"You are part of the national network of peace groups working to stop the militarization of schools and young people! " NNOMY News 1067: Second Quarter 2023
Why is the military struggling to recruit?
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| Hello Admin,
" The percentage of Americans of service age who are eligible to serve in the armed forces is the lowest it’s ever been. It dropped from 29 percent in recent years to 23 percent last year. Fewer young Americans meet the military basic fitness standards, and more young Americans have used controlled substances. While marijuana is legal in twenty-one states plus the District of Columbia, its use is still disqualifying when it comes to joining the military. The decline in the percentage of Americans eligible to serve in the military has become accompanied by a declining interest in service. Just 9 percent of Americans of service age say they want to serve, down from 23 percent a few years ago. A mix of factors looks to be a work. A robust job market reduces the economic incentive to join the military. The political right has raised concerns of “wokeism,” while the political left has raised concerns about far-right extremism among service members. And the military’s well-documented problems in curbing sexual harassment and assault, epitomized by the murder of Army solider Vanessa Guillén, has likely discouraged many young women from wanting to join the military." - CFR
#counter-recruitment | #nnomypeace | #peacefulcareers | #demilitarize | www.nnomy.org
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Lavender's Purple Heart - Veteran Seaman Gunderson
| June 30, 2023 / Annette Gunderson / Bend, Oregon - I am sharing to the public my Navy “Me Too” story in hopes it will shed light of the corruption and imminent danger I faced during my military enlistment and service.
I was raped by my recruiter Trace Oliver Harris, his age 26. I was 17, still in high school at the time. I didn’t even have my drivers license yet. My childhood died in his California king sized bed. The age of consent in Oregon is 17, I was a minor when I signed an enlistment contract with Harris’s signature, Harris was aware I was a minor and aware of fraternization policies. My mother’s signature is also on the document, adding her to the lists of credible witnesses.
The blackmail, mental and sexual abuse continued over the course of about 8 months while in Delayed entry program. I was in denial of the abuse and ended up with Stockholm syndrome. He blackmailed me with my medical history. Most recruiters, tell you to lie at MEPs so you can get into the military. Former, Petty officer Harris encouraged me to lie at MEPs. Shortly after MEPs Harris groomed me and lured me into his apartment. Pressured me to drink alcohol, his drink of choice: Angry orchard.
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Chicano Park Day 2023: Youth Demilitarization Space in the USA
| The festival Saturday was more than activism and organizing, however. As it always has, Chicano Park Day celebrates the music and food that defines the culture.
Community groups turned out to sign people up, showcase their causes and build on the work that began more than 50 years ago.
Project YANO staffers were among them, handing out brochures promoting alternatives to those distributed by military recruiters, who disproportionately mine lower-economic neighborhoods for potential soldiers, airmen and Marines.
“Sometimes, they (recruiters) use coercive tactics in order to meet their quotas,” said Cassy Hernandez, a program coordinator with the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities, as the Encinitas-based nonprofit is formally known.
“They appeal to economic opportunities and frame it as leadership,” Hernandez said. “But we think there should be clear information on other opportunities, such as access to education and access to jobs.” |  | | Senators Warren, Sanders, Hirono Introduce Junior Reserve Officer Training Safety Act
June 15, 2023 / Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) / Senate.gov - Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee, and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, introduced the Junior Reserve Officer Training (JROTC) Safety Act of 2023 to better protect JROTC recruits following reports of program instructors sexually assaulting and harassing high school students. The legislation would also increase oversight of the agencies charged with running the program and prohibit mandatory enrollment of students into the program.
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 | | Gen Z Targeted with Military Recruitment Propaganda
April-June 2023/ Lauren Reyna Morales / Draft NOtices - "Fiscal year 2022 marked a period of record low recruitment levels for the United States Armed Forces. All military branches struggled to reach their benchmarks. The Army alone missed recruiting goals by about 15,000 new soldiers, coming up 25 percent short for the fiscal year. To put the recruitment “crisis” into perspective, the military has not experienced such a problem enrolling new members since 1973, when the draft officially ended. So, why isn’t Generation Z interested in joining the military? The answer to that question depends on whom you ask.
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Protesters Decry Military Recruitment at Bronx School Fair Co-Hosted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Mar 21, 2023 / Democracy Now! - Here in New York, dozens of community organizers, parents, teachers and students rallied at a Bronx high school Monday, protesting what they called military recruitment at a student services fair hosted by New York Congressmembers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Adriano Espaillat. The fair featured representatives from military service academies for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. Advocates accused Ocasio-Cortez of backtracking on her antiwar campaign promises and policies opposing predatory military recruitment tactics that predominantly target Black, Brown, Latinx and poor students. In 2020, Ocasio-Cortez proposed a ban against military recruitment on the online gaming platform Twitch. She also pushed for an amendment that would have halted federal funding for military recruitment in middle and high schools. Democracy Now!'s Sonyi Lopez spoke to Richie Merino, an organizer with the Bronx Anti-War Coalition, at Monday's rally at Renaissance High School, which took place on the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
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Bronx antiwar activists respond to AOC's smears
| Apr 9, 2023 / The Greyzone - Bronx antiwar activists respond to AOC's smears: Members of the Bronx Antiwar Coalition respond to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's smears. After hosting a job fair which featured military recruiters, AOC falsely attacked protesters – including local Bronx school teachers and workers – as outside agitators who put her life in danger.
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Senate legislation seeks to boost US military recruitment amid shortfall
| June 8, 2023 / Phillip Walter Wellman / Stars and Stripes - Legislation drafted by a group of U.S. senators aims to alleviate the military’s ongoing woes in attracting new members by allowing recruiters greater access to high schools and colleges.
Introduced Wednesday, the Military Service Promotion Act would allow branches of the service to obtain college student dropout data, require the Pentagon to examine ways to prep possible recruits better for physical fitness and aptitude tests and force schools to let recruiters attend career fairs and similar events.
While high schools already must provide access to military recruiters under current law, the new legislation also would obligate them to respond to recruiter requests for access within 60 days.
The bill comes amid concerns that the military’s all-volunteer force may be reaching its breaking point.
Read More |
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U.S. Army Recruitment Propaganda: EMMA | THE CALLING | GOARMY
2021 / U.S. Army - A recruitment video from 2021, utilizing animation and progressive characteriazations of potential recruits and their families, seeks to attract quality recruits to the Army away from College. "Raised by two loving and inspiring mothers, Emma excelled in school. But as a college student, she realized the challenge she truly sought required a surprising new direction. See how our Soldiers’ lives could inspire your own at https://www.goarmy.com/
One of the key components of this YouTube campaign is that comments are turned off. With almost five million views. campaigns like these only divided the political landscape in the United States and led the conservatives to blame the failure of meeting recruitment quotas on "woke" approaches that were claimed to alienate the traditional recruit from joining national military forces.
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Bronx Antiwar Coalition chases military recruiters out of college career fair
June 19, 2023 / Bronx Antiwar Coalition / Workers World - The Bronx Antiwar Coalition successfully chased U.S. Army recruiters out of a student career fair June 11. The fair was hosted by U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat at the City University of New York in The Heights (BMCC), in the predominantly Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights. The Coalition organized the anti-recruitment demonstration because BMCC is a popular college choice for Bronx high school students, given its close proximity. (Bronx Antiwar Coalition)
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Memorial Day May 29, 2023
May 28 2023 / Madres Contra la Guerra / The Mothers Against War honor the memory of all soldiers killed in wars. Although Puerto Rico has not declared war on any country, more than 200,000 Puerto Rican soldiers have served in US wars since World War I. Some 1,500 soldiers have died in the war fields, 765 dead and 127 missing in Korea; 332 Puerto Ricans dead and 18 missing in Vietnam. and 124 deaths so far in the so-called "war against terrorism"; in addition to the fallen in other armed conflicts: Grenada, Latin America, Africa, ... We pray that their blood is a seed of peace ...
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell address that: "In governing councils, we must avoid buying unwarranted influence, whether sought or not, by the military-industrial complex." That military-industrial complex largely dictates the incursions into wars, for the profit motive of those who make profits from wars: the investors in the military-industrial complex: those who sell weapons and unmanned warplanes, those who profit from Iraqi oil, Afghan natural gas and other natural resources from the occupied peoples.
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Stop Deporting Russian War Resisters! Sign the petition NOW!
March 31, 2023 / COURAGE TO RESIST - Perhaps you are shocked to learn that the Biden administration has begun “quietly” resuming deportations of Russia migrants back to Russia and to what will almost certainly be their persecution. From the Guardian on March 18, 2023, “Immigration advocates were taken by surprise when a young Russian man, who came to the US fleeing Vladimir Putin’s efforts to mobilize citizens to fight in Ukraine, was abruptly deported at the weekend from the US back to Russia.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/18/biden-administration-russia-deportations
Deportation interviews consider “credible fear” as a measure of assessing whether a migrant is considered a political refugee seeking asylum. Most would agree that conscription to an active war against one’s conscience and/or will is a reasonable fear. Apparently ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) doesn’t always see it that way, or at the very least, are so constrained by regulation, that missing one’s interview is enough to merit deportation.
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| | Should I Register for the Draft?
| March 8, 2002 / Center of Conscience & War - In the United States, an 18th birthday can be a great milestone in the lives of young people. They legally become adults, and are granted the rights and responsibilities that come with this distinction. One of the first decisions that young men and anyone assigned male at birth must make concerns draft registration. For many, this decision is automatic, and they register with Selective Service without giving it a second thought. For others, however, this could be the biggest decision in their young lives. These young people, who might think of themselves as conscientious objectors, must decide whether to surrender their principles and register, or follow their conscience and become subject to the penalties and possible punishments levied on non-registrants. | | |
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The Patriotism of Killing and Being Killed
| June 28, 2023 / Norman Soloman / LA Progressive - From Vietnam to Iraq and beyond, the patriotism of U.S. troops—and their loved ones as well as the general public back home—has been exploited and manipulated by what outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.” Whether illuminated by the Pentagon Papers in 1971 or the absence of the proclaimed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction three decades later, the falsehoods provided by the White House, State Department and Pentagon have been lethal forms of bait-and-switch.
| | | | Los Angeles Youth attended summer peace camp for four days from June 19 to June 22 2023 at Terra Madre Gardens | Due to the generous donations of several venerable peace and justice organizations, such as Veterans for Peace and San Pedro Neighbors for Peace and Justice, Los Angeles area youth were offered peace camp gratis to those interested in peace and justice. SPNPJ Peace Camp for 2023 was located at an outdoor farm campground area at Terra Madre Gardens near Escondido, California about 100 milies south of Los Angeles this year. Students, both high school boys and girls, were from the inner-city and had not experienced visiting a rural setting. especially an alternative community run organic farm. They also attended workshops on Peace Camp 101. Strategic Organizing for Social Justice activism, and a Presentation on Social Change by organozer and activist Matyos Kidane from Stop LA Spying. San Francisco activist Shiloh Morrison, a US Marine Veteran, came down from Before Enlisting and gave a presentation on their experiance in the military and the conditions they were presented with in the service including time in Iraq. Daily podcasts were livestreamed provided from Eruk that included interviews with the presenters from each day's schedule. A poetry workshop was also conducted by the well known Los Angeles based poet Matt Sedello. This type of Peace Camp for high school youth is a model that should be repeated nationally to educate youth about the waste and destruction of wars and to turn them away from serving in them as soldiers and sailors contributing to wasting lives and destroying further the environment of the planet. Didn't you know? The U.S. Military is the single most destructive entity influencing climate chage and global warming.
Podcasts: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
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