Peace Talk — Autumn 2005

The Quarterly Newsletter of Peace Action Maine
If Not Recruitment, What?
by Rosalie Tyler Paul, AFSC Maine

It’s not news that the military is desperate for recruits or even that recruiters are doing everything from offering big cash bribes to outright lying in an effort to keep up the supply of soldiers for the “war on terror.”

Stop Military Recruitment in our Schools

It is encouraging to see reports of parents speaking out across the nation against the easy access of recruiters to their children in our high schools.

It’s hopeful that anti-war groups (like the American Friends Service Committee’s Project on Youth and Militarism) and citizens’ groups (like Leave My Child Alone) are finding new ways of educating the public about steps they can take to prevent the schools from giving student contact information to the Pentagon.

It’s heartening to see approval ratings for the war going steadily down.

But it’s not enough. There are still scores of families, even here in Maine, who don’t know they can “opt out” of giving information to the Pentagon; who don’t know that the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test is another recruiting tool and is NOT a test students are required to take.

Help is needed to ensure that all families know the dangers and steps they can take. Letters have been sent to every high school guidance office in Maine by AFSC Maine urging dialogue around these issues. Letters have been sent to many papers around the state explaining “opt out” and “ASVAB.” We hope that more and more schools will develop written policies that limit military-recruiter access to students just as colleges limit recruitment. If you have contact with a school guidance office or with school administrators and would like to help, please contact AFSC Maine at gaia@gwi.net.

It’s easy to wonder what kind of culture this is that doesn’t question the presence of military personnel in our schools luring our young people, by glamour and false promises, to “serve their country” by learning institutional violence. Perhaps if recruiters continue failing to meet quotas, the war will have to end? Alas, if wars are to continue as advertised by the Bush Administration and supported by most members of Congress, soldiers will have to be found.

Repeated denials that the draft will be reinstated seem hard to defend, though a broader approach and a new name could make the pill a bit easier to swallow.

According to Mothers Against the Draft, proposals are being discussed in Congress and elsewhere that would combine voluntary service programs like the Peace Corps and Americorps with all branches of the military under a single banner of National Service. All young people would be required to serve but could choose military or civilian options. Here I can only surmise (based on footnoted disclaimers in the current military enlistment contract which state that changes can be made by the military as needed without notice to the enlistee) that the government would retain the right to move the service person to another branch as need required. Otherwise, why the push to a name change for the draft?

Looking at websites (see list below) from the Progressive Policy Institute, the Democratic Leadership Council and the Peace Corps, there is overwhelming support for making National Service mandatory. As Mothers Against the Draft warns: “Don’t be fooled. An involuntary draft of citizens, by any name, is still a draft. The time to tell Congress “NO” is now.”

 
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