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Denying the Pentagon its cannon fodder

By Joe Miller

Last year about this time, as the government and a large part of the public were congratulating themselves over "winning" the war against Iraq, Champaign-Urbana's Progressive Resource/Action cooperative (PRC) committed itself to a series of issue-oriented campaigns. One of these is the effort to counter the continued militarization of schools in this community.

A central aspect of this campaign involves visiting local high schools to provide alternative information about military service to those young people who have become prime targets for the military recruiters. With the recent budget increase for recruiting from $2.1 billion to $2.5 billion per year, it is clear that the Pentagon plans to take full advantage of its new "popularity" to entice young people into the military. At the same time, quotas for recruiters have been reduced somewhat. This means that with a greater budget, recruiters will now be going after more highly-qualified young people, those who should be university bound. It seems that what used to be known as the "poverty draft," that is, use of military service as a way (perhaps the only way) to escape poverty conditions may be on the way out.

National Campaign to Demilitarize Our Schools

In light of this, a National Campaign to Demilitarize Our Schools (NCDOS) was formulated during 1991, and the PRC became a sponsoring organization, along with the American Friends Service Committee, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, the Midwest Committee for Military Counseling, and many others. Some of the major points of this national Campaign involve removing military recruiters from the high schools; ending the practice by many high schools; ending the practice by many high schools of providing names, addresses and phone numbers to recruiters without first obtaining the students' permission; demanding an end to the administering of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) in high schools. The ASVAB test high school students for military jobs. It really has no application to the civilian job scene. The recruiters use these test scores to better identify potential recruiting targets.

Exchanging Views in the Classroom

This past December, I was given the opportunity, as a member of Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW) and one of the coordinators of the PRC's anti-militarism campaign, to speak to four senior-level classes at Champaign Central High School. Each class was composed of twenty to forty students, and I was invited into the classes by the teachers who had learned of our campaign. I had previously spoken to classes at Centennial High School, and we had sponsored counter-recruitment speakers at Urbana High School, but this was the first time we had the chance to visit Central.

I loaded up a bag with all the literature I could carry and headed for the first class, scheduled to begin around 8:00am. My first question to all four classes was "How many of you have been contacted by the military recruiters?" Without much deviation, nearly three-fourths of each class had already been contacted. Many of the students complained that the recruiters would not leave them alone; they received calls at home, sometimes two or three times a week. The students were usually surprised to learn just how many of their classmates were targets of the recruiters, and through discussion we learned that the high school was providing names, addresses, and phone numbers of all seniors to local recruiting offices. There was much anger at this, as these young people felt their privacy had been violated.

Recruiter Fraud

In each class we talked about the frequency of recruiter fraud. Students were reminded to look upon recruiters as used car sales people. We talked about the applicability of military jobs to civilian life, that in 1989 it was learned that only 12% of men and 6% of women were able to make any use of their military training in civilian jobs. The issue of rights and freedom inside the military was also brought up. This is not a job that you can just quit anytime you wish; once you've signed the enlistment agreement, you belong to the armed forces twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week during your active duty period. The rights you take for granted as civilians disappear when you put on the uniform.

These young people were also reminded that, although the TV ads and recruiting brochures don't usually highlight it, the real purpose of the military is to fight wars. As soldiers or sailors, their job is really to kill and/or die. Most young people tend to give little thought to the morality of war, or their own willingness to kill on command. This led us into discussion of the military resisters to the war in the Persian Gulf.

Contrary to my fears, there was no visible animosity toward those who had joined the military and then discovered they could not, would not, kill other human beings. For many of these students, news about resisters inside the armed forces was surprising, especially in light of the "popularity" of this war. There seemed to be a certain admiration for the bravery of these men and women who refused to participate in the slaughter. Many students asked about ( and took pamphlets concerning) Conscientious Objector status.

After four hours of talking to four different groups of students, I was drained. Drained, but heartened by the feeling that perhaps some of these young people will now have second thoughts about choosing military servitude; they will find other, more humane and socially useful ways to serve humanity. This was only the beginning of our local campaign. We shall be back in those schools regularly to deny the Pentagon our children and friends.