Anyone that’s grown up during the War on Terror has more than likely encountered a military recruiter at their school. The idea to join is initially appealing; have your entire education paid for, all while learning career skills and serving your country. Life post-high school is a daunting idea for a lot of students. That fear of the unknown is exploited by recruiters, who urge them to sign themselves over to the state to make up their minds for them.
While that may not be the case for all who make the decision to serve, the government’s unmitigated lust for a powerful military force suggests they’ll use whatever seductive tactics necessary to lure indecisive youth to their ranks.
When that fails, there’s always borderline harassment. In a registry at the Pentagon, the personal data of over 30 million Americans between 16 and 25 is stored due to a stipulation in Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. Since 2001, schools that receive federal funding are required to hand over the personal data of high school juniors and seniors, along with allowing recruiters access to campuses.
The Pentagon registry, called the “Joint Advertising Market Research Studies” (JAMRS) database, contains enough information to allow recruiters a chance to coerce students years after they finish high school. Recruiters have instant access to student’s names, phone numbers, email addresses, and even their race.
Jeanna Leblanc, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Connecticut, is working to fix the problem. “Our position is, in brief, that schools should not release person information about students to the military or anyone else without parental permission,” she said to Vice News. Parents can prevent schools from sending their children’s information to recruiters by filling out a form, but according to Leblanc, this is not enough. “Even when parents or a student over the age of 18 file a form instructing schools not to release personal information to military recruiters, the form doesn’t apply to ASVAB test results or the accompanying personal information.”
The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery(ASVAB) test is described in the official Army manual for recruiters as a way to gather information “not available from any other source.” The test, which is mandatory in some districts, is issued by the Dept. of Defense to over 12,000 schools. It measures a student’s physical capabilities to determine which branch of the military the student is most fit to join, and there is no way to stop that information from going into the Pentagon’s student piggy bank.
The test is touted as a way to find “the best potential prospects to contact”, yet now that the draft is no longer an option, the military is forced to find new ways to recruit the next generation.
As a granddaughter of a Bronze Star recipient, and the daughter of a Vietnam War protesting “hippie”, I hold mixed views about the military. Respect for the armed forces is admirable, but not when it comes with such high costs. My father recognized that and managed to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. I hold equal respect for his decision not to fight as I do for my grandfather risking his life in World War Two. Yet the justification behind those wars differs drastically, and the War on Terror is a different animal altogether.
We’ve lost more veterans to suicide than we have to the War on Terror, and the atrocities our military has committed in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer veiled thanks to Chelsea Manning‘s revelations. Now that they know what kind of cause they’d be promoting, all students should be given the right to voluntarily provide their information to Army recruiters, but efforts to make that happen have been met with scorn by the military.
At a hearing last month in which Connecticut would decide to limit the military’s access to student’s information, Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Coleman of the US Army Recruiting Battalion in Albany beseeched lawmakers not to hold recruiters back.
He insisted that “Participation… is voluntary and is not a ruse to gather personal information on students for recruitment purposes.” This argument holds little weight given the fact that even when student’s deny requests to join the military, the calls continue to come. The issue has evolved into a question of privacy rights. More should be done to protect student information from those who would use it for evil. These potential soldiers, teenagers still figuring out their lives, may be enticed with promises of financial and job security. The fact that they’ll be gambling their lives in unjust wars is downplayed, if it’s discussed at all.
[about_faith]
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