Jonah Walters, Jacobin - A smattering of information has been revealed about Connor Betts, the misogynist twenty-four-year-old who killed nine people and injured twenty-seven in Dayton earlier this month.
One of them was that he was in the Bellbrook High School Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) program, according to a classmate. We know little about Betts’s time in the program, the training he received, or what impact it had on him. But it’s worth mentioning that we have thousands of kids in America getting military training at school.
An estimated 500,000 high schoolers at 3,400 schools are enrolled in the JROTC, administered jointly by the military and each local school district. Students enrolled in JROTC classes are assigned ranks, taught military comportment and demeanor, and required to wear military uniforms. In most cases, students also receive training in military skills like marksmanship using school shooting ranges.
The Pentagon insists that JROTC is not a recruitment program, but a practical curriculum that teaches integrity and discipline — as innocuous as sports or physical education. But between 40 and 50 percent of students who complete three years of JROTC enlist in the military upon graduation, in part because JROTC graduates can receive enhanced pay and preferential benefits.
JROTC units are supervised by retired military officers who are exempt from civilian teaching certification requirements. To retain federal funding, each JROTC unit must maintain enrollment of 100 students or 10 percent of the student body — leaving the program vulnerable to organized student and parent boycotts.
The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)
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Elizabeth King, In These Times - Eighteen is the youngest age at which someone can join the U.S. military without their parents’ permission, yet the military markets itself to—which is to say recruits—children at much younger ages. This is in part accomplished by military recruiters who visit high schools around the country, recruiting children during career fairs and often setting up recruitment tables in cafeterias and hallways. As a result, most students in the U.S. will meet a military recruiter for the first time at just 17 years old, and children are getting exposed to military propaganda younger and younger.
The recruitment of young people to the military is as old as the military itself, and has become more and more normalized along with the general militarization of schools. According to the Urban Institute, more than two-thirds of public high school students attend schools where there are “school resource officers,” a name for school-based police. This police presences comes on top of the role of military recruiters on campuses, or at college and career fairs.
Counter-recruitment surged in popularity during George W. Bush’s Iraq War, when the U.S. military ratcheted up recruitment for the war. But these days you don’t hear much about this movement, despite the fact that the U.S. is still engaged in brutal wars, from Yemen to Afghanistan, and the Trump administration has been threatening war with Iran. Out of the spotlight, dedicated counter-recruiters around the country are steadfast in their organizing to cut off the human supply chain to the U.S. military. U.S. wars have caused innumerable deaths, created long-term hardships in occupied nations, and cost trillions of dollars. Counter-recruitment, then, is about starving the military of the labor it needs to accomplish these destructive missions. When working with students, parents and school leadership, counter-recruiters focus on a variety of issues, including the negative personal consequences that come with being a soldier and broader problems like racism and U.S. imperialism.
“As students were coming out of classrooms, [recruiters] would be by the door waiting for them."
Danielle Corcione - Teen Vogue
Since its inception, the United States military has recruited teenagers to enlist. During the Revolutionary War, when the military was formally established, young men were encouraged to fight for their country voluntarily. During the Civil War, conscription — essentially mandatory military enrollment for men of a certain age — was implemented, initially targeting men age 21 to 30. The draft was later expanded to include men as young as 18, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, and continued over centuries as a way to maintain a base of military servicepeople. In a statement to Teen Vogue, Lisa M. Ferguson, media relations chief for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, said, “The Army seeks qualified individuals 17 [to] 34 years old.”
Since the draft ended in 1973, the military has relied on an all-volunteer service and has targeted young people, using strategies that include placing recruiters in schools. This is allowed because the No Child Left Behind Act, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, requires military recruiters be granted the same access in schools as college recruiters.
The military markets to teenagers, particularly those in poorer school districts, because the armed services need a large population, and the sooner young people join, the more likely they are to stay and build a career. (According to the government, “184,000 personnel must be recruited into the Armed Forces each year to replace those who complete their commitment or retire.”) Modern-day recruiters sell the idea of an experience that often resonates more with poorer students because, for many, service with an honorable discharge can mean a free ride to college, or potentially a path to citizenship. (Only the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Dept. can grant citizenship, but the military can only accelerate the process. If a person doesn't qualify for citizenship, they would still have to complete their service years in the military.)
Rick Jahnkow - The Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft
During the weekend of June 23-24, 2018, a group of 28 activists gathered in Chicago to share the knowledge and lessons they have learned from organizing to counter the militarization of schools and military recruitment of young people. They came from various regions of the U.S. and met at the Cenacle Retreat and Conference Center.
Sponsored by the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (www.nnomy.org), the gathering provided an opportunity for organizers to assess the context for their work under the Trump/Pence administration, identify individual and collective challenges they face, and evaluate possible strategies and best practices for increasing their impact.
Marshall Blesofsky - From Draft NOtices, January-March 2019
On February 14, 2018, the unthinkable but all-too-common happened. A mass shooting occurred at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Rumors about the identity of the shooter were that he was a former student who had been in JROTC. One week later, on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman's guest was Pat Elder, the director of the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy. This organization works to counter the access that the military has to students in high schools. Mr. Elder went on to state that the shooter was trained in the marksmanship program at the same high school. On the day of the murders, the shooter wore his JROTC shirt. Also, among the killed were three JROTC students.
Long Beach Recruitment Awareness Project (LB RAP) is an organization that has been working to safeguard the privacy of students through what we call truth-in-recruitment. Military recruiters in our school district can visit the schools almost any time they wish. They collect student contact information and use it to pursue them. We have documented cases of students who have been hounded by recruiters without their parents' consent and lured by false promises to join the military.
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Son muchas las razones por las cuales la Marcha de Mujeres al Pentágono es un asunto de mujeres. No solo constituye un precedente histórico de una marcha contra la guerra dirigida por mujeres, sino que la marcha involucra a todo tipo de mujeres: de países que han sido tanto víctimas como agresores; de generaciones pasadas o actuales; de mujeres que se ven afectadas negativamente por la guerra a una tasa mayor que los hombres. Estas afirmaciones están respaldadas por estadísticas, aunque estas mismas estadísticas y realidades de guerra a menudo se ocultan bajo la alfombra o se justifican como daños colaterales necesarios. Es hora de reconocer a todas las víctimas de la guerra y de terminar con su impacto sobre las mujeres.
En el 2004, Sueños Comunes informó que "las mujeres y los niños representan casi el 80% de las víctimas de los conflictos y la guerra, así como el 80% de los 40 millones de personas desplazadas fuera de sus hogares". Pero el daño hecho a las mujeres debido conflictos no se detiene allí. Por generaciones las mujeres han sido intercambiadas como bienes, sus cuerpos tratados como botín u objetos que se pueden apropiar libremente, no solo durante el combate sino también en las bases militares o en sus proximidades.
Irene Khan, de Amnistía Internacional, afirma que "las mujeres y las niñas no sólo son asesinadas, ellas son también violadas, atacadas sexualmente, mutiladas y humilladas. La costumbre, la cultura y la religión han creado la imagen de las mujeres como portadoras del "honor "de sus comunidades. La humillación de la sexualidad de la mujer y la destrucción de su integridad física se han convertido en medios para aterrorizar, degradar y "derrotar" a comunidades enteras, así como para castigar, intimidar y humillar a las propias mujeres".
La violencia sexual se usa como herramienta de guerra para aterrorizar. Por generaciones, las mujeres han sido violadas y deshumanizadas dondequiera la máquina de guerra haya asomado su cabeza repugnante. Muchas de estas mujeres se han encontrado infectadas por enfermedades de transmisión sexual y/o embarazadas, sin que los abusadores hayan pensado ni por un momento en las consecuencias de sus actos.
