Buried in the 670 pages of the 2002 No Child Left Behind federal education bill is a provision that requires public secondary schools to release student directory information to military recruiters. This seemingly minor provision is an example of intensifying military recruitment in public schools, most likely a result of the Bush administration’s promised global wars expected to last a lifetime or more. Aggressive recruitment helps provide cannon fodder during war time but also has the more subtle affect of making people more accustomed to creeping military presence in civilian institutions.

Students wishing to keep their personal information private must actively opt-out of the information release by a deadline early in the school year. While schools are required to notify students and parents of this new provision, many schools have not found the time, money, or desire to do the mass mailings required to notify everyone.

The use of student information by military telemarketers and salespeople is only one example of aggressive military marketing to young people. Presently, the military spends over $200 million a year in television advertising. During the 1980’s these ads pitched the military as a place to go for college money and never mentioned the possibility of forced engagement in war. Then came the Gulf War and a new emphasis on leadership development that again took the focus away from the reality of fighting wars. Recruitment ads continue to focus on leadership and claims that service leads to decreased drug use and helps school drop-outs get their lives back on track. They still do all of this without talking about the military’s main purpose—fighting wars. New Army ads, for instance, only show young people in civilian, rather than military, clothing.

The Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program is another recruitment tool used by the military to deceptively emphasize intangible benefits of service rather than presenting the violent realities of military duty. Pitched as a leadership development program, JROTC started in 1916 and operated in 2,700 high schools in the year 2000. The Defense Department now has plans to increase this number to 3,500 schools by 2005. The main reason for recent JROTC expansion is Pentagon research that shows about 40 percent of JROTC cadets eventually join the military. Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen told the House Armed Services Committee that JROTC is “one of the best recruiting devices we could have.” This is because it is now more cost effective to indoctrinate youth in school classrooms than it is through television advertisements —bad news for students, particularly when every branch of the armed forces except the Marine Corps continually falls thousands short of their annual recruitment goals. The result has been a transformed JROTC program that is less like a fringe military leadership program and more of an aggressive military recruitment arm that further diverts already scarce funding, class time, and teacher resources from local school districts to the military.

The expansion of JROTC has been widely resisted in communities across New Hampshire. While they have enjoyed varying degrees of success, youth, Quakers, military veterans, and other peace activists in communities such as Dover, Portsmouth, Hampton, Lancaster, Alstead and Peterborough have mobilized to oppose the military indoctrination of young people in schools. The Portsmouth School Board’s curriculum committee recently held a forum on their high school’s proposed adoption of a JROTC program. Among the community members that came to speak in opposition was high school junior Brianna Greenleaf. She summed up well what many community members feel about the program: “I find three things particularly disturbing about the proposed JROTC program. First, it would divert funding away from our already underfunded school system to pay the salaries of the military retirees who teach the Defense Department ’s war curriculums. Second, the instructors teach blind obedience and call it leadership. And third, I find it offensive that in wake of recent school shootings the government wants to come into our schools and teach young people how to shoot guns.” After the meeting the curriculum committee voted to recommend that a JROTC program not be started at Portsmouth High School.

Ad campaigns that make claims about job training and college money are one example of how the military is presented as a way out for working class youth. This is problematic because these claims are often deceptive and false. For example, college money is contingent on meeting a host of service requirements that are rarely met and few of the skills learned in the military translate back to the civilian world.

Another reason to oppose school-based recruitment is that it serves to further normalize the role of the military in our society. As society becomes more militarized our government’s plans to fight lifelong global wars will sound more and more reasonable. We see this transformation already taking place as schools, once a sacred place of learning, are opening up class time to outside recruiters. JROTC instructors teach a military history where killers are presented as heroes and where war is presented without discussion of its countless drawbacks.

The American Friends Service Committee and it’s youth program serve as a resource for counter-recruitment activities. Part of this work includes draft counseling and educating people about conscientious objection. Just recently a young man from southwestern New Hampshire called our office looking for help. He had signed on with the delayed enlistment program and was due to report to duty in a couple days. We were able to provide some simple guidance and he has now successfully withdrawn from what he was told was a binding contract. In addition to basic draft counseling, we also provide youth workshops on conscientious objection and will be hosting a Youth Peace Weekend conference in Concord from March 7-9 that will focus on military recruitment in schools. Please contact our office at 224-2407 to set up a workshop or receive further information.

How to go unrecruited

• Write a formal letter to you high school principal informing her/him that you do not want your personal contact information released to military. Have you and your parent/guardian sign the letter and make sure to mention that your school must honor your request under the No Child Left Behind Act.
• Encourage your school to implement an alternative system for the release of student information. One option: Along with other forms and notices that are distributed in back-to-school and new student registration packets, students should be presented with a short form that would direct them to indicate if they wish to be contacted at home by armed forces recruiters. Check-off boxes could be included with the warning that if they check “yes,” their name, address and phone number may be given to more than one representative of the military, which could result in several attempts by recruiters to contact them. If a form is not completed it should be school policy to assume that information release has been denied. This would protect against improper release of personal information.
• Set up a counter-recruitment table when military recruiters are present. Courts have found that the military is sufficiently controversial as to require equal access to recruiters and counter-recruiters.

Resources for Conscientious Objection, Getting Out of Military Service, and War Resistance:

• American Friends Service Committee-NH
www.afsc.org/nero/nenh.htm (603)224-2407
• American Friends Service Committee Youth and Militarism Program
www.afsc.org/youthmil.htm
• War Resisters League
www.nonviolence.org/wrl
• Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors
www.objector.org
• G.I. Rights Hotline
(800) 394-9544