The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY)

October 28, 2008  / Marc Norton / BeyondChron -  “Without JROTC, I would not be where I am today: a Staff Sergeant in the United States Army.” So writes Jason, a former JROTC cadet, in a recent Facebook post on the Keep JROTC Alive in San Francisco site. “As a young teenager,” he continues, “the JROTC program helped me develop discipline, leadership skills, and values which I continue to use today. So let’s keep the JROTC program alive!”

The Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) was created 90 years ago, at the height of the hysteria of World War I, when President Woodrow Wilson needed troops for the “war to end all wars.” The program was reauthorized in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson, who needed troops for yet another doomed military adventure, this time in the jungles of Vietnam. Today, under the reign of yet another wartime President, JROTC’s operational budget has more than doubled.

JROTC was, is, and always will be, a military recruitment program. The “discipline, leadership skills, and values” that Jason and other JROTC advocates tirelessly praise are, for many, nothing more than a come-on for recruitment.

 HILLSBOROUGH - Three high school students were sent to an in-school suspension classroom after refusing to take a military aptitude test at Cedar Ridge High School on Tuesday.

Principal Gary Thornburg said the students were not being disciplined, but rather that the in-school suspension teacher was the staff person available to supervise them. More than 300 juniors spent two hours Tuesday and again Wednesday in the school cafeteria taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.

Thornburg said the test, which the U.S. military calls the ASVAB, is traditionally administered to juniors at his school and is part of a larger career assessment program.

The military provides the tests, proctors and grading without charge. In exchange, the scores are sent to military branch recruiters and the school.

"This happens to be the best career assessment we've found," Thornburg said.

By federal law, the contact information for any junior or senior who doesn't sign an opt-out form is passed along to recruiters by the school district.

Thornburg said since students can keep their information private, he didn't understand why some would not want to take the test. The results are discussed with students in school advisory groups that can help them identify study and career choices, he said.

"I don't have a lot of patience with people who are refusing to take the assessment -- or refusing anything that their entire grade level is participating in," Thornburg said.

Dakota Ling, one of the juniors sent to the suspension classroom, said he didn't think he would benefit from the test. Ling, an honors student, has a better than 4.0 grade point average and plans to become a graphic designer.

"I just really don't want the military to have all the info it can on me," he said.

The N.C. Department of Public Instruction does not encourage schools to give the ASVAB to students who have not expressed an interest in the military, spokeswoman Linda Fuller said.

Students in Durham and Wake counties have to sign up for the test. So do students in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and at the Orange County school system's other high school, Orange.

When it opened in 1996, East Chapel Hill High School tested all sophomores, said Winslow Carter, career development coordinator.

"We had such an outrage from the parents and the community that we didn't do that anymore," Carter said. He said he still thinks the aptitude test is valuable for nonmilitary career guidance.

Now, fewer than 10 students a year take the test at East Chapel Hill High School.

Chapel Hill Army recruiter Sgt. Jason Earl has seen that drop off in many area schools. He said recruiters understand that everyone who takes the test may not be interested in military service and that if a household asks them not to call back, they generally don't.

"We're not out here to harass," Earl said.