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Creating a Pain in the Brass: Counter-Recruiting in Chicago

By Ray Parrish

When I'm asked about counter-recruiting in Chicago, I say that I'm active in CCOMY. If I don't pronounce this clearly, I might get red-baited. The mission of CCOMY, the Chicagoland Coalition Opposed to the Militarization of Youth, is to provide greater cohesion among the many organizations in Chicago working to counter the tactics of military recruiters in schools, to end the militarization of Chicago schools, to assist military personnel seeking conscientious-objector status, and to assist young people facing the draft.

CCOMY will do this by facilitating communication among these various organizations and to the wider community through its website, email, newsletter and other means; by providing informational material; and by organizing meetings to foster cooperation among these groups.

The effort involves a lot of get-togethers for training, information processing and decision-making. We have held draft and military-counselor training sessions led by people from the Center on Conscience and War, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, and the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild. The Chicago American Friends Service Committee sponsors the meetings and provides staff and other resources. Member groups include various student, community and church groups in addition to VVAW and VFP.

Members have almost completed editing a locally produced counter-recruiting video. The 400 or so pages of material from dozens of groups have been digested down to just a dozen or so. One of our lawyers "opened up communication" with the Chicago Public School Board, and they decided on a one-month extension to the deadline for submitting the "opt-out" forms which deny permission to give military recruiters personal information about students. One third of a local high school will be taken over by the US Navy for an academy, despite determined opposition from students, teachers and community. In addition to standing on the sidewalks near schools, local counter-recruiters are approaching school councils, students, teachers and counselors. By training counter-recruiters, we will be providing counselors for the GI Rights Hotline and any future draft counseling needs.

Many of the groups bring counter-recruiting material addressing the military recruiters' lies and half-truths, the politics and economics of war, conscientious objection, homophobia, racism, or rape in the military. When young people say that they're going to enlist despite the counter-recruiters' best efforts, many counter-recruiters feel that they've let them down. And despite their repeated assertions to the contrary, they're distressed when it's said that they're not "supporting the troops."

Counter-recruiting can be made more effective and satisfying with the inclusion of veterans and others trained as military counselors. With the simple addition of literature from Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the GI Rights Hotline, the perceived purpose of your visit is transformed from counter-recruiting to "pre-enlistment counseling." You are now creating informed consumers by educating young people about GI rights, the military justice system, and how to deal with rape, homophobia and the realities of the GI Bill and VA health care and compensation. You may fit into the school's curriculum, because you are already a proponent of nonviolent conflict resolution, since you talk about conscientious objection. And because you discuss combat- and rape-related post-traumatic stress disorder, you will be seen as a resource for the staff and students. You empower young people if you convince them to make the effort needed to find a nonmilitary future. Pre-enlistment counseling can be seen as a positive influence on the campus, and military recruiters may even welcome you as source of support and information. It's also nice to know that when a youth enlists after listening to you, your work has given the military not an uninformed, easily cowed robot, but rather a knowledgeable, assertive "pain in the brass."

Doing our outreach work this way allows the public to see those of us who are opposed to the militarization of youth to be far from the right-wing stereotype of being unpatriotic and hating GIs (military personnel). Many in the education community hear the military recruiters and wish that their students had access to another point of view. Many believe that students need to hear from veterans and activists who are critical of war or government policies concerning the way that GIs and veterans are treated. Many just want to provide information about the military justice system to those young people who cannot be dissuaded from enlisting. We can't do this unless we get in. We can get in by keeping confrontational tactics as a last resort and venting our frustration only at antiwar rallies. The US military presence is provoking insurgencies not only overseas, but also in US schools.

In addition to antiwar street demonstrations, the domestic opposition to the current "war to end all wars" is seen in both spontaneous and planned confrontations with military recruiters within schools and at the public events where recruiters prowl. The military has just about used up the "stop-loss" and IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) draftees and the influx of volunteers that got duped by Bush's hyper-patriotism. Now recruiting quotas aren't being met because of the war's growing unpopularity and the body counts. In addition to offering $150,000 reenlistment bonuses, the military is doubling the number of recruiters. The money and resources being used on this effort is bad enough, but recruiter misconduct is rampant. As a GI counselor, I'm hearing from unfit GIs who should never have been allowed to enlist, as well as those whose military experience has left them with permanent emotional and physical injuries. And I'm just as concerned about recruiters with conscience-driven nightmares caused by the desperate measures that they have felt forced to employ to meet quotas.