| | | | In 1993 the Department of Defence started a new program to make first contact with 10 year old Americans called Starbase. It's funded out of the recruitment funds. It takes 5th graders out of their schools and onto a military base where they learn some fun science along with the promotion of military careers. This first contact makes it easier for recruiters to approach our children in High School. Starbase naturally targets low income, minority schools. Don't be fooled, this is military recruitment and little more.
| | | | The Pentagon Wants Your High Schoolers | 4/04/2025 / Scott Harding & Seth Kershner / Jacobin - For the past three years, the US military has suffered through its worst recruiting crisis since the end of the draft in 1973. The Army Reserve has not met its annual quota of new recruits for nearly ten years. In fiscal year 2023, the Navy and Air Force failed to meet their recruiting goals — the first time this happened in twenty-four years for the Air Force, despite being traditionally viewed as the most desirable branch of service. And since 2013, male enlistments in the Navy have dropped more than one-third. With a shared sense of alarm, current and former military officials, members of Congress, think tanks, and others warn that these personnel shortages undermine US military readiness and its ability to fight future wars across the globe.
| | | | DOGE gets access to Selective Service registration database | April 17, 2025 / Edward Hasbrouck / Edward Hasbrouck's Blog - The Selective Service System has confirmed that, as of this week, personnel from the so-called Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have arrived at the SSS and have been given access to the SSS database of men registered for a possible military draft.
Today an SSS spokesperson provided me with this official response to my questions about DOGE and SSS records:
A DOGE representative visited our Agency this week. We’ve established a great working relationship. They asked us about our data and requested access, which we gave in compliance with the President’s Executive Order on Establishing and Implementing the Department of Government Efficiency.
The SSS spokesperson also told me that no new computer matching programs involving SSS registration records have been carried out (yet) by DOGE. But it’s not clear whether the SSS would even know what DOGE has done with SSS data, once DOGE has gotten access to it and possibly exfiltrated it. DOGE and the SSS have operated computer matching programs that appear to violate the Computer Matching Act, so there’s little reason to expect that either would provide the required advance notice of new uses of SSS data.
| | | | Students Are Starting World BEYOND War Chapters | June 11, 2025 / David Swanson / World BEYOND War - In the United States, Canada, and hopefully other places soon, college students in some cases, and high school students in others, are starting chapters of World BEYOND War — in some cases as student groups through their school.
As polling on public policy seems to always find better, more decent and human opinions the younger the responding group is, it makes a lot of sense for young people to be taking leading roles in organizing, educating, and agitating for peace. Older peace activists, after all, in large part became peace activists when they were young.
It can require extra work to maintain organizations in places where the whole population turns over in four years, but we’re confident it can be done, and that graduates can stick with World BEYOND War in chapters meant for all ages.
So if you are or know students with an interest in avoiding nuclear war, feel free to share the idea with them and to contact us.
| | | | | | | Problems down the Road for Military Recruiting -- and More | April - June 2025 / Rick Jahnkow / Draft NOtices - During the last few years, the U.S. military has experienced significant difficulty meeting goals for new recruits. In Fiscal Year 2022, for example, the Army fell 25 percent short of its goal. The Air Force and Navy have experienced similar shortfalls in recent years. Adding to the problem for the Army is the fact that almost one-fourth of all new Army recruits are not completing their initial enlistment terms.
In the last fiscal year, the military has met its enlistment goals, but only because it has significantly lowered acceptance standards and channeled low-performing applicants into pre-boot camp training programs. These efforts have allowed individuals to enlist who previously would have been rejected and who may wind up adding to the high first-term dropout rate.
The question now is how will recruiting be affected by the extreme anti-DEI policies imposed on the military by the Trump administration? According to a CNN report (3/19/25), Trump’s directives have led to a “massive purge of Pentagon websites,” with content being removed on subjects like Holocaust remembrance and suicide prevention. Trainings that were initiated to address the military’s serious problem with sexual assaults have been discontinued, as well as events celebrating African American history. Even the WWII military record of Jackie Robinson has been removed. Furthermore, Transgender people are now banned from enlisting. All of these actions will drive away some of the prospective enlistees whom the military was counting on to help fill recruitment quotas that are already barely being met.
A further disincentive for enlistment will be President Trump’s belligerent approach to international relations. Young members of Gen Z, the demographic that is most critical of U.S. political policy, would soon realize that entering the military can mean carrying out the imperialistic goals of Trump in places like Gaza, Panama and Greenland. Additionally, based on public statements that have been made by Trump, they could also be ordered to attack cartels in Mexico. Even now, military personnel and planes are being used to deport migrants and refugees, many of whom may live in communities where the military is seeking to recruit. How will soldiers coming from those communities react when they are ordered to help deport people they might know -- possibly even family members?
As all of these realities sink into the minds of the military-age population, it could turn the recent recruiting shortfalls into the worst ever faced by the U.S. military. However, one possible development that could help the Pentagon is a sudden jump in unemployment arising from the Trump economic recession that many are predicting. Another factor that could aid military recruiting would be diminishing access to higher education caused by Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education and an inevitable tightening of restrictions on federal student aid.
In light of all of the above, perhaps we can be hopeful that the conditions will soon be ripe for a new youth-led movement that challenges militarism and its links to other critical issues. It may even make the social and political upheaval of the 1960s pale in comparison!
Information sources:
“Army misses recruiting goal by 15,000 soldiers,” Army Times 10/2/2022
“The Army is Losing Nearly One-quarter of Soldiers in the First 2 Years of Enlistment,” military.com, 3/7/2025.
This article is from Draft NOtices, the newsletter of the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft - http://www.comdsd.org
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| | |  Trainees in the Future Soldiers course | A Reporter at Large: The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis | February 3, 2025 / Dexter Filkins / The New Yorker - At Fort Jackson, in South Carolina, the U.S. Army comes face to face with America’s youth. One recent morning, at the Future Soldiers training course, hundreds of overweight young men and women hoping to join the service lined up to run and perform calisthenics before a cordon of drill sergeants. Some were participating in organized workouts for the first time. Many heaved for breath when asked to run a half mile; others gave up and walked. A number hobbled around on crutches. At a weekly weigh-in, dozens of young men stood shirtless, revealing just how far they had to go.
When prospective recruits were asked to drop and do five pushups, many groaned and struggled, unable to complete the task. Some, their faces crimson, could barely hold themselves up.
“You thought you’d join the Army without being able to do a single pushup?” Staff Sergeant Kennedy Robinson barked at a recruit whose arms were twitching in agony.
“Yes, ma’am!” he said. To an extent that would have been hard to imagine a few years ago, he may have been right.
The Future Soldiers program was created, in 2022, to help marginal but willing recruits find their way into the military. Its efforts include not just prodding kids to slim down but also helping them pass the armed forces’ aptitude test—even if that means lowering long-established standards. The course is part of a series of extraordinary adaptations that America’s military is making amid one of its greatest recruiting shortfalls since the draft was abolished, more than fifty years ago.
| | | | Make your voice heard and
say no to war. | June 24, 2025 / Mike Merryman-Lotze / AFSC - As a Quaker organization that has worked for peace and justice for over 100 years, we believe that all people deserve to live in safety and peace. But Israel's attacks on Iran and ongoing genocide in Gaza have threatened global and regional security. And by bombing three nuclear energy sites in Iran, the U.S. brought us to the brink of a new, illegal, and costly war. Make your voice heard and say no to war.A tentative ceasefire agreement went into effect early on June 24, but it remains unclear whether the agreement will hold. The U.S. must do all it can to ensure that both the war in Iran and the genocide in Gaza end, and Congress should still make it clear that no president has the power to unilaterally bring the U.S. into a war. Both the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973 are clear – the president must seek congressional approval before engaging in hostilities against another country. Both houses of Congress are currently considering "War Powers" legislation to block the executive branch from taking unilateral and unauthorized action. We need members of Congress to speak out and pass these bills. Here are three things you can do today:Write to your representatives in Congress and tell them NO war with Iran! Make your voice heard locally. Come together with others in your community to demonstrate in front of the local offices of your senators and representatives. Download our "No War with Iran" posters to use at protests or to display in community spaces.
With the Senate war powers vote coming as early as Wednesday, outreach to your elected officials is needed immediately. Congress has the power to stop further escalation. Your voice is needed now. Together we can and must bring this violence to an end. In peace and solidarity, Mike Merryman-Lotze
Just Peace Global Policy Director
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