Iraq combat veterans, Agustin Aguayo and Camilo Mejia, were joined by fellow war resisters Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala at a series of Northern California events May 9-18. One of the stops included Watsonville where the 4 men spoke in local high school class rooms and on local station KUSP 88.9 FM in the morning and at the First Presbyterian Church that evening. Read more

Synopsis: The World Can't Wait and We Are Not Your Soldiers Special features a vet's visit to a NY community college peace studies class.  It's wonderful. Listen!

Hosted by: The World Can't Wait

In an effort to further understanding, the peace group, The World Can't has been visiting schools throughout our area with veterans to talk about the experience of being in the military and its aftermath. Recently the World Can’t Wait visited a Human Rights Study class at Nassau Community College out on Long Island.

They were kind enough to share the hour with WBAI Radio. Miles Megaciph of We Are Not Your Soldiers spoke often poignantly of his time in the Marines, including when he was stationed in Guantanamo and Okinawa. The students raise interesting questions and make some heartfelt comments. With Stephanie Rugoff.

GUESTS: Arlene Inouye, Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, Pat Elder, Peace Action Montgomery Anti-recruitment activists are hailing the recent announcement by the Los Angeles Unified School District of a new policy to better protect students’ personal information from the military. The policy is the result of discussions with teachers and the ACLU.

The Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC, is a federal program sponsored by the US Armed Forces in high schools and some middle schools across the nation and at US military bases globally. It currently teaches its lessons to more than half a million students in approximately 3,400 high schools nationwide.

In recent years, the military and its supporters have been promoting the idea of a significant increase in the number of high schools with JROTC—one proposal calls for expanding up to 6,000. Because of this, one nonprofit decided it was time to examine the textbooks used in JROTC classes to see what they are teaching.

The Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities, or Project YANO, is a counter-recruitment organization founded in 1984 and based in San Diego country. It released its findings in early July. Their reviewers have backgrounds in classroom teaching or education activists, or special knowledge of subjects JROTC claims to address, such as civil rights, violence prevention, leadership methods, and world history. Team members included current and retired high school teachers, military veterans, and a documentary film producer.

Guest – Rick Jahnkow, a co-founder and board member of Project YANO. Rick worked for 34 years as the organization’s full-time program coordinator. He has researched and organized around the issues of military recruiting, high school Jr. ROTC, and the general militarization of K-12 schools.

Stretched to supply the manpower to fight two wars, the US military has stepped up efforts to recruit teenagers and young adults.  Videogames, social networks, and the schools themselves are all fertile soil for Pentagon recruiters.  On this edition, guest host Anna Sussman hosts a roundtable discussion about the new face of military recruiting, and counter-recruiting efforts taking place. 

Featuring:

Sandra Schwartz, American Friends Service Committee San Francisco Peace Education Coordinator; David Ledesma, One Voice Executive Director; Sokthy Mean, Bay-Peace counter recruiter.

Peace and Social Justice / KZFR - Gary Ghirardi, the Communications Staff Person, working out of the NNOMY national office at the San Diego Peace Campus in California, speaks about military counter-recruitment, past and present, on the Peace and Social Justice series of KZFR Community Radio in the Northern Sacramento Valley

24:00 minutes

Well known in the national peace and justice scene, Pat has been organizing resistance to the Bush administration’s wars since 2001. Based in the DC area, Pat works with a wide range of groups, attempting to confront the militarization of the nation’s high schools. Pat Elder serves on the Coordinating Committee of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, NNOMY.

On April 5, some 300 students and community members held a raucous demonstration at the UC Santa Cruz campus, where US military recruiters had a booth at the school's Job and Internship fair.

Block to block speaks with Dave Ledesma from South Bay Mobilization -- An anti-war organization and Think First -- a program that does counter-recruitment to high school students about enlisting in the military.

This is an interview with David, a member of Student Against the War, who organized the counter-recruitment protest. Interview was done as part of the Red X Show on Free Radio Santa Cruz (101.1 FM) Tuesdays, 6-8pm.

Pat Elder of the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy (StudentPrivacy.org) explains how the U.S. military gets away with requiring students in thousands of U.S. high schools to take a 3-hour career inventory test with the results going straight to recruiters without students' or parents' knowledge.

Total run time: 29:00

Host: David Swanson.

Producer: David Swanson.

Engineer: Christiane Brown.

Music by Duke Ellington..

Syndicated by Pacifica Network.