I work with high school students to inform them of their rights with regard to military enlistment. Students have the right to file an opt-out form at school, denying the military access to their personal contact information, which is regularly released to the military unless they request their school not do so.
As Donald Rumsfeld succinctly states, "The purpose of the military is not to educate. Its purpose is to prepare soldiers to kill."
Reps. Adam Smith and Jay Inslee tell us they do not have a concern about military recruiters at colleges (Inslee) or high school (Smith) campuses. Smith's aide explains that he doesn't want to get involved in "challenging the Privacy Act legislation" regarding enforcement of opt-out legislation in high schools.
Smith responded by sending a letter to the National Education Director demanding she get schools to do a better job of informing parents. Our high schools struggle with pressure to accommodate recruiters or lose federal funding.
In the October 12 edition of The Olympian, we read:
"The Army added nearly 1,300 recruiters during the year, for a total of 6,401 as of Sept. 30."
Recruiters target our youth, who are uninformed about what enlistment means.
We've heard it all: reports of sexual abuse; recruiters dating high school students; sales pitches on Veterans Day; a Department of Defense advertising budget of $4 billion this year and $1 billion for recruitment; Army Adventure vans; Black Hawk helicopters (landing at Bainbridge High School stopped by student activist and parents); customized Humvees; and ongoing efforts to recruit low-income minority youth.
Recruiters are coaches in our high schools, chaperones at dances, escorts at proms. They require sixth-graders to call them "Sgt. Joe" in drug awareness classes while dressed in camouflage.
I interviewed a reporter just returned from Texas following Katrina. He described recruiters visiting shelters in large numbers to enlist the youth who were separated from their families. Can you imagine losing contact with your family at 16, without money, homeless, no school, no friends, and a recruiter in your face?
Our small group sent a radio ad that was played in the Houston Astrodome, to alert teens and parents to their rights to protect their privacy.
North Thurston High School hosts military recruiters six times a month during the lunch hour.
Find out how often they're in your school, what types of programs they run, what marketing material is distributed and, most significantly, what they don't tell students about life during and after the military.
Marketing massive violence as a noble cause, because "we are superior," or "this is an educational opportunity" is false advertising.
Under 18 means you cannot vote, you cannot marry and you cannot enter a legal contract. Loco parentis means that our schools are responsible for the well-being of our children.
"Informed consent" means knowing what happens after you enlist, including lifelong post-traumatic stress, loss of limbs, divorce, homelessness, suicide, uranium exposure and genetic birth defects directly related to uranium exposure in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Molly Gibbs of Olympia is program coordinator for Know All You Can Know; Veterans for Peace Chapter 109. See the Web site at www.criticalconcern.com/optout .
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