively worded recruiter access amendment. It would require the Secretary of Education to establish a year-long campaign to educate local school personnel about another recruiter access law, signed by President Clinton last year, that is scheduled to go into effect in July 2002. That law would subject schools to political pressure from the Pentagon and civilian government officials if military recruiters are not given the same access to students and campuses that is granted to college and business recruiters. The law contains no other penalties and exempts schools where an official districtwide policy has been adopted to restrict military access. Apparently, some of the more militaristic members of Congress were not satisfied with this law and want something more coercive immediately.

During the second week of June, the Senate will be debating its version of the military recruiting amendment in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. A Senate vote on the overall act is not expected until later in the month. If the Senate passes an amendment that differs from the House version, a joint conference committee would normally decide which one would be submitted for a final vote by both houses. That choice could be strongly influenced by the chairs of the House and Senate education committees, and the Senate chair is about to be transferred from a Republican to liberal Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy.

ACTION NEEDED: Write to Senator Edward Kennedy (Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510) and urge him to oppose any amendments to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that would penalize local school districts for restricting activities of military recruiters on their campuses.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

01 January 2001 / Ray Wolf / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Imagine that communities all over a country are suffering from a multitude of war-related health problems. Imagine a community where girls as young as 13 years old are dying from ovarian cancer caused by military pollution. Imagine a community where 100% of the children are born contaminated by military toxic waste. Imagine a community where over 90% of adults and nearly 80% of children have multiple illnesses — including neurological disorders, respiratory problems, and lead contamination. Where would you guess these people live? Iraq? Yugoslavia? The former Soviet Union?

No, they live in the United States, and they are not the direct victims of a military attack. Instead, they are the victims of the U.S. government’s decades-long obsession with war preparations. They are the victims of contamination from U.S. military bases that has infiltrated and all but destroyed their communities. Predictably, the military denies responsibility. But now the residents have proof through independent testing and university studies, and they are fighting back.

Community activists from North America, the Caribbean and Japan met in early November at the Contaminated Bases Conference, held at the Island Palms Hotel in San Diego, to share information and to coordinate their efforts to force the United States military to take responsibility for cleaning up its toxic waste. In addition to sharing their experiences and strategies for combating military pollution in their communities, the activists held a spirited rally across the street from the hotel. A "People’s Congressional Hearing" with Representative Bob Filner (D-San Diego) followed the rally.

In his opening statements, Filner said he wished he were a member of the majority party in Congress so that a "real" Congressional hearing could be held on the issue of military pollution poisoning communities. However, he said, "Perhaps it’s better that we hear from the people first, anyway." About 100 people attended the hearing and about 20 of those testified. Although the hearing was publicized and open to anyone, no Department of Defense representatives attended the hearing.

Some of the most compelling testimony presented came from Janet Daniels, an Athabascan grandmother from Alaska. Daniels told Filner that toxic contamination from over 700 active and former military sites in Alaska has poisoned the native people’s food and water sources, leading to excessively high levels of cancer and other diseases in their communities. "The same people who are supposed to be defending us are killing us," Daniels said.

A Tewa Indian tribe member, Gilbert Sanchez, who lives near the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, told Filner that "national security" is a phrase that should refer to the protection of the American people. "National security should not mean that the military is secure from the laws and regulations that are meant to protect the well-being of Americans," he said. Sanchez also suggested to Filner that the way to settle the Presidential election (still unresolved at the time) would be to have the Bureau of Indian Affairs make the decision, since they have extensive experience deciding Native American elections.

Also present at the hearing was Robert Rabin from the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, a Puerto Rican island with about 9,000 residents. Rabin asked Filner to assist the citizens of Vieques in their efforts to remove the U.S. Navy base from their island, and to require the Navy to properly clean up its toxic mess (see Draft NOtices, July-August 1999 and July-August 2000). Earlier in the conference, Rabin urged the participants to understand that "the problem of military pollution is not just a scientific and political issue. It is an immediate case of life and death."

At the conclusion of the hearing, Filner said he plans to introduce a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would lead to laws requiring the "Department of Defense and all other defense-related agencies of the United States . . . to comply with all federal and state environmental laws designed to protect the health and safety of the public or environment to the same extent as all other entities subject to such law." No time frame was given for the introduction of the bill, but Filner said that he would work on gathering support from the American people.

The conference and hearing were sponsored by the Military Toxics Project (MTP), a ten-year-old organization that was founded to unite activists, organizations, and communities in campaigns for the cleanup of military pollution. MTP is a network of grassroots community groups, environmental justice organizations, peace organizations, veterans groups, labor groups, and technical advisors. Two San Diego-based sponsors were the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) and the Peace Resource Center (PRC). The EHC, founded in 1980, promotes the cleanup of toxic pollution in the San Diego area. The PRC provides resources and acts as a clearing house for information on peace and social justice issues.

As a result of the coordinated efforts of the community activists that participated in the conference, the Military Toxics Project has adopted the "Sovereign Immunity Campaign" as its 2001 national campaign. The campaign will focus on ways to remove the military’s immunity from environmental regulations, with the ultimate goal of making the military accountable for its pollution and responsible for cleaning up its toxic waste. Several different strategies will be used, including gathering support for Filner’s House of Representatives bill, the "Military Environmental Responsibility Act."

For more information on the MTP campaign, or to offer your support, contact them at P.O. Box 558, Lewiston, ME 04243-0558, or visit their Web site at http://www.miltoxproj.org.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

01 May 2000 / Glen Milner, Seattle Draft and Military Counseling Center / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Four years of involvement with counter-recruiting issues in the Shoreline School District has uncovered a number of sexual harassment cases involving U.S. Army recruiters and female high school students. If not for the close scrutiny recruiters were receiving from activists and the media, it is doubtful the incidents of sexual harassment would have been made public. The question remains — how common is the sexual harassment of female students in our schools by military recruiters?

Shoreline School District has two high schools and is located immediately north of Seattle. The neighborhoods in the district are middle to upper-middle class. Generally, military service is viewed as not the best choice here, but an acceptable choice for some.

In 1995, parents of students at Shorecrest High School asked for equal access for activists with an alternative view to military service. We had discovered that military recruiters had no restrictions on access to students in the district. Recruiters could be seen in the gym after school and uniformed soldiers even instructed some of the class periods, but the schools would not allow leaflets with an opposing view to military service in the career centers. Eventually, the media became interested in our efforts and began carrying articles about military recruitment in public schools. Finally, in June 1997, Shorecrest High School agreed to allow us to display four different leaflets in its career center.

In the 1997-1998 school year, we tried to persuade Shoreline School District to develop a policy on military recruitment and equal access for alternative views. Again, the media covered school board meetings and our efforts to establish a policy for equal access. During this time, a local reporter noticed a police report regarding a 17-year-old female Shorecrest High student who was sexually assaulted by a 36-year-old Army recruiter.

On January 8, 1998, Sergeant Rodney L. White had taken April Parcells, a female student, off campus to a park, where he put her hand on his crotch, pulled up her shirt and asked her to have sex. He drove Ms. Parcells to numerous locations over several hours while refusing to take her home. The next day, Sergeant White returned to Shorecrest High School and asked her not to tell anyone. The family reported the incident immediately to the Army and was assured the recruiter would be properly investigated. After more than a month of no action from the Army, the family reported the incident to the King County Sheriff’s office and Sergeant White was arrested. An investigation by Shorecrest High School revealed that sexual harassment had taken place during numerous incidents in December 1997 and January 1998.

The Army later convinced King County prosecutors that the recruiter would be properly tried in the military justice system and the county charges were dropped. On March 11-12, 1999, Sergeant Rodney White was acquitted of four charges of failing to obey an order, five charges for indecent assault and three charges for indecent language in a court-martial at Fort Lewis, Washington. The Army did not allow any witnesses in support of the two female students involved. One victim’s mother, Paula Danielson, afterward said, "They gave us a snow job." The Army called the case an "isolated incident," promoted Rodney White to Staff Sergeant 1st Class, and sent him to a post in Kentucky.

A Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Army on the incident brought the release of a Commander’s Inquiry dated February 5, 1998. The report by an Army investigator recommended that Sergeant White and a second Army recruiter, the sergeant in charge of the recruiting station at 150th and Aurora Ave. N., should both be removed from duty for improper relations with female students. The Commander’s Inquiry of February 5, 1998 further recommended the U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion Seattle "do quarterly training on both sexual harassment and prohibitive activities in USAREC IAW USAREC Reg 600-25 to ensure all personnel understand behavior of this nature is unacceptable."

On May 26, 1999, a third Army recruiter from the same station in Shoreline picked up a 16-year-old female student on her way to school, bought her a pack of cigarettes, took her to her house and asked to have sex with her. A police report was filed against the 29-year-old recruiter in the City of Shoreline.

This incident prompted the Shoreline Schools Superintendent, Marlene Holayter, on August 19, 1999, to ban the Army from recruiting at the two high schools in the Shoreline School District.

When the third Army recruiter was brought to trial on February 3, 2000, for communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, the charges were dropped. The prosecutor for the City of Shoreline had determined that even if the charges were proven, the 16-year-old student was at the legal age of consent. The recruiter was determined not to be in a "position of trust" as in the case of school teachers. The Army discharged the recruiter for medical reasons before the trial in Shoreline. He is now a corrections officer in Colorado.

Throughout these related incidents, Lt. Colonel David Hagg, Commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion Seattle, maintained that such events in Shoreline were rare. On August 26, 1999, Lt. Colonel Hagg told a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter, "This is not a pattern; this is a very rare occurrence." School administrators and parents in Washington, Oregon and Alaska, where Lt. Colonel Hagg has command of Army recruiting, might believe it if not for another outrageous incident involving his staff of recruiters.

On October 29, 1999, during a three-day workshop in Olympia, Washington for 250 Army recruiters of the Seattle Recruiting Battalion, a 20-year-old female recruiter was sexually assaulted by fellow Army recruiters. It is believed the assault may have involved three male recruiters. The female victim was treated and released from St. Peter’s Hospital.

The Army is still investigating the sexual assault of its own female recruiter. No information can be released by either the Olympia Police or the U.S. Army while the investigation is in process. Lt. Colonel Hagg told a Seattle Times reporter on November 1, 1999, "I told her I’m not about to try to cover anything up. Obviously, I’m hoping there was no assault, for her sake."

How common is the sexual harassment of female students by Army recruiters? It is certain the problem will remain until the U.S. Army spends more time on solving the problem than trying to deny it.

The position of the Seattle Draft and Military Counseling Center is that sexual assault and sexual harassment of female recruits by U.S. Army recruiters is a reflection of the tolerance for sexual abuse allowed by commanders. School districts need to regulate unsupervised recruiter visits and parents should insist that schools provide some kind of monitoring system, particularly for female student contacts with recruiters.

Glen Milner is the father of two children who graduated from Shorecrest High School. He is a member of the Seattle Draft and Military Counseling Center, an organization that counsels young men and women considering military service and persons in the military and is a member of the GI Rights Hotline. Website: www.scn.org/ip/sdmcc.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

01 November 2000 / Rick Jahnkow / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

San Diego has become a major battleground in the struggle between the military-corporate complex and civilian public education.

In what may be the worst case of political overkill in a school district election, over half a million dollars is being spent by wealthy businessmen in an effort to oust a single individual, Frances O’Neill Zimmerman, from the San Diego City School Board. The money, which is being channeled through a non-profit organization called the Partnership for Student Achievement, is paying for television ads that are clearly designed to convince the public to vote Zimmerman out of office on election day.

Zimmerman has drawn the ire of the local chamber of commerce and supporters of Superintendent Alan Bersin, in part because she does not agree with Bersin’s authoritarian way of running the district. She also has blocked a proposed land deal that would be profitable to local business interests but not necessarily the school district. Zimmerman’s election opponent, Julie Dubick, is a personal friend of Bersin and a partner in a law firm that has represented some of those business interests in one of the proposed land deals.

Another issue aggravating Zimmerman’s opponents is her strong support for the current policy that prohibits military recruiters from obtaining the school district’s list of student names, addresses and phone numbers. The adoption of this policy by the school district in 1993 has been a serious problem for the Pentagon. San Diego has the nation’s eighth largest urban school district, and not having access to phone numbers for such a large student population has been extremely inconvenient for the military recruiting command. Members of the chamber of commerce, Superintendent Bersin and trustee Ron Ottinger, a Bersin supporter on the school board, have all been trying to get the student list policy reversed. Bersin has stated his opinion that, in general, the district needs to be more cooperative with military recruiting, but it is clear that this is not likely to happen soon if Zimmerman is reelected.

Sponsors of the television ads attacking Zimmerman are using the umbrella of a non-profit organization to avoid a $500 limit on individual campaign contributions. This also avoids the requirement that names of donors be reported. However, the local news media discovered that the $540,000 fund for the ads includes money donated by San Diego Padres owner and high-tech venture capitalist John Moores ($100,000), Wal-Mart heir John T. Walton ($100,000), Qualcomm founder and CEO Irwin Jacobs ($100,000), and San Diego real estate mogul Malin Burnham ($50,000). Two mysterious contributions were also made by East Coast foundations: the Public Interest Project Inc. ($60,000) and Essential Information Inc. ($110,000). Education issues have never been on the public agenda of these foundations, and neither one has been forthcoming about why they are involved and where funds came from that were forwarded to the group sponsoring the anti-Zimmerman ads in San Diego.

The president of the local Urban League, John Johnson, is also the chair of the Partnership for Student Achievement’s board of trustees. When he was asked about the source of the money, he replied, "It doesn’t matter where the money comes from. I would take money from the devil if it would help the children with back-to-basics education reform." (One has to wonder about his definition of "reform," given that there is nothing reformist about a few wealthy, well connected men trying to buy an election.)

Two other incumbents are up for reelection on the school board, both of whom have called for Zimmerman’s defeat. One of them, Ron Ottinger, is closely allied with the chamber of commerce and is a staunch supporter of the Pentagon’s JROTC program. He originally voted for the policy banning recruiter access to student lists, but has since backtracked on the issue. The other incumbent, Ed Lopez, recently declined to give his view on the student lists issue and has generally voted in the bloc supporting Superintendent Bersin. Lopez has also enjoyed past support from the chamber of commerce.

If Zimmerman loses the election, a 4-1 "super-majority" could be formed to meet the legal requirement for passing the questionable land deals. There would also be enough votes to bring down the barriers that have held back further militarization of San Diego City schools.

The implications of this struggle over a single school board seat go way beyond the matter of a few commercial transactions and recruiter phone calls to students at home. Public schools play a key role in shaping the values and worldview of each new generation; the military, business elite and conservatives, in general, have clearly understood this relationship and placed great importance on controlling the way young people are educated.

Those of us who want to create a different kind of society that is dedicated to peace and social justice must also place a strong emphasis on influencing what goes on in our local schools. Failing to do so will only ensure that, in the long run, we will always be waging an uphill struggle that brings far more losses than victories. If we want to avoid this, then school board elections and other educational issues must be given a top priority in our strategies for social change.

Information sources: San Diego Union-Tribune, October 10, 2000; San Diego Reader, October 19, 2000.

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

July-August 2000 / Draft NOtices / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Orange Glen H.S. backs down on its counter-recruitment ad ban after getting letter from COMD's attorney.

With only one issue of the student newspaper left in the school year, the Orange Glen High School administration apparently decided it could not defend an earlier decision to reject a counter-recruitment ad submitted by COMD (see May-June 2000 issue of Draft NOtices).

The ad, sponsored by Orange Glen alumni Gary Ghirardi and Michael Boone, was submitted to the school newspaper staff in February. It was similar in theme to dozens of other ads COMD had placed in high school papers over the last 18 years. In the center was a photo of an injured soldier being helped on a battlefield, and above it was the headline: "College on the G.I. Plan." The rest of the text said: "Before you enlist, contact us to find out what military ads and recruiters might not be telling you. We can also give you information about educational and job training alternatives." Rather than allow the students to decide whether to accept this ad, the journalism advisor and school administration intervened and sent COMD a rejection letter. Attached was a copy of a school district policy that prohibits schools from distributing "materials" that promote any particular commercial, religious or political interest. Another part of the policy prohibits "advertisements which are inconsistent with school objectives or do not reasonably relate to the educational purpose of school-sponsored publications."

COMD's attorney, Dick Eiden, resubmitted the ad to the school with a letter disputing the relevancy of the policy. He noted that the first part of it did not apply to newspapers and pointed out that ads had been carried in the paper in recent years that promoted commercial, religious and political interests (i.e., ads for businesses and an anti-abortion counseling group and at least one Army recruiting ad), plus there had been several articles promoting JROTC and one hyping Army enlistment. Eiden also stated, "The COMD ads are completely consistent with legitimate educational objectives. COMD is enhancing your students' knowledge and, thus, assisting you in your objectives." Other school district policies were cited by Eiden that conflicted with the action taken against COMD's ad (e.g., a policy prohibiting school officials from exercising prior restraint against student journalists). And finally, Eiden noted:

COMD successfully challenged in court a similar ad ban by the Grossmont Union High School District in the 1980s. In that case, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that once a forum has been created by a school on the controversial topic of military service, it cannot provide access for only one side to present its views on the issue, regardless of whether it is a "limited public" or "non-public" forum. In issues of The Musket since 1995, there are various instances where the newspaper has been used to promote military enlistment . . . In the context of the Ninth Circuit ruling, intervention by school personnel to prohibit COMD's ads at this point would constitute viewpoint-based discrimination.

COMD never received a formal response to Eiden's letter, but on June 7, we received a copy of the last student newspaper of the school year. On the back page was our ad. There was also an ironic form letter that said, "It was a pleasure doing business with you. We look forward to serving your advertising needs in the future."

This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft (www.comdsd.org).

01 April 2000 / Admin COMD / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft

Until 1986, COMD was named the San Diego Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD). In 1983, CARD attempted to place anti-draft registration ads in numerous high school newspapers around San Diego County. Student journalists at most of the schools published the ads, but administrators in the Grossmont Union H.S. District banned the ads from all of its student newspapers. San Diego CARD felt it was the students’ right to decide the issue, but since they weren’t going to be given that right, we filed a lawsuit against the Grossmont district in federal district court, citing violations of our First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. We requested a preliminary injunction from the court to suspend the ad ban while we waited to see if a trial would be necessary. The district court judge in San Diego refused to issue the preliminary injunction and we appealed his decision.

On June 6, 1986, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling stating that there was a substantial likelihood that San Diego CARD would have prevailed on the merits of its claim, and therefore the district court judge should have issued a preliminary injunction against Grossmont.

After the Ninth Circuit issued its decision, the U.S. military attempted to convince the appellate court to rehear the case and accept the Pentagon as a co-defendant alongside the school district. The military’s goal was to ensure San Diego CARD’s defeat by applying the vast legal resources of the U.S. government. If this strategy succeeded, any decision unfavorable to the military could then be appealed to the conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Fortunately, the military’s motion to intervene in the case was turned down by the Ninth Circuit and the rehearing was denied. This left intact a major legal precedent that can be used by counter-militarism activists to demand the same opportunity to address students in public schools that is granted to recruiters and the Selective Service System.

Basically, the Ninth Circuit stated that the question of military service (whether voluntary or compulsory) is a controversial political issue, and if a school establishes a forum for one side to present its views on the issue, it must give opponents equal access to the forum (download the text of the ruling here in PDF file format).

While the ruling has a direct legal effect in only the nine Western states that form the Ninth Circuit, it can be used in other regions to help persuade noncooperative school districts to grant equal access to counter-recruitment activists. There have been other similar, though less encompassing, rulings in the Eleventh Circuit (Southeast U.S.) and in several cases decided at the federal district court level in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Florida. In some situations, citing these other cases can also help (contact COMD for details).

Some examples of what counter-recruitment activists have been able to do in schools as a result of these court cases include:

• placing literature displays in career and counseling centers

• setting up displays at career and college fairs

• placing posters and literature on bulletin boards

• having speakers and printed materials in classrooms

• running ads in student newspapers

There have also been successful efforts to counter the military’s access to student directory information (phone numbers and addresses).

A cautionary note: Pursuing new lawsuits over school access today would not be a simple matter. Litigation consumes time and resources that must be diverted from organizing, and there is a high risk that a bad precedent could result. We recommend that counter-recruitment activists use the existing positive precedents whenever they would be helpful and consult with COMD if there any access problems; however, it's more effective to carefully choose initial approaches to reaching and educating students that minimize confrontation with school officials. One very useful resource for learning about such approaches is the 48-page report, "Using Equal Access to Counter Militarism in High Schools," produced by the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (Project YANO). Download it here from www.projectyano.org or order a hard copy by sending $6.50 to Project YANO, P.O. Box 230157, Encinitas, CA 92023. A complete list of Project YANO educational/organizing resources is also on the Web site.

See more equal access and school policy documents here.

May 1999 / Rick Jahnkow / Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft 

It used to be understood in this country that the key to securing and protecting our democratic rights was to exercise strict control over the military. One of the prerequisites for this control has always been maintaining a strong, protective buffer between civilian society and the armed forces. Clearly, this buffer has been eroded over the years, and now very few components of our society-especially government and the economy-have escaped the powerful influence of militarism.

One key institution that is currently under intense attack from the military is public education. This assault is not being accomplished using tanks and helicopter gun ships-though bringing them to campuses is, in fact, one of the Pentagon's goals-but rather by using the weapons of economic coercion and legal threats. It reflects a developing trend that could have broad, long-lasting implications for social change work but, unfortunately, has received relatively little attention from even some peace organizations that have traditionally concerned themselves with such issues (see resource listing on page seven for some of the exceptions).

The Erosion of Educational Autonomy

Ten years ago, colleges and universities were able to set their own policies on accepting ROTC units or granting armed forces recruiters access to campus facilities and students, and a number of schools exercised their right to restrict or prohibit the military's campus presence. Also, in most states college students who resisted draft registration by not signing up with the Selective Service System could still apply for and obtain state and locally funded financial aid (federal student aid has been unavailable to them since 1983).

In the last few years, this ability of educational institutions to assert their independence from the military has been severely curtailed. Former-Representative Gerald Solomon, a conservative Republican from New York who recently left Congress, led the attack by introducing federal legislation which compels schools to cooperate with Selective Service and punishes campuses when they refuse to cooperate with ROTC and military recruiters. Proposals modeled after his legislation have also been introduced and passed in some states, including laws which make draft registration resisters ineligible for state civil service jobs, state student aid and, in some cases, admission to state colleges and universities.
From a practical standpoint, the state laws are an act of overkill, since the threatened loss of just the federal funds is already enough to force the vast majority of students and schools to comply. The true significance of the state laws is to establish a higher status for the military on a local level by conveying to young people that deference must be paid to the armed forces, and failure to concede this point will result in punishment-in this case, additional economic hardship for schools and students.

As a result of Solomon's most recent efforts, post-secondary schools now stand to lose substantial funds if they try to restrict the military's campus presence. Under provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1995, National Defense Authorization Act for 1996, and the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, schools can lose funds-including some funds used for student aid-from the departments of Defense, Transportation, Labor, Health and Human ~ Services, Education, and Related l Agencies. This loss of federal support can be triggered by any school policy or practice (regardless of implementation date) which either prohibits, or in effect, prevents, military recruitment representatives from obtaining entry to campuses, access to students on campuses or access to directory information on students, or which prevents the establishment and effective operation of a senior ROTC unit. Campuses with a "long-standing policy of pacifism based on historical religious affiliation" are still allowed to exclude military recruiters, if they wish, but the number of qualifying institutions is very small.

This change in law came about, in part, because a growing number of schools had adopted campus policies against discrimination based on sexual orientation. In line with these policies, campuses asserted their right to refuse to allow homophobic organizations access to school facilities; and since the Pentagon is the largest employer that fires people solely for being lesbian, gay or bi-sexual, many of the schools decided to ban armed forces recruiters and military programs like ROTC.

After the passage of Solomon's legislation, these schools faced the loss of significant, irreplaceable funds. Most, if not all, succumbed to the economic coercion and have been forced to accept violations of their nondiscrimination policies: ROTC cannot be banned, recruiters must be guaranteed access to the physical campus, and recruiters must be able to obtain directories of students names, addresses and phone numbers. (A few narrow exceptions are allowed, but they generally will not significantly limit the military's access to campuses and students.)

First Colleges, Now Grade Schools

Given the success of legislation forcing post-secondary schools to accept military training programs and recruiters, and the growing willingness of state legislators to pass parallel laws, it should not be surprising that the Pentagon and its supporters are now aiming their sights at grade schools. In March, military recruiters testifying before a House Armed Services Committee military personnel subcommittee complained that their efforts are being hampered by parents and teachers who view the armed forces as a "last option" for students who can't get into college or find good jobs. One recruiter said, "We have parents out there that forget what made America America. We have a lot of walls to break down."

One of the walls they want to break down is the right of citizens to protect their schools and homes from unwanted intrusions by the military. Air Force Sgt. Robert Austin, an Oklahoma City recruiter, complained that high schools will often give lists of students names to college representatives but not the armed forces. And he noted that individual school districts and principals can decide whether recruiters can go on campus. "I think that if they're federally funded, they shouldn't be able to tell us we can't come into the schools," said Austin.

At the time of the testimony, no members of the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee indicated whether they would introduce a law mandating military access to high schools, but the ranking Democrat, Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, said, "l think that's a good idea."In fact, such a law was once introduced unsuccessfully by Solomon, and there have been similar attempts at the state level. When several California school districts banned recruiter access to student lists during the Persian Gulf War, a reactionary bill almost made it through the legislature which would have mandated military access to high school campuses and student directory information. At the last minute, it was amended to become only a statement of legislative intent without the force of law. At least one state, Ohio, succeeded in passing a law which prevents high schools from limiting recruiter access to student addresses.

Even without a federal law mandating high school access, the Pentagon has significantly expanded its presence in schools. More recruiters are now invading both secondary and lower grade schools, where they give youths the false impression that the military is their best hope for obtaining the training and college financial aid that will later give them a chance at economic security. The view students have of viable civilian alternatives is being obliterated by the overwhelming marketing resources being employed by the armed forces. In many cases recruiters are being received with open arms by school counselors and vocational advisors who feel unable to deal with the problems facing today's young people problems which, ironically, are exacerbated by the huge diversion of national resources to the military.

Another recruiting device, the Junior Reserve Officers' Corps program, actually puts the Pentagon in a position to directly rob schools of local educational funds. The military tricks a growing number of school officials into accepting this curriculum by leading them to believe that JROTC is a cost-effective way to offer students a beneficial elective. The federal government shares in the cost of JROTC, but in actuality, schools wind up paying more than they would for a regular academic class, and they are essentially subsidizing military training and indoctrination.

Grassroots opposition to the military's invasion of public education has produced some important victories by community and student organizations. Court rulings have upheld the right of counter-recruitment activists to have equal access to schools, JROTC has been defeated in a few communities, and some educational institutions have been persuaded to adopt policies which limit or restrict armed forces activities on campuses. However, some of these victories-especially at the college level- have recently been reversed by the new legislation, and others are being threatened with talk about making military access mandatory at high schools.

Implications for Social Change Activism The military establishment understands the key role that schools play in the shaping of people's values and attitudes, and they know that the deeper they penetrate into education, the greater their influence will be on society as a whole. Their goal is not just to attract enlistees; it is also to strengthen the position of the armed forces, in general, by teaching military values to a larger segment of the population and affecting people's worldview. If allowed to continue, the result will be a more conservative political climate and, in the long term, a breakdown in the protective barriers that prevent further military encroachment on civilian rule.

All of this underscores the importance of grassroots efforts to challenge the economic coercion and other legislative attempts to impose military recruiters and programs like JROTC and ROTC on our schools. Organizing against military intrusion is a way to resist a trend which, if allowed to continue unchecked, will affect a wide range of issues in future years. When it comes to subjects like economic justice, health care, women's reproductive rights, racial equality, the environment and other concerns of progressives, social change activists will have much more difficulty organizing when more young people have been persuaded that (in the words of one JROTC textbook) "the same qualities that make a good leader in the military services are equally helpful to the civilian leader," and being a good citizen means loyalty and obedience to leaders, "whether or not you agree with them." Militarism instills a conservative attitude toward life that children then carry into the community.

It is crucial that more social change activists realize the stake we all share in this issue. If we are to stop the trend toward greater militarization of society-and, by implication, the drift toward greater conservatism-more groups and individuals will need to join the effort to resist the military's encroachment on our civilian educational system. It's an immediate problem that we cannot afford to ignore if we hope to advance the cause of progressive social change in the future.

Rick Jahnkow is active in the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft and the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (Project YANO), both of which are based in San Diego, California and have received grants from Resist. For information, contact Project YANO, PO Box 230157. Encinitas. CA 92023.