Military Recruiting in the United States

Pat Elder |  Counter-Recruit Press | November 2018

The March 2010 edition of Richmond’s Benedictine College Preparatory student newspaper, The New Chevron, carried two articles on the Iraq War exploits of the school’s newly-hired headmaster, Jesse A. Grapes. During the 2nd Battle of Fallujah in November of 2004, 1st Lieutenant Grapes saved the lives of three Marines in his platoon. The newspaper reports:

Jesse A. Grapes, only three words can describe this man, patriotic war hero. He consistently showed unyielding bearing, fortitude, intuition, and courage while serving his country in war. The Marines who served under him said, “He is a hard-charging small unit tactician who literally wrote a book about modern urban warfare following his ferocious experience in Fallujah.”

1st Lieutenant Grapes led 3rd platoon into the chaos of Fallujah, in which he furthered his heroism with his actions of saving three wounded marines at the “infamous Hell House.” To accomplish this feat, he tore off his body armor, forced his body through a window of a burning house, which enabled him to encounter the enemy soldier who had been firing at his troops.

Following this act of heroism, he was accused of the capture, murder, and torture of several prisoners of war. To this he said, “I know nothing about the alleged capture or order to kill the prisoners. If I had heard such a thing I would have immediately stopped it.” Grapes also refused a polygraph examination saying that no machine can trump his honor. “If my word isn’t good enough, nothing would be.”

Grapes’ word was “good enough” to lead the Catholic military school.

Three Marines under the command of 1st Lt. Jesse Grapes shot four defenseless prisoners during the Battle of Fallujah. When the crime came to light a few years later, it made front-page news across the country as the first war crimes charges against service members prosecuted in federal (civilian) court. Naval Criminal Investigative Services, a federal grand jury, and court witnesses documented the events of November 9, 2004, in Fallujah. Grapes’ platoon had been taking fire from a house. After the troops entered the building and captured the insurgents, Sergeant Jose Nazario, Jr. used a radio to call for orders on what to do next.

Pat Elder | Counter-Recruit Press | December 2017

Military’s goal is school ownership; communities push back

Throughout the country military recruiters are increasingly allowed to casually share lunch in high school cafeterias and interact freely with high school youth in hallways and classrooms. Military recruiters are on campus so frequently in many schools that they get to know kids on a first-name basis. They “chill” in the locker room and hang out in the parking lot and they play one-on-one basketball with kids after school. Meanwhile, college recruiters are typically required to meet with students by appointment in the guidance office. It’s not the “same” access called for in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Forget the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt. With vulnerable 16 and 17 year olds, familiarity breeds trust and trust produces enlistment agreements.

The military is secretive concerning the amount of time its recruit- ers and civilian employees spend in the nation’s public schools. Re- searchers must file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to receive empirical evidence documenting the military’s presence. Data from Massachusetts and Connecticut shed light on the extent of their presence in the high schools in these states.

The three most heavily recruited schools in Massachusetts, according to data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Seth Kershner, a researcher and co-author of Counter-Recruitment and the Campaign to Demilitarize Public Schools, are Fitchburg High School, Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy, and Springfield Central High School.1

Pat Elder | Counter-Recruit Press | November 2016

Enlistment agreement is binding upon the recruit but not binding upon the military

The Enlistment/Reenlistment Document, DD FORM 4, amounts to an unconscionable sucker punch that lays out the woefully unsophisticated and uneducated recruit. It is reprehensible and entirely unacceptable that the United States of America, a nation with a rich tradition of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties, should resort to proffering this charade of an “agreement” to the vulnerable young. This document is an imprisoning, one-sided, legally obligating miscarriage of justice.

Every year American high schools produce hundreds of thousands of semi-literate youth who are routinely devoured by the vultures of American capitalism through extraordinarily complex multi-page contracts that represent corporate interests in every sector of the American marketplace. Twenty-page cell phone and credit card agreements are written in complex terms in very fine print, although these are relatively simple instruments compared to most finance and insurance contracts. High school graduates might study Chaucer and Algebra but they’re functionally illiterate and woefully unprepared for the American marketplace. They can’t comprehend the contracts that govern their lives because they don’t teach that stuff in American high schools– and they’re not likely to any time soon. The handful of corporate behemoths that control the lion’s share of the US economy prefers ignorant consumers in this regard.

These contractual entanglements produce a tyranny of the corporate elite, but they stop short of exercising the all-encompassing and incarcerating power of the military Enlistment/Reenlistment Document, DD FORM 4.

Its unlikely many military recruits read and fully comprehend the fine print in the enlistment document, although they’d be well advised to pay attention to Page 2, Sec 9. 5(b), which states

Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay, allowances, benefits, and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces REGARDLESS of the provisions of this enlistment/ reenlistment document.1

Pat Elder |  Counter-Recruit Press | July 2017

Leading health organization calls for ending school recruiting

In 2012 the American Public Health Association, (APHA), one of the country’s foremost health organizations and publisher of the influential American Journal of Public Health, adopted a policy statement calling for the cessation of military recruiting in public elementary and secondary schools.

APHA demands the elimination of the No Child Left Behind Act requirement that high schools both be open to military recruiters and turn over contact information on all students to recruiters and eliminating practices that encourage military recruiters to approach adolescents in US public high schools to enlist in the military services.1

APHA identifies several compelling public health reasons in calling for the cessation of military recruiting in the public schools. Most importantly, they argue that adolescents experience limitations in judging risk at this stage in life and they are unable to fully evaluate the consequences of making a choice to enter the military. The pre-eminent health organization points to the greater likelihood that the youngest soldiers will experience increased mental health risks, including stress, substance abuse, anxiety syndromes, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicide.