Veterans for Peace-Ernest Gruening Chapter: FINAL complaint letter to ASD on Recruiting in Schools

FINAL letter to ASD—

Thanks to all the folks who gave me feedback. The Truth in Recruiting folks asked that we send this letter after their meeting with ASD on April 20^th. I will respect their wish and mail this out this weekend. They also suggested that we separate out current use of our military in Iraq from our comments on recruiters. I have to respectfully disagree in that the kind of recruiting abuses we are seeing are a direct result of how the current administration’s failed policies lead to the abuse of the desire of young people to do something important with their lives.

If someone would like to take on the challenge of shrinking this down to the 225-word limit for a letter to the editor (ADN), you have my permission to do it. You could either send it under your own name or send it back to me for review and I will send it out as your chapter president.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Superintendent’s Office,

Anchorage School District

P.O. Box 196614,

Anchorage, Alaska, 99519-6614

CITIZEN COMPLAINT

I represent the 25 or so members of Veterans for Peace, Ernest Gruening Chapter (Southcentral Alaska). The disturbingly excessive presence of military recruiters in our schools has come to our attention. As veterans, we know the cost of war and the price paid by those who serve. Having collectively witnessed a number of wars, we find the finely-crafted military recruiting PR(which we have to support with taxpayer dollars) to be increasingly further and further from the reality of warfare.

Specific instances:

o Presence of military vehicles "on display" at East, West, and South High Schools (as if war was about “cool” vehicles & technology)

o Marines doing a "push up challenge" in the foyer at West High

o Use of military vehicles in homecoming parades and perhaps the upcoming Senior Fun days or high school proms (using war equipment as props desensitizes people to the realities of war)

o Daily presence of recruiters in East High Commons during lunch

Our military is currently being terribly misused, neglected and asked to perform impossible tasks while conducting an illegal occupation of a sovereign nation under false pretenses. The American people are increasingly seeing this occupation as futile. Of course, this makes it difficult for the current administration to recruit young people to enlist to fight in this immoral as well as lost cause. Military recruiters are given impossible quotas to meet and sometimes resort to using predatory tactics. This is completely unacceptable. The ASD cannot continue to be complicit in allowing the slick PR of the military to distort the reality that these young people may face as soldiers. Especially if they are deployed as occupiers in the midst of Iraq’s civil war in defense of the current administration’s failed policies.

For the futures of these young people, the district should be exercising a great deal of control over the militaristic propaganda targeted at impressionable high school and younger students. These young people are already subjected to unprecedented advertising to join the military in all forms of media. By allowing the recruiters almost unfettered access to students the district ends up tacitly endorsing the extremely biased message that the best way to serve our country is by participation in war -- using death and destruction as the ready answer to resolving the world’s conflicts. We would like to see an increased emphasis on providing accurate information to the students, including their rights in dealing with the pressure tactics used by recruiters. This would include better parental notification as the recruiters work to get minors to sign contracts. We would like the district to work with Veterans for Peace and others to make sure the students are getting a fair and balanced view of serving in the military.

Our understanding is that current ASD policy allows recruiters in schools EVERY SINGLE DAY. We would have no problem with military recruiters in the school during "career" day, when they are part of a group of "recruiters' for colleges, tech-schools, apprentice programs, or even direct employment. The goal should be to reduce this to a handful of days, scheduled in advance. Members of the community would like to be in the schools on these same days to present the other side of the story. This will go a long way to ensuring that “truth in recruiting” is adhered to. It is high time for a reduction in the access the district grants to military recruiters. In Juneau, the recruiters get 3 scheduled-in-advance-days a year in the schools.

Jon Lockert, President

Veterans for Peace, Ernest Gruening Chapter (Southcentral Alaska)

Anchorage, AK

Members: Bingham, Dale; Cull, Michael; Dougherty, Sean; Jones, Suel; McGee, Ronald; Nix, Devin; O'Toole, James; Russell, Steven; Waggoner, Kenneth; Wright, Thomas; Burshek, Kimberly’ Evans, Gloria; Flaherty, Barbara; Hilmes, Cheryl; Kopchak, Robert; Monaghan, Eileen; O'Leary, Neil; Radcliffe, Richard; Rexrode, Gerald; Sipos, David; Price, Lynn; Hogg, Norman; Farnum, Dusty; Cullinane, Ed

Veterans For Peace is a national organization founded in 1985. It is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war.. The organization includes men and women veterans of all eras and duty. Our collective experience tells us wars are easy to start and hard to stop and that those hurt are often the innocent. Thus, other means of problem solving are necessary.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE We, having dutifully served our nation, do hereby affirm our greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace. To this end we will work, with others

(a) Toward increasing public awareness of the costs of war.
(b) To restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations
(c) To end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons
(d) To seek justice for veterans and victims of war
(e) To abolish war as an instrument of national policy.

To achieve these goals, members of Veterans For Peace pledge to use non-violent means and to maintain an organization that is both democratic and open with the understanding that all members are trusted to act in the best interests of the group for the larger purpose of world peace.

Jon Lockert

Jon4Paz@AcsAlaska.net