DON'T BE A SOLDIER

I was chatting to the young lifeguard at the YMCA pool and she told me that she was a sociology student at the University of Arizona. However, she wanted to change subjects and was thinking about doing criminology. Having said that, she wasn’t at all sure she would carry on with her degree. She was lacking motivation, and fed up with taking out student loans. In fact, she was seriously considering joining the military.

‘For God’s sake don’t do that’ I pleaded with her. ‘Anything but that. Why would an intelligent, educated, young student like you want to become a soldier?’

‘It’s a good secure career and I really want to travel` she said, ‘my friend is also keen to do it and there’s a buddy system which means we can go everywhere together.’

‘If you want to travel, there are many other safer ways of doing so, such as teaching English as a foreign language or voluntary service overseas’, I told her. ‘Do you really want to risk getting killed or crippled for life fighting for a cause you don’t believe in a country you may never have even heard of?’

‘No, no, of course not. But I can easily join the reservists’, she began to sound less sure of herself. ‘They won’t need me to fight. I can get a desk job here in Tucson.’

‘But you’ll be in reserve. The whole point is that you’re there if needed. They can call you up at any time.’

‘I dunno’ she said, ‘I really haven’t decided anything yet but I’ve thought about joining the military for a long time.’

At that point I decided to give the poor girl a break and get on with my swim.

It’s pretty much common knowledge that the US military recruit aggressively, and have much success when they target poor, disadvantaged, unemployed youth. In the 1980’s, the American Council on Education ascribed a drop in the college enrollment of black people to more aggressive military recruitment. More recently, the military have targeted Latino youth by running Spanish language adverts.

The Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act on education requires high schools to provide the Defence Department with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all pupils, or risk losing federal funding.

There are reports that the Army, worried about the decline in recruitment since the Iraq war, have relaxed the criteria and have been signing up drug abusers and members of racists and other hate groups.

The military spends an estimated $1.9 million a year on recruitment. Like any other sales people, its agents receive commission if they meet their targets. One award winning recruiter told the Boston Globe: ‘You have to convince these little punks to do something….I figure if I can sell this I can sell anything.` Recruiters paint a misleading picture of the benefits on offer. They talk of a 2 year tour of duty, rising pay rates, free health care, good quality accommodation and up to 75% of college tuition fees being covered.

The reality is very different. As part of what is called “the Individual Ready Reserve” you can be called-up for 8 years from the date you start basic training. Soldiers and ex-soldiers suffering from Gulf War illnesses, such as PTSD, are often denied treatment. Living conditions are, by and large, poor and two-thirds of all recruits never get a penny in college funding.

Moreover, around a third of all homeless people are veterans and the average veteran has been shown to earn 10 -15% less than non-veterans.

Over the course of the Iraq war, an increasing number of GI’s have declared themselves to be conscientious objectors and many have received jail sentences for refusing to serve. Over 1,000 active GI’s have signed an online petition asking the US Congress to end the war.

And then there is the endemic racism, homophobia and chauvinism in the military. A recent study found that 30% of female soldiers reported rapes or attempted rapes and 75% said they had been sexually harassed. A 1994 LA Times study found that 50% of inmates at the Fort Leavenworth military prison were people of colour as were 83% of those under a military death sentence.

The Veterans For Peace movement are mobilizing right across the States and have put together a video for schools as a counter-recruitment tool. Unlikely peaceniks you might think but who cares? I’m sure my lifeguard would take a Vet a lot more seriously than a Bleeding Heart Liberal like me.