Media Mouse has expanded its military recruitment database database in an attempt to facilitate counter-recruitment organizing in the Grand Rapids area. The database, first launched in May, has been expanded to include a list of groups working on counter-recruitment campaigns, facts about military recruiting, and a list of alternatives to military service. In addition to providing tools for that will help organizers, the database—through the facts and alternatives section—will also offer information to those considering joining the military or seeking more information about the realities of military service.
The alternatives to military service section will be particularly helpful as organizers are frequently asked for alternatives to the military. While counter-recruitment groups nationally have compiled such information, the alternatives listed through the military recruitment database are localized and offer a variety of options for college funding, continuing education, job training, and travel that are specific to Grand Rapids, Michigan. As a result, the databases lists a variety of local programs including Adult and Community Education opportunities from the Grand Rapids Public Schools, offerings from the Kent Technical Career Center, and Upward Bound programs at local schools. These alternatives are important as military recruiters frequently tout their programs for college but do so without revealing that some 57% of veterans who sign-up for the GI Bill never receive assistance and that the Montgomery GI Bill requires a $1,200 non-refundable deposit to be eligible. The maximum benefit available through the GI Bill is only $36,144, an amount that rarely covers tuition at most public and private universities, while the higher benefits advertised by the military require enlistees to qualify for the Army/Navy College Fund and agree to work in a designated job specialty. Such job specialties are frequently the least desirable in the military and only one in twenty enlistees qualify for the Army/Navy College Fund. The military spends only an eighth of what it spends on recruitment on the GI Bill and 57% of soldiers who enroll in the program never receive funding.
Over the past two years, counter-recruitment organizing has increased in Grand Rapids. The first group to work on the issue was the Institute for Global Education’s (IGE) Military Service Dialogue Committee who organized throughout 2005 and has engaged in additional organizing work this year. The group has researched the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program in the Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS), met twice with outgoing GRPS Superintendent Bert Bleke, met with GRPS high school counselors at an in-service, and had information tables at local high schools during the month of May. The Military Service Dialogue Committee’s work has been joined by the work of the group ACTIVATE, a new activist group affiliated with the national effort to reform Students for a Democratic Society. ACTIVATE has held two protests at a local military recruiting center on May 5 and May 19 and plans to organize within area high schools in the fall with a strong focus on providing students with the information needed to opt-out from having their information released by the GRPS to military recruiters. Additional work has been done by Media Mouse, which published articles on military recruitment statistics in Grand Rapids, the disproportionate recruiting of people of color and the poor, and on a national counter-recruitment conference held in April.
The database offers a number of tools that can these enhance counter-recruitment organizing efforts. The list of groups working on the issue offers an easy way for people to plug-in to existing counter-recruitment efforts in addition to offering resources for those seeking to organize against military recruitment in their high schools, colleges, or communities. Similarly, the list of active recruiters offers a brief list of recruiters active in the Grand Rapids area and will eventually be expanded to allow the capacity to track the actions of individual recruiters. This could then be used to track specific distortions used by a recruiter, who as an example, might tell potential recruits that the military will pay for all of their college expenses when the reality is much more complicated. In the interim, the recruiters phone numbers, cell phone numbers, and email addresses are posted so that people can contact them if they desire to tell them that they object to the way that they prey on low-income communities and communities of color. Recruiting stations and their hours are also listed, making it easy for those organizing against recruitment to plan protests or to contact recruiting offices to ask them detailed questions about the realities of military recruitment and military life. The list of military installations in Grand Rapids provides further potentials for organizing, with various military installations offering the option of focusing antiwar protests or the Defense Contract Management Agency offering a location for protesting military contracts awarded to Grand Rapids companies.
Those interested in getting involved in counter-recruitment work are encouraged to contact the groups in the database.
