As the antiwar movement has debated how best to bring about an end to the United States occupation of Iraq, activists across the United States and in Grand Rapids have started campaigns to challenge the military’s recruiting efforts. The efforts have arisen for a variety of reasons ranging from high school student’s objection to predatory recruiters harassing them in their schools and at their homes, an understanding that the racism implicit in the military’s targeting of youth of color exposes the racist foundations of the United States’ occupation of Iraq, and the pragmatic idea that in light of the military’s difficulties meeting its recruiting goals that preventing a few recruits from joining the military can have a direct affect on the military’s capacity to wage the war in Iraq. It was out of this context that Will Williams of Veterans for Peace and Madison Area Peace Coalition, Peter Blewett of the Milwaukee School Board, and Adam Breihan a youth organizer with Peace Action Wisconsin shared their experiences doing counter-recruiting with an audience of activists and high school students at the Midwest Social Forum in Milwaukee.
Will Williams, a veteran of the Vietnam War and long time participant in the antiwar movement, opened his comments by reminding the audience of the fact that the military is feeling pressure from the antiwar movement and cited the recent arrests of activists doing counter-recruiting leafleting at the Taste of Chicago and the arrest of a veteran wearing a “Veterans for Peace” t-shirt at Veterans Administration facility. Williams explained that military recruiting efforts have increased due to the ongoing occupation of Iraq, the lack of the draft, and the No Child Left Behind Act that requires schools to supply the military with their students’ information in order to aid recruiting efforts. He then pointed out that due to No Child Left Behind, schools are apart of the military-industrial complex and must therefore be considered an appropriate terrain of struggle for antiwar activists. Williams explained that there are difficulties in organizing against military recruiting in the schools, especially with parents who are not engaged and therefore are unlikely to demand that recruiters stop harassing their children and the belief of school administrators that the military is good. In organizing in Madison, this has been particularly true, as school administrators have argued that the military is good as it offers “scholarships” to students who would otherwise be unable to get into college. Williams explained that his group has overcome this opposition in part by highlighting the fact that military’s money for college in exchange for service is more of a “contract” than a scholarship. His group has also been successful in engaging parents by educating the public about the ways in which military recruiters are avoiding local limits on the number of times they can visit schools (currently each branch can only visit each public school in Madison 3 times a year) by serving as voluntary “teacher’s assistants.” Not only due recruiters functioning as “teacher’s assistants” function as recruiters when they teach physical education classes using climbing walls or allow shop students to work on Humvees, but they also violate teachers’ union contracts and undermine school regulations by failing to be accredited. Near the end of the workshop, Williams remind the audience that the same facts regarding military recruitment hold true in Iraq as they did in Vietnam and that it is “minorities and the lower class who are the ones that who die for this bullshit.”
Milwaukee School Board member Paul Blewett expanded the dialog on counter-recruiting and offered his experiences in getting the Milwaukee public school system to adopt policies that limit their disclosure of student data to the military. Citing recruiter dishonesty in helping potential enlistees cheat on entrance exams and fake drug tests and recruiters doing things such as showing up at a Milwaukee high school students’ 16th birthday party in a military Humvee, Blewett explained how he was able to make military recruiting a privacy issue that gained the support of a coalition consisting of groups such as the Wisconsin branch of the ACLU. Blewett led an effort that developed clear guidelines restricting when military recruiters can visit Milwaukee high schools and how they conduct themselves as well as adopting a policy for the Milwaukee Public Schools that emphasizes students’ ability to “opt-out” from having their information released to military recruiters (and also made it so that students under 18 can fill out their own opt-out forms without needing their parents’ to fill them out). In addition, for students who do not fill out the “opt-out” form, the data released to the military by the Milwaukee Public Schools no longer includes students’ phone numbers and addresses. Unfortunately, there is still a need for a statewide policy as the state releases the names, addresses, and phone numbers of student in the state. Blewett emphasized the fact that school districts who chose not to comply with No Child Left Behind’s military recruiting provisions risk losing federal funding, but that school districts can alter the nature of information released and urged workshop attendees to organize in their communities to get their school boards to adopt policies of “active notification” with separate “opt-out” forms and outreach efforts to parents instead of the “passive notification” of “opt-out” procedures buried within dense school policy guidebooks. Blewett distributed sample resolutions and policies for those interested in working on the issue and directed attendees to the National School Board Association for additional sample policies. (The group ACTIVATE has the sample policies for use by antiwar activists in Grand Rapids).
Adam Breihan, a June 2006 graduate of Riverside High School in Milwaukee and organizer with Peace Action Wisconsin, explained how students at his high school began organizing against military recruiters. Breihan told the audience that from the time he started high school to when he graduated this year he saw an increase in military recruiting within his school in response to the ongoing war in Iraq with recruiters becoming omnipresent during his school’s lunch periods, in the school’s guidance officers, and in class rooms. Moreover, due to No Child Left Behind’s student data disclosure provisions, Breihan and his classmates began receiving “piles” of information from recruiters despite never requesting it. This increased in recruiters, coupled with the sexual harassment of one female student by recruiters and Breihan’s own experience being physically stopped by a recruiter who made him late for class while attempting him to join the military. In response to the military’s tabling, through which the students realized that the military was targeting students of color, students at Riverside High School formed the Milwaukee Youth Liberation Army to approach military recruiters from a two-tiered approach targeting recruiters from the bottom through grassroots tabling across from recruiters when they were in the school (or once per week when they were not) and distributing information and showing anti-recruiting videos, and from the top by approaching the school board with testimony of parents, students, and others about the ways in which recruiters operate and the need to restrict them. Breihan encouraged people doing counter-recruiting work to table within schools, to get parents involved, and to look at teachers as potential allies. Breihan also reported that they had success in organizing “Books not Bombs” rallies and Not Your Soldier” rallies outside of recruiting centers.
