Pat Elder |  Counter-Recruit Press | December 2018

“Where does a 14-year-old boy who never fired a gun before get the skill and the will to kill? - Video games and media violence”

Violent video games conspire to make Americans warlike, especially extraordinarily graphic games where the player holds a weapon-like game controller. At least that’s what about half of the country believes. A 2010 Rasmussen survey finds that 54% of Americans believe violent video games lead to more violence in society.1

Some studies link violent video games to aggressive and risky behavior among teens while others show that violent video games may have a calming effect on youth.

Believe what you want to believe.

After all, this is America, where free enterprise creates “research” that substantiates and disseminates pretty much anything for a price. Red meat doesn’t lead to heart disease and climate change is not caused by human activity. There’s research to “prove” it.

One thing is certain. The military, for its part, believes violent, first person shooter games are an excellent way to recruit youth. The military is looking for killers.

Pat Elder |  Counter-Recruit Press | December 2018

It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned - that a square is, in fact, a circle” –Joseph Goebbels

An 11th grader in a suburban Washington DC classroom is delighted to be excused from Algebra class to spend a half hour shooting a life-like 9 MM pistol and lobbing explosive ordinance from an M1A2 Abrams tank simulator. At the same time, 3,000 miles away in La Habra, California, a 15-year-old girl is released from Biology class to squeeze off rounds from a very real looking M-16 rifle. The kids enjoy the experience, especially the part about getting out of class.

The two students have experienced the Army’s Adventure Van, a 60-foot, 30-ton 18-wheeler with several interactive exhibits that bring an adrenaline rush and glorify weaponry and combat. The Army’s fleet of vans traveled 635,000 miles and made 2,000 stops in 2013. These visits included 865 high schools, according to the US Army Accessions Support Brigade. The vans drew 308,000 visitors and resulted in 57,000 leads.1

In addition to the Adventure Vans, the Army has three other 18-wheelers for recruiting purposes. The Aviation Recruiting Van contains an AH 64 Helicopter flight simulator and an interactive air warrior and weapons display. The Special Ops 18-wheeler has a parachute simulator and a dog tag machine that has proven popular with teen boys.

The Army’s STEM Van (That’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is popular among many high school teachers and administrators. According to military manuals, the Army reserves this one for the “hard to penetrate” high schools. The hands-on exhibits are “designed to showcase hi-tech capabilities and opportunities within the Army while generating quality leads for local recruiters and ROTC departments.”2

The Army and the Air Force have their own recruiting motorcycles. The American Soldier Adventure Van has an interactive air/land warrior display and a future warrior display. The Army Marksmanship Trainer has an interactive rifle range.

In addition to the fleet of 18-wheelers, the Army has four Rock-Walls, the climbing walls that are popular with youth. The Army also brings machine gun-toting humvees, tanks, and other military vehicles onto high school campuses to enhance their recruiting efforts. The interactive, theatrical weapons simulators provide a mesmerizing experience for many teens, captivated by the awesome accuracy and power of the Army’s killing machines.

The banter between adolescent and Army recruiter is empowering for the LaHabra teenager, as she holds an absolutely frightening replica of the cold, metallic 8.5 pound M-16-A-2. “This is awesome!” The recruiter explains, “The weapon is a 5.56 mm caliber, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed rifle, with a rotating bolt. It is constructed of steel, aluminum, and composite plastics.”

Firing the simulator produces a minor kick to the weapon and a small red dot is projected on a bull’s-eye target about 20 feet away. The shooter is accurate from left to right on the target, but she’s hitting it a few inches below bull’s eye. Her recruiter explains that soldiers shooting the M-16-A-2 might want to aim high in order to place shots on the desired target, especially at close range. “Cool!” is the reply.

The Air Force and the Navy also have fleets of trucks and vans that visit high schools. The Air Force has a Raptor Trailer, with a miniature replica of its newest fighter aircraft and two video game stations that put children behind the joystick, piloting an F-22 fighter that’s coming to the aid of a friendly F-4 under attack by hostile Russian MiG-29s.

Five Navy Exhibit Centers include a “Nuclear Power Van,” and an “America’s Sea Power Van.”

Recruiting is a psychological game. To be most effective, recruiters must understand the mindset of the recruit. This is evident with the 2014 unveiling of the Army Extreme Truck.3

Throughout rural and southern America there is a kind of cult around the pickup truck. Perhaps the word “cult” is too strong, but the pickup is an icon in teen culture. It is revered and idolized. It is a symbol of freedom and independence and its ownership represents a transition to adulthood. For some, it means a 1996 Ford F-150 with a badly rusted bed, a partially rebuilt engine, and an odometer showing 320,000.

For others, it’s a 2000 Dodge Dakota, larger than the Ford Ranger and Chevy S-10, with a Dodge 318 engine powerful enough to leave the Ranger and the S-10 in the dust.

Now, if this seems odd, consider your own background and the overall recruitment rates per thousand youth from state to state. Rhode Island, for instance, with an overwhelmingly urban/suburban population, saw just 1.26 per thousand of its 18-24-year-olds enter the Army in 2010. South Carolina and Georgia, with huge rural populations, both saw recruitment rates at 3.45 per thousand.4 Where do you think high school students are more likely see the Extreme Truck? The kids in Newport or Narragansett, Rhode Island might not be impressed with the Army’s Extreme Truck, but the boys of Barnwell County, South Carolina, living along the Savannah River on the border with Georgia, are likely to appreciate it.

This truck’s got 47-inch wheels while the standard F-150 has 22-inch wheels. Weighing in at 15,700 pounds, the Army’s monster is 11,500 pounds heavier than the F-150. It’s 9’4” tall compared to the F-150 at 6’3”. You won’t find it parading the streets of Brookline, Massachusetts or Palo Alto, California! The Army’s Recruiting Journal describes it this way:

The truck is loaded with features to keep up to 12 people engaged at the same time. Its payload includes two gaming stations with 32-inch flat-screen televisions, an additional 60-inch flat screen, and pull-up and push-up platforms to challenge participants. The Extreme Truck includes a diesel engine producing 900 pound-foot of torque, 325 horsepower and a heavy-duty transmission. It is also equipped with a front mounted winch capable of pulling nine tons. It has two 107-gallon fuel tanks and retractable steps.5

According to Army Maj. William Davis. “Attracting young Americans to The Army Extreme Truck – Army Recruiting Journal become Soldiers requires ingenuity and faster interaction with our future soldiers and officers. This is where the Extreme Truck will help recruiters and ROTC departments take their interactions to another level.”

Some 250 students and their teachers at South Central High School in Winterville, North Carolina were treated to the Army Extreme Truck in April of 2015. They tried out the Army’s military tactic video game.

The U.S. Army Chopper is slso a big hit on high school campuses across the country. This 560-pound, 134-horsepower killing machine is a testament to sheer madness, a commodity held in high regard among segments of the teen population.

Consider the listless 17-year-old in the midst of a boring English literature class, pondering the words of Geoffrey Chaucer on the study sheet, “Forbid us something and that thing we desire.” The monotonic teacher is droning on about Palamon setting forth for Venus’ temple when the announcement comes over the P.A., calling on students to head down to the parking lot to see the Army’s Chopper.

The recruiter, a staff sergeant with 22 years of active duty service, is trained in the psychology of his profession. He revs up the engine to ear-shattering decibels. The Staff Sergeant explains that the chopper is equipped with a semi-automatic Colt M-4 carbine that fires the .223 caliber, or 5.56 mm NATO round. The M4, the staff sergeant says, has largely replaced the submachine gun due to increased use of body armor, because submachine guns can’t penetrate modern body armor.

There’s a discussion as to whether the thing can shoot 45 or 90 rounds per minute, how hot it gets, and how often it jams. A razor-sharp U.S. military M9 bayonet is affixed to the M4. One quick jab brings life to a sudden end.

The recruiter handles the M67 Fragmentation Grenade and explains that the grenade weighs 14 ounces and has a 2.5-inch diameter, compared to a baseball that weighs 5 ounces and has a 2.86-inch diameter. “Twice as heavy but a little smaller.”

The Army Chopper comes equipped with an M18 A1 Claymore anti-personnel mine, which is about the size of two elementary school lunch boxes sitting side by side. The military is enjoying unprecedented access to high school kids.

As we’ve seen, Section 8025 of the Every Student Succeeds Act says military recruiters are to have the same access to high school students as college and career recruiters. The presence of these military vehicles on high school campuses goes far beyond the access college and career recruiters enjoy.

When Maryland parents (including the author) organized a demonstration in 2006 to greet the arrival of the Army’s Cinema Van at Montgomery Blair High School, Kelly Rowe, public affairs officer for the Baltimore Recruiting Battalion, compared the Cinema Van visit to efforts by colleges to recruit students. “I don’t think it’s any different from an athlete who gets 10 letters saying, ‘Come play for us,’ “ Rowe insisted.6

The Pentagon’s marketing strategists are apparently convinced that segments of the recruiting-age youth population are enamored of great big vehicles that make a lot of noise and go very fast.

The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and the U.S. Army have been marketing partners in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series since 2000. Mello Yello is the top competition series of the NHRA. There are 24 events held annually across the country.

In 2016 the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series shifted from ESPN to FOX Sports 1 (FS1) with four events airing on the FOX national broadcast network during each season of the long-term agreement. The deal provided the world’s fastest motorsport with live coverage of a majority of its events.7

Dragsters scream down the 1,000-foot track propelled by 8,000 horsepower engines burning nitromethane/methanol fuel at speeds up to 330 miles an hour. The earsplitting sound, the trembling earth, and the odor of the noxious gas produce an overwhelming and sometimes intoxicating high.

The Army leverages its collaboration with the NHRA to offer the Youth & Education Services (Y.E.S.) program, pitching Army careers to 25,000 The students a year who attend various hot rod events. The Army’s driver, Tony Schumacher, joins soldiers and recruiters to promote enlistment.

Schumacher’s Army dragster is a crowd favorite. His race cars have been destroyed in fiery explosions in 2003, 2012, 2015, and 2016, while Schumacher has emerged unscathed.

The Army entertains youth at the racetrack with a variety of interactive exhibits, with a special emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The kids are solicited for personal information while they’re sent home with literature that promotes STEM activities, many of them sponsored by the Department of Defense at middle and high schools across the country.

The racetrack exhibits are nearly identical to those at the “Army Strong Zone,” a three-acre sea of interactive displays and exhibits adjacent to the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas during football bowl games. The Army has generated more than a millSTEM ion leads from this recruiting extravaganza, dating back to 1997.

Even so, the Army appears to be uncomfortable with public perceptions that the Army Strong Zone is about recruiting. “This is not a recruiting event,” explained Lt. Col. David Walker, the U.S. Army Accessions operations officer for the Army Strong Zone. Walker sounded a theme that permeates much of the recruiting command. The Army is not groveling for youth with few employment options; it is instead providing a public service by connecting regular Americans with their Army. In 2012, Walker explained to a reporter, “This is a demonstration of changing the perception of the Army and showing that it has moved from the kinetic to a STEM environment and it shows the ability for the Army to interact with the local community and the nation, hence connecting our people with our Army.”8

The Army has teamed up with the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Racing team and a group calling itself Ten80 Education Today to launch the Student Racing Challenge. The Student Racing Challenge uses a STEM curriculum and a racing platform to illustrate various principles.9

Events focus on STEM-related military careers while the curriculum targets middle and high school students. Students work together to develop their own racing team. Their race car is one-tenth the size of a typical stock car, powered by electricity. It is driven by remote controls. Middle and high school children meet after school and work with coaches to design and test their race cars.

Ten80 Education Student Racing Challenge Events are sponsored by the Army in various cities throughout the U.S. There’s a huge US STEMfest event held annually in a major American city that features Army race team members and well-known entertainers. Ten80 Education also teams up with the Denver Broncos to host the Ten80 STEM Expo sponsored by the U.S. Army at Sports Authority Field, Mile High Stadium.

There may be a lot less connecting people to the Army through NASCAR events going forward. From 2008 through 2012 the National Guard spent $136 million to sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s #88 Car.10 According to a stunning May 2014 report in USA Today, the Army’s NASCAR sponsorship netted NO recruits.11

The Guard had always defended its sponsorship of Earnhardt and NASCAR, arguing it would help recruit soldiers, but it didn’t take long for so much pressure to build that the Guard announced in August of 2014 it was cutting its ties to NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, who drives #88, a favorite of Nazi skinheads.

When the allegations were made public by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), at that time Chairwoman of the Senate Financial and Contracting Oversight Subcommittee, there were few congressional defenders of the program to be found.

One exception was Rep. Richard Hudson (NC-08), who referred to the cutoff of funds to NASCAR and the end of the Guard’s partnership as “an irresponsible decision.” Despite facts to the contrary, Hudson released a statement to the press saying, “The success of the National Guard using professional motorsports to recruit young men and women has been proven and well-documented.”12

Hudson represents North Carolina’s 8th district, which includes Concord, home of Hendrick Motorsports. Earnhardt is a driver for Hendrick. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Hendrick Motorsports has contributed $27,150 over the years to Rep. Hudson.

Hendrick Motorsports itself did not donate; rather the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families.13

Since 2004, when Congress passed a law allowing the DOD to profit from retail sales by issuing licenses and trademarks, the military has also been attempting to connect with the public through a stepped up retail campaign. Go online, visit the Army Strong Zone, or attend a Blue Angels Airshow to see the explosion of retail items.

The DoD Branding and Trademark Licensing Program was established to regulate the sale of military merchandise through third-party vendors. Not surprisingly, the objectives of the program are to enhance the name, reputation, and public goodwill of the military services while “supporting the recruiting and retention efforts of the military departments.”

There’s a rich irony here. The Pentagon profits on selling overpriced, cheaply made merchandise from China, while pitching enlistment to eager consumers. At least one vendor advertised merchandise as having been “Made in America” when it actually originated from China.

WCPO TV in Cincinnati reported in 2014 that a local retired Army officer purchased an Army baseball cap from shopmyexchange.com, one of a multitude of online vendors peddling Pentagon gear. The vet paid $29.95 for the Army cap. The website description says “Made in the USA,” but when he received his cap, he was stunned to find a label that said, “Made in China.”14

No laws were broken. Although the Berry Amendment, passed by Congress in 2006, forbids the DOD from purchasing uniforms from foreign suppliers, this law pertains to soldier uniforms and gear purchased by the government, not merchandise sold at military exchanges.

It’s overwhelming to consider the list of “military” merchandise the DOD is aggressively peddling to the public. It seems everything these days carries military insignia, including:

Banks - Credit Card Companies - Hats - Sportswear - Toys - Models - Games - Clocks - Watches - Jewelry - Coins - Pins - Hats - Clothing - Office Accessories - Software Accessories - Sunglasses - Sporting Goods - Novelty Goods - Furniture - Clocks - Bikes - Autos - Motorcycles - Books - Magazines - Posters - Special Events15

Christian Davenport of the Washington Post captured the absurdity of the Pentagon’s retail market campaign in his brilliant 2011 piece, “The Marine cologne: Strong, with a hint of military spirit.”

Nothing smells quite like a Marine. Pungent with hints of the Parris Island swamp. The unmistakable notes of sweat-soaked combat boots and the earthy musk of a well-dug trench. Isn’t that the smell of a Marine? Perhaps. But it’s not what the officially licensed Marine Corps cologne smells like. At $45 a bottle, “Devil Dog” is far from eau de grunt. Instead, it boasts a “finely crafted fusion of sandalwood, cedar and citric spices” that “stands as a proud reminder of honor and tradition.16

Davenport reported that the Army alone expected to sell $50 million worth of merchandise, generating more than $1.2 million in fees and royalties.

Video games, drag racing, monster pick-up trucks, killer motorcycles, military sportswear; how else can the military get into a potential recruit’s head? Comic books, of course! Comichron, a resource for comics research, estimates that the North American comics market, including both print and digital formats, totaled $935 million in 2014.17

It’s safe to say that several million men and women between 17 and 24, the prime recruiting age, regularly consume digital comic books. With more than 14 million registered users playing the America’s Army video game, the Army probably realized the potential for mass consumption.18

The America’s Army video game features a conflict between the “bad guys” of Czervenia and the “good guys” of the peaceful nation of Ostregal. The U.N. failed to avert a crisis and failed to provide humanitarian relief, so the government of the good guys has requested help from the United States. The Army has been sent in to “resolve the situation.” There’s not much else to understand, in terms of the geopolitical complexities of the situation.

The storyline continues in the America’s Army Comics digital comic book app, available for free on iTunes:

The App features our first two issues. The first issue, Knowledge is Power, immerses readers in the Ostregal Islands where a humanitarian mission soon turns mysterious and deadly when a Long Range Reconnaissance Team witnesses an ominous scientific discovery deep in an enemy forest - an impending threat that could jeopardize the mission and endanger the entire world.

In the second issue, Rise to the Challenge, Sergeant Roy Lacroix examines his life as he goes from his humble beginnings as a high school student to a Special Forces medic deployed in Czervenia while realizing the value his hard work and determination has meant to the people he’s encountered along his journey.

Learn more about the U.S. Army by browsing through the interactive Intel Section that showcases state-of-the-art gear, weapons, aircraft and more! Experience the official comic book of the United States Army. Download this innovative jump into digital comic technology and stay tuned for more free exciting issues and updates. HOOAH!19

There are significant omissions in this brief iTunes introduction to the comics developed by the Army Game Studio at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. There’s no mention of dozens of illegal U.S. military actions in the recent past; no mention of war crimes committed by American soldiers. The reason for the introduction of U.S. military force is that internationally sanctioned multilateral peacekeeping efforts have failed miserably. The comic book leaves out an examination of the American track record in undermining U.N. protocols, particularly those that might challenge the unilateral and aggressive military actions of the U.S. government.

It is the comic book’s spy team that uncovers the abominable plans of terrorists deep in the jungle who are hatching a secret plan of nuclear terrorism. There’s no discussion of the United States as the nation possessing the largest clandestine apparatus on the earth or the U.S. as the greatest purveyor of nuclear weaponry in the world.

This iTunes summary on behalf of the U.S. Army is outrageously patronizing. Our hero, Sergeant Lacroix, with “his humble beginnings as a high school student,” is now an Army medic deployed in Czervenia. He’s not an Infantryman or a Cannon Fire Direction Specialist. It’s his job to heal, not to kill.

The comic book app has a five-star rating in the Apple App store. Industry critics generally give the Army comic book high ratings, especially for the artwork and the portrayal of Army jargon, acronyms, and combat scenarios. But this is a sterilized glimpse of Army life produced for recruiting purposes.

Apparently, the Pentagon has plenty to spend on half-baked schemes designed to sell the notion of military service to the recruiting-age population.

According to a report released by Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, the DOD spent millions for patriotic tributes at various professional sports events from 2012 to 2015.20

From the report, “Tracking Paid Patriotism”:

Altogether, the military services reported $53 million in spending on marketing and advertising contracts with sports teams between 2012 and 2015. More than $10 million of that total was paid to teams in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer. The DOD paid for patriotic tributes at professional football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer games. These paid tributes included on-field color guard, enlistment and reenlistment ceremonies, performances of the national anthem, full-field flag details, ceremonial first pitches and puck drops. The National Guard paid teams for the “opportunity” to sponsor military appreciation nights and to recognize its birthday.

Eighteen teams in the NFL received a total of $5.6 million over the four-year period. For a price, NFL teams provided the military opportunities to perform surprise welcome home promotions for troops returning from deployments and to recognize wounded warriors.

The NFL, which spent $1.2 million on Capitol Hill lobbying expenses in 2014 alone, seemed somewhat embarrassed by the findings.21 Although the football league initially said the McCain-Flake report “paints a completely distorted picture of the relationship between NFL teams and our military,” it promised to audit its teams’ government contracts and refund any money paid out inappropriately. This contrasts sharply to the reaction of the Pentagon.

McCain said the Pentagon “was unusually and especially aggressive when trying to withhold this information.” The report said the DOD “has no measurement on whether the activities paid for are in fact contributing to recruiting” and that the DOD’s “lack of internal controls put them at excessive risk for waste, fraud, and abuse.”

How else might the Pentagon penetrate the minds of military-aged youth? Maj. Gen. Mark Brilakis, Commanding General of the Marine Corps Recruiting Command, says the Corps will be concentrating on service to nation, a message he said “seems to resound with the current generation of millennials.”22

The previous recruiting pitch, “Towards the Sounds of Chaos,” emphasized service, but it also highlighted combat and crisis response. Perhaps youngsters in their early 20’s, still living at home with dreadful employment prospects, are more averse these days to putting their lives on the line to protect their country. Evidently the Marine Corps thinks it makes more sense to sell the Marines as an honorable profession to serve those in need than it does to pitch the thrilling prospect of seeing combat. We can see that very theme in the Army’s comic book.

The Army Marketing and Research Group (AMRG), established in 2012, teamed with New York-based marketing firm McCann Worldgroup to create advertising that presents the Army as an elite team seeking new members because “there is important work to be done.”23

In 2015, McCann World Group, which has managed the Army account since 2005, was awarded a new one-year $200-million contract to provide the Army with advertising and marketing services for recruitment and retention. McCann is an agency of Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG)24 That same year the Army changed its recruiting pitch, replacing “Army Strong” with an emphasis on service and sacrifice, and extolling the virtues of joining “the Army team.”

The contract is the US government’s largest single ad account.25 The deal is renewable for four years, making it a possible five-year working relationship.26

Occasionally, we get a glimpse of what the nation’s top advertising minds actually think of their clients and their products. Defense Industry Daily reported in July of 2013 that Mike Hughes, President of Interpublic’s subsidiary The Martin Agency, had shared his thoughts about McCann’s client, the US Army:

Are U.S. soldiers heroic in taking on dangerous tasks to help protect us? Are many of the soldiers fine and great men? Yes. Is the Army a prejudiced, misogynistic, self-destructive organization of deeply flawed, violent men and women of low average esteem, suicidal tendencies, and intelligence? Yes, again.

Defense Industry Daily commented:

The statement in question doesn’t come from some random staffer. It comes from a top-level executive of one of IPG’s largest subsidiaries – with several direct clients, like Wal-Mart, that are very supportive of the US Army. That an ad agency President, of all people, should see fit to publicly utter such a thing about his group’s client, is more than passing strange. That it should come in the form of an evidence-free smear is indefensible.27

Of course Defense Industry Daily was quick to malign Hughes. Like millions at the Pentagon’s teat, they’re quick to fall in line. The wellknown defense publication failed to mention that Mr. Hughes, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer years before, was in hospice at home when he made the comment. Hughes remained lucid and kept two blogs close to the day of his death. He died on December 15, 2013.

Hughes was one of the country’s greatest advertising men, starting at the agency he eventually ran for 20 years as a copywriter in 1978. He was behind Geico’s Caveman, the “over the hump” camel, and the brilliant FreeCreditReport.com ads.28

The guy was sharp as a tack. He wrote his own obit. He was a word man, like Don Draper of the Mad Men series. He knew the value of carefully chosen words. Again, consider the words he used to describe the Army, and keep in mind he knew the Army from a marketing perspective.

• Prejudiced
• Misogynistic
• Self-destructive
• Deeply flawed
• Violent men and women of low average esteem & intelligence
• Suicidal tendencies

It doesn’t matter what the ad men think. All that matters are the public’s perception of the Army, and that’s the job of the Army’s propaganda arm, Army Marketing and Research Group (AMRG). The AMRG looked to the advertising gurus at McCann World Group to come up with market-tested strategies to further improve its stellar image. The solution was to use interactive social media to stress the value of Army service. The AMRG describes it this way:

Historically, the Army’s method of marketing and recruiting informs people what benefits a recruit may receive in exchange for his or her service, but not why they should be interested in the first place. The Enterprise Army Brand introduces a fundamental shift from promoting the personal benefits of Army service to promoting the value of the Army as an institution. As a cornerstone of the Enterprise Army Brand, AMRG will highlight the stories of soldiers who make significant contributions to their communities and provide a tangible demonstration of the value of the Army to American society.29

We can see the strategy at work in high schools across the country. For years, high school students have been routinely indoctrinated by an unconscionable barrage of corporate marketing, state propaganda, and deceptive military recruitment through conventional TV programming in classrooms.

Channel One News loans a school TV equipment in exchange for the school’s contractual pledge to show students a daily, 12-minute, highly commercialized TV program. The company claims to reach 5 million students with programming aligned to Common Core State Standards. Students lose one hour a week of school time, which equates to one lost week of instructional time (32 hours) per year. Not one educational organization endorses the use of Channel One News.30 The U.S. Army has paid Channel One News to run its recruitment ads and to embed their recruitment pitches into “news” stories.31

It’s effective, but it doesn’t accomplish AMRG’s goal of saturating interactive media with enticing stories about Army values. Enter SkoolLive.

For years, DOD recruiting commanders have attempted to circumvent student privacy protections 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 to posters and announcements touting military service or schemes like STEM Programs and March 2 Success, the free Army test prep software. For the most part, however, these outreach efforts 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 stymied by pesky state and federal laws that regulate the flow of student information from the schools.

Imagine then, the Pentagon’s keen interest in a plan by upstart Skool-Live LLC of Fallbrook, CA to install giant, 6-foot, I-phone-like devices with flashing, screaming, streaming interactive screens in thousands of high school hallways across the country. These life-size digital kiosks allow kids to directly upload their personal information without having to deal with school policies or state and federal laws.

The company says it has agreements with more than 2,000 schools in 27 states and intends to triple that number.32

According to SkoolLive, school officials allow the free installation of these devices because they are convinced the gadgets “enrich a student’s school experience by replacing mundane printed posters with high-quality digital ads that require less space, reduce visual clutter, move schools into the digital age, and save tons of time, money and trees.”33

But these officials may not be seeing the entire picture. From the SkoolLive website directed toward potential advertisers:

The SkoolLive Kiosk screens are touch sensitive. The feature allows us to offer “interactive” ads. With this interactive feature, advertisers are able to conduct student surveys, determine product preferences, enter contests, send text messages containing promo codes, discount coupons, etc. Our proprietary software captures and analyzes this valuable data, providing advertisers the analytics and feedback necessary to effectively measure audience acceptance as well as the effectiveness of their ad.

The placement of these SkoolLive kiosks, however, may circumvent The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Generally, the law states that schools may disclose information such as a student’s name, address, and telephone number, but are required to allow parents to request that the school not disclose information about children.

Many state laws go even further in protecting student rights. By allowing the placement of these giant interactive kiosks, schools may be allowing the transfer of student information without providing for parental consent.

Additionally, SkoolLive’s interactive hallway contraptions may be violating the newly enacted Section 8025 of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

The law says schools shall provide, upon a request made by a military recruiter, access to the name, address, and telephone listing of a high school student, unless the parent submits a written request to the school that the child’s information not be released. Schools must notify parents of their right to opt out.34

SkoolLive’s kiosks remove the role of the school and allow the military to extract information directly from unassuming minors.

Not only that, but schools stand to make thousands off each kiosk per month, the company claims, depending on the marketing dollars each generates. SkoolLive officials apparently told Chris Marczak, assistant superintendent of Oak Ridge High School in Tennessee, that each kiosk could generate between $2,000 and $5,000 monthly for each of its schools.

Even so, the Tennessee school district stopped the “free” kiosks from being installed. More than 110 students and parents took an online survey about the kiosks and 60% of the respondents were against the proposal. 35

The giant i-pads are sold as a way for students to access information about a particular notice or event. Need to know more about purchasing high school rings or yearbooks? Click here. Want to leave your contact info for an advertiser to get in touch? It’s simple!

Want to learn about jobs in the Army, or more specifically, how to take the military’s enlistment test, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery? That information is readily available in a slick, colorful, interactive format in high schools across the country, and it may be coming to a school near you. SkoolLive describes the Army’s use of its interactive kiosks this way:

The Army wanted students to be aware of Army career options while learning student preferences. As a part of their Career Exploration Program, the Army ran a full-screen video interactive career survey. Students entered their grade, selected their career preference and registered to win one of three prizes given away monthly. Winners were showcased in a follow-up ad.36

It seems nothing is sacred, nothing off limits in the overzealous world of military marketing. A case in point is a 2013 posting from the Air Force’s Global Strike Team that tries to convince the public that Dr. Martin Luther King would be proud of America’s nuclear arsenal.

Dr. King would be proud to see our Global Strike team - comprised of Airmen, civilians, and contractors from every race, creed, background, and religion - standing side-by-side ensuring the most powerful weapons in the US arsenal remain the credible bedrock of our national defense. Our team must overlook our differences to ensure perfection as we maintain and operate our weapon systems. Maintaining our commitment to our Global Strike team, our families, and our nation is a fitting tribute to Dr. King as we celebrate his legacy.37

The recruiting commands of the various services frequently equate military service with defending freedom and democracy. That ought to net some recruits. Both the St. Louis and San Antonio Army Recruiting Battalions carry this message on their websites: “Our mission is to recruit qualified men and women in order to provide the strength needed to uphold and defend Freedom and Democracy.”

In the dominant, secular media marketplace, in our town squares, city streets, and shopping malls, we are immersed in an adoring reverence toward all things military. Nothing else comes close. Less than 1 in 5 Americans actually attend weekly religious worship services, while somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close their doors every year. If there is near-universal mass worship in America it is a worship of killing institutions and machines.38

The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. is a great shrine of American military worship. An immensely popular exhibit, “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War” reinforces the pervasive panoply of American military adoration. It is treated as the Gospel truth. The exhibit opens with these words, “Americans have gone to war to win their independence, expand their national boundaries, define their freedoms, and defend their interests around the globe.”39

This is horrendous propaganda, yet we are so thoroughly seduced that most of us can’t see it, not unlike the Israelites of old who worshiped the golden calf. The prolific antiwar author David Swanson reacted to the exhibit this way:

The exhibit is an extravaganza of lies and deceptions. The U.S. Civil War is presented as “America’s bloodiest conflict.” Really? Because Filipinos don’t bleed? Vietnamese don’t bleed? Iraqis don’t bleed? We should not imagine that our children don’t learn exactly that lesson. The Spanish American War is presented as an effort to “free Cuba,” and so forth. But overwhelmingly the lying is done in this exhibit by omission. Bad past excuses for wars are ignored, the death and destruction is ignored or falsely reduced. Wars that are too recent for many of us to swallow too much B.S. about are quickly passed over.40

The Smithsonian’s pro-war propaganda probably wasn’t produced with Army recruitment specifically in mind. Rather, it is state-sanctioned pap that accomplishes the same task. The next chapter expands on the notion of interactive ways to entice the recruitment age population.

Pat Elder is the director of the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, an organization that works to prohibit the automatic release of student information to military recruiting services from the nation's high schools. He is also creator of the website Counter-Recruit.org, which documents the deceptive practices used by the US military to recruit students into the armed forces.

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 Revised 01/30/2022

Pat Elder |  Counter-Recruit Press | November 2018

In July, 2015 the U.S. Army Chief of Public Affairs responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by releasing a massive 1,400-page list of movies and television shows his office had reviewed and influenced from 2010 to 2015.1 The list provides insight into the murky world of military censorship and sheds light on productions the Pentagon deems helpful to the recruiting effort.

The FOIA request was initiated by Tom Secker, a British-based writer who specializes in security services. The Army’s report may be found on Secker’s website, spyculture.org. Within a few weeks of Secker’s receipt of the data, just a handful of websites had reported on the significant release, including Billboard, Alternet, Salon, Techdirt, and Center for Research and Globalization. No mainstream American newspapers or TV outlets picked up the intriguing story.

The Department of Defense has several offices dedicated to providing “assistance” for a wide variety of entertainment genres. Producers of every stripe who desire military assistance in the production of “feature motion pictures, television shows, documentaries, music videos, commercial advertisements, CD-ROM games, and other audiovisual programs” are directed to contact the military service being portrayed. The Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines operate liaison offices from four adjacent offices located on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles.2

Aside from fighting current wars and planning for new ones, the Pentagon spends a lot of time and energy viewing film. Recruiting-age youth increasingly rely on movies, television, YouTube and other video sources to inform and shape their world view. Some 45% of 17-year-olds say they read for pleasure no more than one to two times a year if that often. The recruiting-age population watches video.3

The Pentagon recognizes that film and television deeply influence youth, and all of American society, so military minders regularly edit the scripts for thousands of productions, including “American Idol,” “The X-Factor,” “Masterchef,” “Cupcake Wars,” numerous Oprah Winfrey shows, “Ice Road Truckers,” “Battlefield Priests,” “America’s Got Talent,” “Hawaii Five-O,” lots of BBC, History Channel and National Geographic documentaries, “War Dogs,” “Big Kitchens”— the list goes on and on. Alongside these shows are blockbuster movies like Godzilla, Transformers, and Superman: Man of Steel.4

As unlikely as it sounds, the Air Force has worked with the producers of “Jeopardy,” “The Queen Latifah Show,” “The Wheel of Fortune,” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” When members of the Air Force appear on television, military minders review scripts before airing. The Army’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs in Los Angeles (OCPA-LA) rates the productions. Although we’re familiar with films carrying ratings like G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17 from the Motion Picture Association of America, the Army also gives them ratings. They include:

• Supports Building Resiliency,
• Supports Restoring Balance,
• Supports Maintaining Our Combat Edge,
• Supports Adapting Our Institutions,
•  Supports Modernizing Our Force.5

The Army does not assign negative ratings; instead, it summarily rejects films that it doesn’t like. Rejection by OCPA deprives filmmakers of access to military bases, ships, training, maneuvers, etc. Rejection forces filmmakers wanting to tell a story involving the military to potentially spend additional millions in production costs, effectively eliminating low-budget filmmakers not content with toeing the line.

Most of the films on the OCPA-LA list eventually receive a thumbsup, many after an intensive back-and-forth editorial review process. Films are subsequently categorized, as above, by the way they best support the Army’s mission. Producers requesting DoD assistance submit their scripts to the Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OATSD-PA), which authorizes the Military Services to provide suggestions for changes. Refusal on the part of producers regarding any DoD edits results in a rejection of assistance.6

The OCPA-LA list of films obtained and released by Secker is prefaced by this disclaimer:

NOTICE: This report contains information on the development and progress of TV programs, feature films, and other entertainment-oriented and documentary media projects. This information is shared with the Army for the purpose of determining whether the project qualifies for Department of the Army and Department of Defense support. It is pre-decisional information for our Chain-of-Command. IT IS NOT INTENDED FOR PUBLIC DISSEMINATION. The information contained in this report, if publicly disclosed, could be financially and professionally detrimental to the entertainment media production entity or individual filmmaker(s) providing the information, and would deter these companies and individuals from seeking Army assistance.

It may be professionally embarrassing to some producers when the public discovers that the financial incentive of working with the DoD entails a substantial degree of restriction and suppression of intellectual independence.

The projects in the recently released OCPA-LA list were governed by the stringent guidelines contained in Defense Instruction 5410.15, dated March 28, 1989. Many productions since 1989 have been edited and subsequently approved with little regard for these guidelines. The release of the information pursuant to the FOIA request may have led the DoD to publish new instructions in an effort to avert embarrassment under the potential spotlight of public scrutiny. The new, more subjective guidelines were made public on July 31, 2015, just three weeks after the OCPA-LA files were released to Secker. The new instructions allow the DoD to approve pretty much anything for any reason and, more importantly, to reject projects using the same fuzzy criteria.

The old policy called for “accuracy in the portrayals of DoD persons, places, equipment, operations, and events.” The new policy calls for productions to present “a reasonably realistic depiction of the Military Services and the DoD, including Service members, civilian personnel, events, missions, assets, and policies.” Reasonably realistic to whom, using what criteria? Do the top brass military censors reject projects if they deem them to be unreasonably realistic? Would scripts based on books by Chalmers Johnson, Howard Zinn, or Noam Chomsky be considered unreasonably realistic? The question penetrates to the heart of the 1st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech.”

The 1989 guidelines say there should be “no implication or appearance of implication of DoD endorsement or approval of any person, product, partisan or political cause,” but the new policy leaves all of this out. It omits words like endorsement, political, or partisan. Its purposeful vagueness untethers the Pentagon from these intellectual constraints.7

Filmmakers and Pentagon brass forge a mutually beneficial partnership. War is profitable to moviemakers and the military is eager to sell its version of it. While Hollywood producers demand access to military bases, ships, planes, and personnel, the Pentagon in return rewrites scripts to enhance the military image and safeguard recruiting and retention numbers. The American public subsidizes the military access provided to filmmakers and is fed the pabulum of homogenized military propaganda while free speech is trampled.

It’s like the sanitized version of events produced by embedded American journalists during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Those attempting to gather stories independently were shunned, discredited, and even murdered, like those killed in the US bombings of Aljazeera offices in Kabul in 2001 and in Baghdad in 2003.

By 2010, Reporters Without Borders had recorded the deaths of 230 Tareq Ayub was killed in the US bombing of Aljazeera’s offices in Baghdad media professionals, 87% of whom were Iraqis. Many of these deaths were caused by the US military and none have been prosecuted. The Pentagon issued a statement regarding the killing of journalists who were not embedded with US troops, “Baghdad is not a safe place. You should not be there.” 8

Moviemakers intent on portraying the military whose scripts don’t appeal to Army censors are at a great disadvantage. They’re forced to spend millions more than their compliant counterparts to tell their stories with the same degree of military feel. Many can’t endure the expense. A 2002 New York Times report drives home the point of financial benefits for those surrendering editorial control.

According to the article, “When Hollywood’s Big Guns Come Right from the Source,” the military “deployed” the following equipment during the filming of The Sum of All Fears, based on the 1991 Tom Clancy book about nuclear terrorism:

• 2 B-2 bombers
•  2 F-16 fighter jets
• The National Airborne Operations Center, the highly secure communications aircraft, in a modified 747 jet, reserved for the president and his top staff in case of nuclear attack
• 3 Marine Corps CH-53E helicopters
• 1 UH-60 Army helicopter
• 4 ground vehicles
• 50 Marines and Army troops
• The John Stennis, a 97,000-ton, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with more than 80 aircraft and a crew of 5,000
• Access to the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, VA

The total charge to Paramount Pictures for use of the equipment came to less than $1 million, a relatively tiny sum.9

Clancy sold the Pentagon’s line. His novels turned-to-film caused a cultural about-face after Vietnam, helping to portray the military in a positive light.

The Pentagon is making sure its ships, bombers, and helicopters will never be used to tell a different story. Truth continues to be a casualty in war-making.

The scale of the Pentagon’s intrusion and its micromanagement of entertainment projects is disturbing, although we’re still largely in the dark regarding the extent of the DOD’s editorial tinkering with specific productions in return for cooperation. Specific changes made to movie and TV scripts by the military’s public affairs offices are classified information today, whereas the material prior to 2002 has been declassified.10 Even so, Britain’s Mirror Online reported in July 2015:

To keep Pentagon chiefs happy, some Hollywood producers have turned villains into heroes, cut central characters, changed politically sensitive settings – or added military rescue scenes to movies. Having altered scripts to accommodate Pentagon requests, many have in exchange gained inexpensive access to military locations, vehicles and gear they need to make their films. 11

This Hollywood-military nexus is nothing new. When D. W. Griffith made the silent film The Birth of a Nation in 1915, West Point engineers gave him technical advice on his Civil War battle scenes and provided him with artillery. Griffith toed the editorial line.12

In his influential 2004 book, Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies, David Robb captures the legal argument that the military is practicing unconstitutional censorship. He writes:

Many legal experts, including famed First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams and renowned Constitutional law professor Irwin Chemerinsky, believe that this form of censorship is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. This sort of viewpoint-based discrimination by the government in which it favors one form of speech over another is flatly inconsistent with the First Amendment,” says Abrams, who was co-counsel to the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case.

Chemerinsky, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Southern California, agrees. The Supreme Court has said that above all, the First Amendment means that the government cannot participate in viewpoint discrimination, Chemerinsky says. “The government cannot favor some speech due to its viewpoint and disfavor others because of its viewpoint. The Court has said that when the government is giving financial benefits, it can’t decide who to give to, or not to give to, based on the viewpoint expressed.”13

During the 1970’s the American public soured on war and the military. Public opinion reflected the notion that the country had been misled about Vietnam and the war resulted in the unnecessary deaths of 58,000 American soldiers and millions of Vietnamese. Hollywood, through films like The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now, reflected public disgust for the military. The American public was experiencing a kind of a hangover from the unpopular war that made it largely unprofitable for Hollywood to produce big budget films glorifying war.

That changed with the release of Top Gun in 1986, and the hangover went away in a hurry. The Pentagon was ecstatic over the level of cooperation with Paramount, the film’s producer. Since then, Hollywood has generally increased its output of high-dollar war movies and has cozied up with the Pentagon to use personnel, bases, ships, fighter planes, and other tools of the trade. The offices on Wilshire Blvd. have been humming with activity since, marking up the scripts of thousands of movies.

Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, was the number one film of 1986, grossing $176 million. The movie’s hero, Maverick, played by Cruise, helps to shoot down four MIG-28’s during a contrived battle over the Indian Ocean. Maverick triumphantly lands his F-14 on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and gets the girl at the end. (No offense to women intended). It sounds trivial, but the film is extraordinarily powerful with its portrayal of super-intense, high-speed dogfights between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”. Right away, droves of youth lined up to enlist in hopes of becoming fighter pilots.

Paramount Pictures offered to place a 90-second Navy recruiting advertisement at the beginning of the video cassette for Top Gun, in exchange for $1 million in credit towards their debt to the Navy for production assistance. An internal memo to the Pentagon from an advertising agency rejected the offer, noting that “Both movies are already wonderful recruiting tools for the military, particularly the Navy, and to add a recruiting commercial onto the head of what is already a two-hour recruiting commercial is redundant.”14

Lt. Sandy Stairs, the Navy’s representative while the film was in production, told the Los Angeles Times, “Navy regulations prohibit the service from ‘selectively endorsing or appearing to endorse a commercial product.’ “15 They can say anything they want. Few are paying attention, and the military is still America’s most trusted institution.

Paramount, like the rest of Hollywood, isn’t wedded to the pro-military narrative. Its allegiance is to profit. The blockbuster Forrest Gump, with some unflattering portrayals of the military, was a project of deep-pocketed Paramount Pictures.

Paramount submitted a request to the Pentagon for assistance in filming this great American classic. They wanted to use Chinook helicopters and other Vietnam-era military equipment. The Army had reservations about the film and demanded numerous changes to the script. The brass didn’t like the scene when Gump bends over, pulls down his pants, and shows President Johnson the scar on his rear end. They didn’t like the way Gump referred to his commanding officer, Lt. Dan Taylor, by his rank and first name. They also didn’t appreciate the scene in which Lt. Dan is seen crying after being ordered to send his men on a dangerous mission. In the end, Paramount refused to yield to the Pentagon’s censors.16

The Forrest Gump script runs counter to the military’s desire to sanitize films to help with recruiting and retention. Unlike Top Gun, it didn’t send potential recruits rushing to local recruiting stations.

Consider Forrest’s first encounter with the military chain of command as he enters the bus to boot camp, and his descriptions of boot camp and Lt. Dan:

Forrest Gump: Hello. I’m Forrest, Forrest Gump.

Recruit Officer: Nobody gives a hunky shit who you are, puss ball. You’re not even a low-life, scum-sucking maggot. Get your ass on the bus, you’re in the army now!

Drill Sergeant: Gump! What’s your sole purpose in this army?

Forrest Gump: To do whatever you tell me, drill sergeant!

Drill Sergeant: God damn it, Gump! You’re a goddamn genius! This is the most outstanding answer I have ever heard. You must have a goddamn I.Q. of 160. You are goddamn gifted, Private Gump.

Forrest Gump: [narrates] Now for some reason I fit in the army like one of them round pegs. It’s not really hard. You just make your bed real neat and remember to stand up straight and always answer every question with “Yes, drill sergeant.”

Drill Sergeant: ...Is that clear?

Forrest Gump: Yes, drill sergeant!

Forrest Gump: (Speaking of Lt. Dan) He was from a long great military tradition. Somebody from his family had fought and died in every single American war. I guess you could say he had a lot to live up to.17

Forrest Gump managed box office success without military cooperation. It was an exception to the rule. Since its release in 1994, no military-related film that has managed to escape censorship has come anywhere close to enjoying Gump’s commercial success. The military minders have made sure of it. Films about the military have difficulty surviving without sacrificing editorial control.

The close relationship between the movie industry and the Pentagon was further cemented with the release of Act of Valor in 2012. The film was commissioned by the Navy’s Special Warfare Command and was produced specifically to “bolster recruiting efforts.”18 The film “stars” active-duty Navy SEALs.

In a similar fashion, the Marine Corps Recruiting Command plans to use active duty soldiers for its video advertising campaigns. It held a national casting call at ten military base locations over two weeks in April 2016 to screen interested Marines.19

Only a small number of projects the Army included in its report were turned down in the end. These rejections shed light on the highest level of U.S. government complicity with Hollywood and the philosophical underpinnings of the censorship program.

The entry dated April 30, 2013, from the Army’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs in Los Angeles (OCPA-LA) release regarding Zero Dark Thirty, shows the Army was happy to duck the extreme controversy at the highest levels of government involving the movie. From OCPA-LA:

Representatives from the DoD IG (Inspector general) visited OCPA-LA on 30 April. The purpose of the visit was a spiral increment of the DoD IG investigation into DoD’s support of the film titled “Zero Dark Thirty”. The US Army did not support the movie “Zero Dark Thirty”. Specifically, the DoD IG’s focus was on DoD Agencies and Military Services regarding the release of DoD classified and/or sensitive information to the media... OCPA-LA does not have any classified material nor do we have the means to store classified material. The DoD IG team appeared to be satisfied with the procedures and policies implemented by OCPA-LA. 20

Apparently, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers conveyed ultra-sensitive, legally protected information to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty regarding the capture of Osama bin Laden. The CIA used White House-approved talking points to brief the filmmakers. That information, according to the CIA and as portrayed in the film, was gained using torture.21

In a sense, Zero Dark Thirty’s Producer Mark Boal and Director Kathryn Bigelow were CIA operatives. The blockbuster film implied that the use of torture led to the discovery of Osama bin Laden. The film actually begins with a statement that the movie is “based on firsthand accounts of actual events.” It seems Boal and Bigelow sold a lie to the American people.

In 2014, a Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA interrogation techniques made it clear that torture did not factor into finding Bin Laden. Regardless, the movie’s propaganda achieved its purpose. The public was taught to be tolerant of torture and to applaud those who ordered it.22

An OCPA-LA entry regarding the movie The Hurt Locker, also produced by Boal and directed by Bigelow, was made available through a FOIA request by Secker and provides insight into the way military censors operate. According to the database, USA Today reporter Gregg Zoroya asked an OCPA-LA representative, “LTC,” for an explanation of the DOD’s decision not to support the movie. Rather than identify specific reasons why the film was rejected, readers were provided the link to Zoroya’s February 19, 2010 USA Today piece, “Veterans say ‘The Hurt Locker’ gets a lot right and wrong”.23

From the article we can pick out several objections Army censors would have us believe led to a denial of DOD cooperation:

• Filmmakers took enough liberties with war reality to cause those who know better to either grin and bear it or dismiss the movie altogether.
• There were errors in rank, patches, vernacular or procedure.
• The movie is ruined by inaccuracies, ranging from the wrong shade of uniform to a scene in which three soldiers run through Baghdad alleyways alone looking for insurgents.
• “I don’t like the way Hollywood cashes in on the troops.”
• An Iraqi drives through a military roadblock unharmed during an EOD operation. “They would have killed him, no ifs, ands or buts.”

The relative superficiality of these items suggests there were other reasons behind the Army’s rejection of the request for assistance. Although the film is largely devoid of political commentary, it is anything but an endorsement of the American war effort. The Hurt Locker follows a unit of soldiers whose mission is to defuse and dispose of “IED” bombs. The soldiers appear dispirited and fundamentally shaken by the violence they’ve been exposed to and the bloodshed they’ve caused. They seem to care very little about anything but their own survival.

The military censors condemned the film because they found it “fails to build resiliency, restore balance, or maintain our combat edge.”

The OCPA-LA list also describes Jason Dutton, a heavy metal guitarist with the band, Kings of Carnage, who requested permission to film during their concert at the Fort Irwin Army Base. The request was denied. Apparently, the music was deemed to be suitable for those on base but not suitable to be filmed for a potentially wider audience. Cameras are risky business on army bases.

We can gain a sense of the culture of the active duty crowd at Fort Irwin and the line that separates this cultural identity from that which the Army deems marketable to American society as a whole. The group’s debut album shows a kneeling, shackled man being readied for decapitation with a man’s head lying nearby.24

Another entry from OCPA-LA concerns a request from independent film producers working for National Geographic to film the story of transplant recipients at Walter Reed Medical Center. The Army censors write:

They believe transplant recipients are the way to go. They propose the following: 1. Identify four patients who will receive, arm, ear or other transplants who are willing to participate. 2. They obtain the go ahead/funding from National Geographic. 3. They film the patient pre-surgery, surgery and post-surgery. OTSG (Office of the Army Surgeon General) has declined support based on the science today, the only thing they could film would be hand transplants and the command feels that logistically they cannot support. Update: Requesting OTSG to reconsider the project.25

This request must have represented a conundrum for the Army. On the one sutured hand, the Army’s medical staff is obviously concerned with the limitations of the available science—they may be leery of the potential for a public relations setback regarding the public’s perception of recent medical advances in transplants. On the other prosthetic, the propagandists in Los Angeles see the potential payoff for recruiting. The rationale is that relatively few are killed in combat these days; instead they’re losing body parts, and that’s OK, because these parts can be re-attached—or reassembled.

Approved films also suggest the political orientation of the censors, at least regarding the nuclear issue. Consider History and Future of Nuclear Power, (2013), a documentary film by Robert Stone Productions about the history and future of nuclear power that traces nuclear power development in the United States from the Manhattan Project to the present day. Stone was given the green light to film at the White Sands Missile Range Trinity Site, where the first nuclear weapons test of an atomic bomb occurred. Stone’s film was approved by OCPA-LA because it “Supports Broader Understanding and Advocacy.”

Stone was the director of Pandora’s Promise, a 2013 documentary film about nuclear power. The film has been lambasted by the environmental community because it fails to examine the problem of spent nuclear fuel storage, the risk of weapons proliferation, and the likelihood of continued accidents. It also leaves out the exorbitant cost of new reactors. The military is rabidly pro-nuclear and Stone is their man.

OCPA-LA supported the production of Discovery’s Frontline Battle Machines, an eight-part series covering U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

The host, Mike Brewer, covered U.K. forces in the first season. Mike Brewer returns for a second season to the frontline in Afghanistan to reveal the new technology available to the US Forces in the war against terror. Each of the eight shows will feature key items of equipment from armoured troop carriers to fighter planes, helicopters, light tanks, machine guns and guided missiles. Will meet the Soldiers who operate the equipment, witnesses actual missions and travels with troops to discover how new technology has transformed the modern battlefield. Program aimed at knowledge about the vehicles and equipment that could mean the difference between life and death on the battlefield.26

OCPA-LA reported that the U.S. Central Command’s Public Affairs Office (USCENTCOM PA) also supported the production of the project. CENTCOM is one of nine unified commands in the United States military, consisting of 20 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

Brewer’s product is unabashed rah-rah over the marvels of technology applied to weapons of mass destruction. It represents the most dangerous, sensationalized brand of propaganda as it endeavors to desensitize a massive world-wide audience to the destructive power of these weapons.

Narrator: Have you ever wondered what we’re doing in Afghanistan? We’re trying out our new toys.

Narrator: Although these are weapons of death (Images of gun-toting armored personnel carriers)

Narrator: They just somehow make you feel alive. (The image is that of a massive, rapidly firing automatic machine gun mounted on a military vehicle.)

Narrator: Unfortunately, none of them get very good mileage. (Now the screen shows stacks of hundred dollar bills.)

Narrator: Which brings up the second reason we’re here. (The hundred dollar bills appear to be soaked by a steady stream of thick, black oil.)

Narrator: Watch Mike Brewer and the newest weapons of technology on Fridays at 10 in Frontline Battle Machines on the Discovery Channel.

(The next scene shows a jet fighter dropping a guided missile in slow motion. The missile is rotating. A close-up shows it is printed with three lines in succession as it moves menacingly toward its target.)

COME TO DEMOCRACY OR DEMOCRACY WILL COME TO YOU 27

The show is co-produced by the U.S. Central Command Public Affairs Office and the Discovery Channel. Everything is vetted. This is the image the U.S. wants to project to the world. Mike Brewer is a lackey for the American and British propagandists. He’s a dime a dozen. Brewer’s website carries this promotion for the film, “Mike was sitting with his wife Michelle one morning reading the newspapers and saw yet another article about how British soldiers’ equipment wasn’t up to the job.”28

Meanwhile, multinational corporate sponsors line up for viewers at home to imbibe this British-produced rubbish. It’s how propagandists operate.

The PBS Coming Back series with Wes Moore was also approved by the censors in the Army’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs in Los Angeles.

The three-part series about returning service members undersells the costs of war, according to a review by the influential A.V. Club. “With the right degree of patient understanding and sweet reason, any subject can be turned into bland mush,” writes contributor Phil Dyess-Nugent.

That’s his takeaway from the documentary that tracks the lives of 2.5 million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and re-enter American society. The piece concludes, “It’s just frustrating that the show itself doesn’t show a fuller, deeper sense of the cost (of war). Watching it is like seeing someone stick a Band-Aid on a bloody stump.”29

One OCPA-LA entry from November 27, 2013, addressed a proposed documentary by NBC Peacock Productions called On the Trail, a docu-series about Army Basic Training: After more than six months of Peacock Production’s unwillingness to sign the DoD Production Assistance Agreement for this project, OCPA-LA and OSD-PA (Public Affairs Office of the Secretary of Defense) are discussing the possibility of terminating negotiations with the production company. This is not a bad project, but the production company’s unwillingness to agree to the standard terms of the PAA (Production Assistance Agreement) is cause for concern

about their motivations and the type of story they want to tell. Our recommendation is that this could be a good story, but perhaps Peacock Productions is not the right production company to make the program.30

From the DoD’s perspective, it’s time to produce a documentary on basic training. If Peacock drags its feet in signing the production contract on “the type of story they want to tell” the Pentagon will find someone else to produce it.

This homogenizing process works for the Pentagon. Overwhelming numbers of Americans express tremendous confidence in the military.

In the words of David Robb,

“When the American people are seeing hundreds and hundreds of films and TV shows that have been sanitized by the military to make the military seem more heroic than it really is, and never wrong and always good, that creates a false image in the American people’s minds, and I think it helps to make the American people a more warlike people.”31

Many of the productions approved by the four military Entertainment Liaison Offices feed directly into that sewer while the Pentagon promotes a whitewashed version of the military and war. This exploitation is also evident in the world of military marketing, the subject of the next chapter.

Pat Elder is the director of the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, an organization that works to prohibit the automatic release of student information to military recruiting services from the nation's high schools. He is also creator of the website Counter-Recruit.org, which documents the deceptive practices used by the US military to recruit students into the armed forces.

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 Revised 01/30/2022