The local Army recruiter is at my classroom door, and I wish he’d stop doing this. He needs to speak to a student in my English class at Jamaica High School.
When I explain that there are designated areas for him to speak with potential recruits, he apologizes. In fact, his etiquette is always spit-shined and gleaming, like something he’s learned at a seminar. He shows me his visitor’s pass, smoothed against a lapel, and apologizes once more. Never again, he says. It’s just that this time it’s important. Could he please have a word with Ernesto?
I like to believe I have the final say on these matters, but Ernesto is already out of his seat and calling the man “sir.” His slouch has been corrected and a hand keeps his jeans from dropping below the waist. They shake hands and a heartbreaking glow washes over his face. I shut the door while they confer in the hallway.
The Center on Conscience & War is a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of conscience, opposes military conscription, and serves all conscientious objectors to war.
ForcesWatch and Quakers in Scotland have submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament that calls on the Scottish Government to ensure greater scrutiny, guidance, and consultation with parents/guardians on armed forces visits to schools in Scotland, in order to provide transparency and balance, and in recognition of the unique nature of armed forces careers.
If you get an error message when signing the petition, please email petitions@scottish.parliament.uk with your name and you will be added in.
Forces Watch, a military reform group, and the Quakers faith group have launched a petition to the Scottish Parliament in favour of increased transparency and scrutiny of armed forces visits to schools.
Previous military data revealed a “disproportionate” 1783 visits to 377 Scottish education institutions across a two year period, with at least a third of visits concerning careers advice.
When he got home from Iraq, Hart Viges began sorting through his boyhood toys, looking for some he could pass on to his new baby nephew. He found a stash of G.I. Joes - his old favorites - and the memories came flooding back.
For years DOD recruiting commanders have attempted to circumvent student privacy protections that are designed to shield minors from the wholesale transfer of student information from the nation's high schools to the Pentagon's Military Entrance Processing Command.
The DOD markets "career opportunities" through the schools, relying on a variety of methods, from Channel One, a 12-minute, highly commercialized, daily TV program that reaches as many as 5 million children a day, to various posters and announcements touting military service or other schemes like the Career Exploration Program. For the most part, however, these outreach efforts ultimately rely on the schools as a third party from which to extract student data. Until now, the DOD's quest for greater access to children has been somewhat stymied by pesky state and federal laws that regulate the flow of student information from the schools.
ForcesWatch report calls on UK military to stop recruiting minors altogether, as armed forces bill due for third reading
Britain’s military should stop using armed under-18s to guard soldiers’ barracks, a report into Ministry of Defence recruitment practices is set to say.
The U.S. Department of Defense recently released their 2014 DoD Starbase Annual Report covering this program's impact on 10 to 14 year old children in U.S. public schools. One of the Starbase organizers is Major General Lee Tafanelli, of the Kansas National Guard, and his comments reveal how normalized and commonplace has become the language of militarization inside U.S. Schools. As part of the "community covenant " strategy of the Pentagon to "own" townships and school districts to support and participate in military focused science and math programs, children are now openly given science education directly related to defense issues. Starbase proponents focus their outreach in poorer districts , where children are at greater risk to conditions of poverty or lack opportunities afforded to youth living in more affluent areas and attending better funded schools.
Kenneth J. Saltman - Public schools in the United States have increasingly come to resemble the military and prison systems with their hiring of military generals as school administrators and heavy investment in security apparatus—metal detectors, high-tech dog tag IDs, chainlink fences, and real-time Internet-based or hidden mobile surveillance cameras—plus, their school uniforms, security consultants, surprise searches, and the presence of police on campuses.1 But it would be a mistake to understand the preoccupation with security as merely a mass media-driven hysteria in the wake of Virginia Tech and other high-profile shootings, and myopic to ignore the history of public school militarization prior to September 11.
The United States stands alone among Western nations in allowing military recruiters to work inside its educational system. Section 9528 of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act requires that public high schools give the military as much access to campuses and student contact information as is given to any other recruiter. However, University of Kansas anthropologist Brian Lagotte finds that school officials do not fully understand this policy and often provide military recruiters unrestricted access to their campuses. Many schools allow military recruiters to coach sports, serve as substitute teachers, chaperone school dances, and engage in other activities. In some cases, recruiters are such a regular presence in high schools that students and staff regard them as school employees.
WRI's new booklet, Countering Military Recruitment: Learning the lessons of counter-recruitment campaigns internationally, is out now. The booklet includes examples of campaigning against youth militarisation across different countries with the contribution of grassroot activists.