Every year, proud soldiers stand in the cafeteria and hand out pencils and stickers to high schoolers, trying to convince them to join the military and promising free college in exchange for becoming both a murderer and a lifelong victim. This military propaganda is not welcome on IHS’s campus; it preys on underprivileged, poor kids who feel they have no other option but to enlist. When these soldiers hand out the shiny pamphlets and talk about serving their country, they don’t mention what may be sacrificed in this exchange. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs reveals some shocking and disturbing statistics that military recruiters choose to omit. These recruiters don’t tell you that between ten and thirty percent (varying by where they served) of veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), the numbers are likely much higher, but not everyone gets help. They don’t tell you that about one fourth of women report sexual assault while in the military, and half report some form of sexual harrasment. They don’t tell you that thirteen percent of homeless people are veterans, a number estimated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. They don’t tell you about the rampant substance and domestic abuse among veteran families, for which the data is immense and deserves an entire article of its own. They tell you absolutely none of this, because they want you to come work as a killing machine for them.
As much as I’d love to create a petition to boot military recruiters off campus, United States law prevents that. Section 9528 of the 2001 “No Child Left Behind” Act requires that public high schools give the military access to campuses and student contact information. The exact wording for the access section of the agreement is as follows: districts must provide military recruiters with the “same access to secondary school students as is provided generally to postsecondary education institutions or prospective employers.” Just one tiny difference between a SUNY offering affordable education to high schoolers and a row of soldiers pestering 15-year-olds in the cafeteria: one of these comes with all the risks I mentioned above. And while parents can request that their kids’ information not be shared, the fact that it’s the norm to automatically share student information with the military is pretty dystopian—there’s simply no reason for this, and it’s a disturbing and invasive practice.
The U.S. hasn’t fought a truly defensive war since the early 1940s. Everything since has been vaguely veiled imperialism, primarily in countries across Asia. The U.S. was so terrified at the thought of a country becoming communist that they sent almost three million Americans to torture and bomb Vietnamese civilians. This is just one of the many countries in which the U.S. committed atrocious war crimes since World War Two. However, I digress. The point of this article isn’t to highlight America’s war crimes, but rather to illustrate the absurdity that some claim enlisting in the military is a noble pursuit. Military recruiters’ favorite claim is that, by enlisting, you’re fighting to protect your country. But in what way is that true when all these wars are fought off American soil, to intervene in conflicts that the United States should have absolutely zero involvement in?
Military recruiters coming to high school campuses and attempting to convince teenagers to join the army is inherently manipulative, and is simply fueling the already existing surplus of patriotism we have in this country. We don’t need them here, and I think I speak for a significant percentage of the student population when I say we don’t want them here. Instead, public high schools should focus on encouraging students to consider more affordable education options, like community colleges and state schools. They should also emphasize that students can go to some sort of specialized trade school instead of taking the traditional college path, as trade school is generally much cheaper than an education from a four-year school. Basically, students do not need to be in the military to make their future financially plausible. We shouldn’t let military recruiters convince us that a lifetime of trauma for us and those around us is the right decision to make as a 17-year-old.