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‘Counter-Recruiter’ Seeks to Block Students’ Data From the Military
Barbara G. Harris, 72, looked her troops in the eye. Staring out at mohawks on one side of the room, salt-white bobs on the other, she said in her delicately firm way: "Hold your ground. You have every right to stand there, and if anyone tells you differently, tell them your rights."
Barbara Harris discussing ways to educate parents about their right to keep information on their children from the military. (Yana Paskova for The New York Times) A retired teacher and longtime peace advocate, Ms. Harris was tutoring 20 new enlistees in the art of "counter-recruitment," her personal crusade to block recruiters for the United States military from contacting New York City high school students.
She had assembled the group in her war room, a space near Union Square lent by a sympathetic organization, where plants and antiwar signs line the walls, in preparation for a blitz Thursday evening at parent-teacher conferences, where Ms. Harris and the others plan to stand on sidewalks outside school buildings armed with opt-out forms and their best sales pitches.
"You don't have a whole lot of time - that's the point," Ms. Harris told the volunteers, who ranged in age from college students to the Granny Peace Brigade, a New York group of older women started in 2005 to protest the Iraq war. "Don't be frustrated by that. They do stop."
Ms. Harris's efforts this week come as the Department of Education is facing renewed criticism from the New York Civil Liberties Union on the issue of military recruitment, after changing its policy in September to allow recruiters to get data about high school students from a central office. In the past, recruiters had to go from school to school to get names, addresses and phone numbers for students.
Federal law requires that schools provide the military the same access as colleges and other prospective employers. Parents are allowed to block access to a child's information by signing an opt-out form.
Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the United States Army recruiting command, said that he was unaware of Ms. Harris but that the military did not object to counter-recruitment efforts. "We would hope that we would have an open discourse and not have one group try to stifle the ability of the other group to speak," he said.
Ms. Harris, who lives in Midtown, started counter-recruiting three years ago, troubled by what she saw as an increasingly aggressive attempt to recruit low-income and minority students into the armed forces (she calls it a "poverty draft"). She has made it her mission to inform students, parents and teachers of alternatives to joining the military. She was among 18 members of the Granny Peace Brigade arrested and charged with disorderly conduct at the Times Square recruitment center in 2005; they were later acquitted of all charges.
Her latest campaign caps a half-century of protests. In the 1950s, while her friends ducked under desks and talked of fallout shelters, Ms. Harris took to the streets, rallying against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
As the Vietnam War roiled, she focused on peace and women's rights. She got a job teaching special-needs children at a public school in Pleasantville, N.Y., followed by a 21-year stint as a corporate trainer at AT&T. In the 1990s, Ms. Harris returned to the classroom, teaching English as a second language at the New School until her retirement in 2002. She has two children and two grandchildren.
Friends describe her as a protester who rarely raises her voice and makes it a point not to talk over others.
"She is an absolute wonder," said Nancy Kricorian, coordinator for the city's chapter of Code Pink, a women's antiwar group Ms. Harris belongs to. "She can talk to the most rabid person, somebody who totally disagrees with what we're doing, in an even and convincing way."
Bev Rice, a member of the Granny Peace Brigade who planned to help with Thursday's counter-recruitment effort, said: "Nothing appears to upset her. She's just the type of person you want to do something for."
Ms. Harris, who canvasses on parent-teacher nights in fall and spring, and talks with community groups about high school recruiting in between, estimated that 9 out of 10 parents she speaks with do not know about the opt-out form, despite the city's requirement that principals distribute information about it.
"You give them the information, you see them change their minds," she said. "They know their kids are vulnerable. They say: ‘They're calling my baby and I don't want them to speak to my child. What should I do?' "
Over the years, Ms. Harris watched as military recruiters became, in her eyes, unduly forceful in the hallways of New York high schools. Recruiters formed friendships with students, she said, and gave them the impression that being a soldier can cure all their struggles.
Ms. Harris said she does not mind if students join the military, as long as they are informed of the risks and other opportunities, and meet with recruiters off school grounds. But she said that as she spoke with students in poor neighborhoods like East Harlem, she discovered that many of them were unaware that they could get financial aid for college on their own and saw the military as their only option.
"For many of these young kids, especially boys, it's a macho thing - you're strong, you're one of the team, you get this respect if you join," she said. "If a young person wants to enlist, at least he or she knows what it's about, what the truth about recruiting is. They can decide if that's the best choice for them."
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16 Comments so far
Show AllI would like to see a Department of Peace to go along with the Department of Defense and if the the Peace Department had a fraction of the $ that the Department of War does, just think how serendiptous that would be; especially, if they were given the same benefits.
Ms. Harris is doing exactly the right thing except for going to recruitment offices and blocking access. Other than that, this quote says it all.
"For many of these young kids, especially boys, it's a macho thing - you're strong, you're one of the team, you get this respect if you join," she said. "If a young person wants to enlist, at least he or she knows what it's about, what the truth about recruiting is. They can decide if that's the best choice for them."
They should be exposed to both opinions on serving their country. Aside from that recruiters should only be in High Schools on Career days. This is far too important a choice to make without all the information you can get.
I'd favor not allowing a recruiter to talk to a group of kids without a counter recruiter alongside to present the alternative view and vice versa.
That's so inspiring -- so good to hear more people are learning how their children's privacy is being sold to the military without their consent! Students have other options for their future that should be promoted just as much as any military service.
I think that in order for these young people to have a full understanding of the magnitude of their approaching decision they should have a full grasp of all of the potential repercussions.
1). Load several of them up for a "lunch" at their favorite restaurant, but before they get there, they must stop off at a Veterans Affairs Hospital, and make a short tour. Then take a note on how many of them either have nothing for lunch, or 'make it a lite" lunch.
2). Take the same group out on Sunday (after Church of course) and visit a Department of Veteran Affairs Cemetery.
3) Have them on line with as many of the veterans of this latest 'illegal war of aggression"----both those who are for it and those who "learned their lesson".
The lessons would be invaluable since they might learn a method to help them make other important decisions in their future.
If they can live long enough to have a future.
From my own experience in the US Military, I share it quite readily with young people. "There is no other country on the face of the planet that is worth shedding YOUR blood for except YOUR own; so unless they attack you here at YOUR own home, stay out of other peoples fights; if they want freedom let them get it the old "fashion way,----- earn it themselves".
Question to Americans:
I am confused and actually aghast. I've seen the ROTCs in US high schools - this European associates the sight of kids in paramilitary uniforms in schools correctly with European dictatorships of the 20th century, BTW. I was in shock when I saw them.
I've equally heard the stories of desperate US friends whose sons were buttonholed by seasoned Army recruiters and whose kids then signed up with the Marines without HAVING to consult an adult, without any cooling-off period stipulated in the contract. I'm not sure that the kids were 18 yet.
In their states, the very same kids were not allowed to get near any bar area where anything as weak as a beer was being imbibed. No, only at 21. But they sure were deemed mature enough and fit to sign a contract which they were even not allowed to regret.
I've equally witnessed American lawyers, the most aggressive ones in the world, and the most well-paid as well, I've seen that American damages are 100000times higher than what anybody else gets awarded as damages by courts around the world. Americans can get damages for the most incredible things, on top of everything else.
Cornering and luring someone under age into signing his/her life away strangely enough is no offense. Not knowing that coffee is a hot beverage is okay, though. You get a lot of money for that.
My question, thus: Why has nobody in America challenged the military, i.e. these recruiters, in the courts? Where are all these Yale and Havard et al law schools and their professors, where are all these star attorneys, where is the Attorney General, why does nobody in America make a case out of this???????????
If a layperson like me can see that this stinks and MUST be illegal, why can't lawyers? Why can't the rest of America see it?
Frankly, I don't know. You'd need someone like the ACLU probably, but the folks that fund them wouldn't care to stop the practice I'd guess.
Maybe someone does know if a legal attempt has been made and will post.
I'm not really disagreeing with you on this issue, just clearing up some misconceptions...
"I've equally heard the stories of desperate US friends whose sons were buttonholed by seasoned Army recruiters and whose kids then signed up with the Marines without HAVING to consult an adult, without any cooling-off period stipulated in the contract. I'm not sure that the kids were 18 yet."
First, the Army and the Marines are two separate branches of the military, with separate recruiters and recruiting standards. Second, minors are not allowed to enter into contracts with the military or anyone else without the signed consent of their parents or legal guardian. People under 18 years old can enter into contracts with the military, but not without the consent of their parents. Further, merely signing a recruiting contract does not legally bind the recruit to entering the military. They must first complete a series of physical and mental tests, sign a whole bunch of paperwork, and then, finally, be sworn in. At any time prior to swearing in, the recruit has every right to back out.
Despite all this, I appreciate and support the efforts of folks who are providing young people with all of their options. Recruiters, just like used car salesmen, are good at what they do, and part of what they do is making the military seem cool and glamorous, while downplaying the less glamorous aspects, such as shooting at other human beings, watching your friends blown into smithereens, and being shot at yourself. It's important that young people have a clear understanding of what life in the military is really like, not necessarily to prevent them from joining (if that's their decision), but so that they can make an informed decision.
Thanks, that was helpful.
I didn't know that these kids actually were able to walk out and not honor their signature, if they wanted to, that is.
Which still leaves me with the demand for a stipulation like "you've got two weeks to talk it over with your parents", though, which I still think is not part of the deal.
Although these kids are young enough in order not to be allowed to drink a beer in public...but old enough to be trained to kill, obviously.
Great post!
Look at what happens to Vets that try to peaceably assemble to protest a war they've come to oppose:
former Army Sergeant Nick Morgan crushed by police
Can a discussion about PEACE be done without using war terminology to characterize it? This use of “blitz”, “troops”, “crusade”... I find offensive when discussing PEACE!
Unfortunately, Araquin October 23rd, 2008 4:08 pm: what the recruiters are doing is legal, although it shouldn't be and it's certainly amoral.
I'd like to have the whole war apparatus abolished and replaced with a Department of Peace. Get rid of it all: CIA, all branches of the military, the people that make weapons... All of it.
I was outside a NYC high school tonight as part of Barbara's effort. One kid said the principal had handed out some opt-out forms and then run out, but most of the parents had no idea that they had to sign something that would PREVENT their kids' information from being given to recruiters. A couple of moms said they had heard about the opt-out forms but didn't know where to get them. 9 out of 10 of the parents were extremely grateful to us for being there; a number of them filled out the forms on the spot. One woman said her husband was in the military, but she didn't want her son going to Iraq. A few parents were indifferent (which was hard for me as a parent to relate to). A group of 9th graders told me that Barack would end the war so by the time they finished high school so no one would be going to Baghdad any more.
Thanks Barbara and Nancy. It was parents' night at High Schools in NYC. So you get a chance to meet the most involved and committed parents entering and leaving the school.
My spouse was doing the same thing tonight at a big public high school with similar results. (I work evenings so could not be there). Everything we do is a slog, bit by bit, one person at a time. I hope some day the efforts will take hold and there will be more momentum. But I think it counts anyway. Some will know their options. Some will question. One kid's life or one Iraqi's life might be spared.
Joe
Recruiters are increasingly showing up in courtrooms where the judge gives convicts the choice of signing up with the jailer or the recruiter.
That is sick. The rehab for random murder is organized murder. The atonement for stealing a wallet is stealing a country.
Joe
pnolan:
Does anyone out there have any information on a related topic that I consider equally threatening and that's the approval by school districts of junior ROTC programs? I can think of a nothing more disagreeable on a day to day basis in the halls of our schools than these "military youth" (doesn't it remind you of another "xxxx youth" indoctrination program run by a mustachioed little man 70 or so years ago?) prancing around in uniforms with all kinds of ribbons acting all self-important as if they're the keepers of the gates. I'd be interested in knowing where the authority comes from that permits these programs and how one might go about getting them removed from the school system. Why do schools permit them and how are they regulated?