The Billions of dollars spent on advertising could be used for scholarships and other youth programs....
Under the supervision of Clinical Professor Penny Venetis, the following students and interns contributed to writing this report: Heidi Alexander, Avi Appel, Erica Askin, Amy Brown, Eric Bueide, Matthew Coleman, Randle DeFalco, Jason Fertakos, Lisa Hansen, Safia Hussain, Michael Isaac, Syrion Jack, Daniel Louis, Devi Shah, Nadia Rollins, and Robert Ulon.
Indeed, under 10 U.S.C.A. § 503, the “Secretary of Defense is required by law to enhance the effectiveness of DOD’s recruitment programs through an aggressive program of advertising and market research targeted at prospective recruits and those who may influence them.”...
The military has conducted extensive research into the psychological and behavioral factors that influence teenagers to enlist in the military....The Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) administers the YATS to students annually so that changes in youth “demographic trends, cultural characteristics, attitudes, and educational attainments” can be tracked by the DOD to formulate recruiting strategies....
The military’s marketing campaigns emphasize patriotic themes and tales of adventure that appeal to teenage sensitivities, while downplaying the actual risks of war....
[I]n teens, the judgment, insight and reasoning power of the frontal cortex is not being brought to bear on the task as it is in adults.
The United States Supreme Court has also recognized the psychological vulnerability of children and teenagers in several landmark decisions. In 2005, in discussing why the execution of juveniles is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court cited “[s]cientific and sociological studies documenting the tendency of adolescents to make “impetuous and ill-considered decisions”; their susceptibility to “negative influences and outside pressures": and the "transitory" nature of their character traits....
As a counterpoint to the current hand-wringing over public education in the U.S., it may be helpful to remember that we will spend a comparatively small amount of time during our lives as students in the classroom. That the focus thus far has been on teachers and tests should not surprise us, however. These are tangible, and measurable, aspects of education. It happens to be much harder to reform – or even to keep track of – the educational force of culture. What does that force look like? As C. Wright Mills put it in his famous BBC address, “The Cultural Apparatus,” we base our understanding of the world around us not only on schools but also on “the observation posts, the interpretation centers” and “presentation depots” of the mass media and entertainment industry (Mills 406). “Taken as a whole,” Mills continued, “the cultural apparatus is the lens of mankind through which men see; the medium by which they interpret and report what they see” (Mills 406). The media’s overpowering influence in our lives and the fact that we never actually confront pristine reality (only a mediated version thereof), raises the question: Could the cultural apparatus be the most influential teacher we ever have?
Last week, we made our first SOY visit of the new school year to Austin High School. Tami and I were pleased to be joined by Ben, a Marine Corps veteran and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War who recently moved to Austin. While Ben was a student at the University of North Texas, he did organizing with Rising Tide North America, an environmental group addressing fracking and the tar sands pipeline. It was great to have Ben with us and to be able to stretch out our table of materials so that 3 of us could interact with students. Photos at 
