But despite rapid advances in killing technology, the machines still can't run themselves or invade and occupy cities, and genetically-obedient fighting clones have yet to arrive on the scene. So every year the Pentagon must spend billions of dollars on a media blitz aimed at arming the country's youths with everything from M-16s to cluster bombs. This public relations campaign includes Hollywood-style action movies, national television and radio advertising, and gen-x style websites (featuring highly realistic interactive shoot-em-up video games) designed to play on your children's dreams of becoming American heroes. Money is also spent on a more direct, aggressive approach: setting up offices on busy streets and tables in high schools across America in order to gain direct access to America's youth.
This annual war campaign lures young people into being the critical component of the war machine: the trigger fingers. The Pentagon hopes that the average high school graduate will sign away the best years of his or her life before entering 12th grade. No, they do more than hope; they make an investment. Throughout America, military recruiters have arrangements with high schools where they table with promises of jobs, money, and education. Junior ROTC (in which 15-year-olds are trained to obey and shoot straight) is alive and well in some high schools in northern California; and the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) coerces high schoolers into making a commitmentÑbefore they enter their senior yearÑto serve after graduation. The DEP gives the war machine an entire year to indoctrinate students through DEP correspondence programs and mandatory attendance at functions where they'll be around only other military recruits, rather than their peers who may be trying to convince them to take a more sane path in life.
Military recruiters have access to information about every high school student in America. They know addresses and phone numbers, so they can approach your son or daughter by telephone, on the street while he or she walks home, or in the schoolyard during break. The recruiter won't tell students about the suicide rate in the military that's double the national average, or that 20% of the deaths in the military are due to homicide or suicide (what social atmosphere nurtures those numbers?), or the under-reported alcohol-related deaths (by 600%), or the exceedingly high incidence of sexual harassment (the VA has administered treatment to over 20,000 women since 1993 for post-traumatic stress as a result of sexual assault while in the military). The recruiter isn't a counselor trying to help students find their place in the world. Nor is speaking with a recruiter like interviewing for a job. Like a drug dealer, the recruiter sells a product that is inherently dangerous to both mind and body; and like that dealer, the recruiter won't tell you the truth about what's to come.
So what product is the war machine selling to high schoolers? How has it managed to get enough people to sign up to send 250,000 of them to war? Escape. The war campaign offers competitive salaries to those unable to escape unemployment, enlistment bonuses of up to $20,000 to those who can't escape debt, education benefits of $65,000 in the college loan repayment program for those wishing to escape poverty. They also offer recreational and family benefits that include 30-day vacations, use of recreation centers, and medical coverage.
High schoolers who sign up in search of a salary are looking for the military to provide practical job training and possibly a career. When they turn 18 these recruits will enlist full-time for two to six yearsÑwhich could include participation in an invasion of Baghdad or Pyonyang or Caracas. But only after four or five promotions over the span of perhaps five to seven years could a person expect to reach the rank of Staff Sergeant in the Army. That rung on the ladder pays $25,000 a year. That's little more than two grand a month! That would qualify you for MediCal; earn a bit less and you'd qualify for food stamps.
A famous half-truth is that the actual income includes salary, free food, a place to live, and health care, which would make a military job competitive in the job market. But the food is government food, sold in government-run grocery stores on bases where organic means hexane. The health care system is good only if you're a general, and the living quarters for most are duplicates of low-income housing. So what may sound like a promising career is really just poverty and war that doesn't end until the contract does.
The college loan repayment program is aimed at those who plan on joining the reserves. This is supposed to allow recruits to first go through basic training, then report two days a month at a military base near their home. In exchange the recruit gets what seems like an unlimited supply of cash for education. But the truth is that most people who join the military don't ever spend four years going to college. And many of those who do accrue student loans find it impossible to work through the military's bureaucracy in order to access the money. The first wall they run into is a requirement that the college loan be at least one year old. By this time the recruit has served at least two years. The second wall is that only 15% of the loan will actually be paid each year after that. This means the recruit obligated for at least another seven years of duty for a total of least nine years of service. The third wall is that the military will only pay the loan if the recruit is still active in the reserves. But most contracts end after only six years of duty, far short of the nine-plus needed to pay the full loan. So, in the end, the recruit only gets a fraction, if any, of the $65,000 promised by the recruiter.
The biggest step against war that any country can take is to not feed its young, poor and uneducated to the war machine. A student's urge to sign on the dotted line can be overcome by using the same tactics any civilized society would use to prevent drug addiction: proper education, adequate health care, and relieving the stresses that are part of the low-income lifestyle.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2003
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited