High school counselors are a prime target of the military for they provide a direct link to students. One of the themes of the recent national convention of the American Personnel and Guidance Association in New Orleans was “Military Career Awareness: The Nation’s Large Employer.” Admiral Zumwalt, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave the keynote address; military branches had prominent booths and conducted several seminars for the high school counselors. Recruiters, there called “career resource persons,” presented the military as an alternative for further education, training, and a career. The basic purpose of the military, to train people to fight and kill on order, was virtually forgotten. The military is also seeking membership in the American Personnel and Guidance Association for its 1,000 “counselors.”
Another approach to winning friends for the military among counselors is through graduate-level courses in “Military Career Awareness.” These courses have been offered through universities in at least two locations on a trial basis. In addition to earning graduate credit, counselors can spend several days on a military base in order to learn more about life in the military. This winter the base chosen for a program based in the Northeast was in sunny Florida -- and transportation, room, and board were paid by the military!
The military wants school counselors to help present its case to students and to provide names and information about students, especially seniors. Some school officials readily agree to provide names of graduating students. Others refuse, claiming that giving such information is an invasion of privacy. Recruiters are also anxious to have counselors include the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery in their programs. Test results are passed on to recruiters who are then able to zero in on desirable candidates. Prime candidates often receive numerous visits and calls.
Selective Service has approached schools in several states asking that volunteer registrars be appointed, preferably from the counseling staff, to register students with Selective Service. A House of Representatives bill, H.R. 10108, presently awaiting action by the House Armed Services Committee, would make it mandatory for secondary schools, both public and private, to assist in registering youth with Selective Service. Such a low would push the complicity of schools with the military even further and would do so even if schools did not wish to cooperate.
Other programs are designed for incorporation into high school curriculum. Junior ROTC, probably the most well-known, is a program designed for “citizen training” and to encourage choosing military careers. The course includes military history, drills, marching, and weapons training. JROTC, now in more than 1,000 high schools, has been expanding rapidly.
The battle on the part of the military to improve its image and to get recruits takes place on other fronts as well. Nine out of 23 pages of ads in the February-March Future Farmer were from military branches. Billboards proclaim the benefits of military service. Public service announcements on radio and TV seek to win people’s hearts and minds. Recruiters in personal contact with prospects often promise far more than they can deliver. Recruitment contracts generally bind the recruit but not the military, making it impossible for an enlistee to back out if he is not assigned to the place he was promised or given the training he desires. Recruits aren’t told of the hassling they can expect, of the boredom, that only about 30 percent of military jobs have civilian counterparts, and that they are really there to fight wars, not to get an education.
Despite all the problems, many government leaders and citizens favor the present high-powered military public relations and recruitment effort. They argue that it is preferable to the only alternative -- a return to the draft. Others advocate, on various grounds, a return to the draft. Nearly all share one assumption -- the American military cannot or should not be significantly cut.
A persistent problem is the relatively high percentage of minority men in the service. Some military men attribute this to “the awareness among minorities of the opportunities available in the service,” but critics feel it reflects the desperation of poor minority youth unable to find jobs in a badly sagging economy. In spite of the misrepresentations and the problems with military life, the military option seems better than other alternatives to many poor and minority people. Attempts to counter military recruitment efforts in minority communities will face frustration until real options to the military are available. The struggle to counter military recruitment must be in part a struggle for justice and opportunity for the poor and oppressed. Without this component, the all-volunteer force will be voluntary only for those who are well-born or well-educated but compulsory for the most disadvantaged of our society.
For Christian peacemakers, opposition to present recruitment efforts and to the draft is necessary. Resumption of conscription or a program of national service for all are not the only alternatives to the present military hard-sell. Another option, a far-reaching reordering of national priorities that would involve massive cuts in military manpower and spending, is the only course worthy of unqualified support by peacemakers. Pacifists in the past have not allowed the military to force them to choose between undesirable options (tyranny or war, etc.) and cannot allow it to do so now.
When this article appeared, Ted Koontz was associate executive secretary of the Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace Section.
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