Counterrecruiter.net has been, and will continue to be, on a quick hiatus (not more than a month) until I complete some other projects here in Austin.  When it returns, Counterrecruiter.net will be a community-oriented site with more user-generated and original content from counter-recruiters nationwide.

If you want to keep up with counter-recruitment news while we’re gone, I’d suggest subscribing to these two RSS feeds.

Notice how I didn’t spoil it by titling the post ‘weekend humor.’

From Alternet.org:

Editor’s Note: The following is excerpted from Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War and Build a Better World published by Seven Stories Press, August 2007. Reprinted here by permission of publisher. Copyright © 2007 Aimee Allison and David Solnit

Top military recruitment facts

1. Recruiters lie. According the New York Times, nearly one of five United States Army recruiters was under investigation in 2004 for offenses varying from “threats and coercion to false promises that applicants would not be sent to Iraq.” One veteran recruiter told a reporter for the Albany Times Union, “I’ve been recruiting for years, and I don’t know one recruiter who wasn’t dishonest about it. I did it myself.”

2. The military contract guarantees nothing. The Department of Defense’s own enlistment/re-enlistment document states, “Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay allowances, benefits and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces REGARDLESS of the provisions of this enlistment/re-enlistment document” (DD Form4/1, 1998, Sec.9.5b).

3. Advertised signing bonuses are bogus. Bonuses are often thought of as gifts, but they’re not. They’re like loans: If an enlistee leaves the military before his or her agreed term of service, he or she will be forced to repay the bonus. Besides, Army data shows that the top bonus of $20,000 was given to only 6 percent of the 47,7272 enlistees who signed up for active duty.

4. The military won’t make you financially secure. Military members are no strangers to financial strain: 48 percent report having financial difficulty, approximately 33 percent of homeless men in the United States are veterans, and nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night.

5. Money for college ($71,424 in the bank?). If you expect the military to pay for college, better read the fine print. Among recruits who sign up for the Montgomery GI Bill, 65 percent receive no money for college, and only 15 percent ever receive a college degree. The maximum Montgomery GI Bill benefit is $37,224, and even this 37K is hard to get: To join, you must first put in a nonrefundable $1,200 deposit that has to be paid to the military during the first year of service. To receive the $37K, you must also be an active-duty member who has completed at least a three-year service agreement and is attending a four-year college full time. Benefits are significantly lower if you are going to school part-time or attending a two-year college. If you receive a less than honorable discharge (as one in four do), leave the military early (as one in three do), or later decide not to go to college, the military will keep your deposit and give you nothing. Note: The $71,424 advertised by the Army and $86,000 by the Navy includes benefits from the Amy or Navy College Fund, respectively. Fewer than 10 percent of all recruits earn money from the Army College Fund, which is specifically designed to lure recruits into hard-to-fill positions.

6. Job training. Vice President Dick Cheney once said, “The military is not a social welfare agency; it’s not a jobs program.” If you enlist, the military does not have to place you in your chosen career field or give you the specific training requested. Even if enlistees do receive training, it is often to develop skills that will not transfer to the civilian job market. (There aren’t many jobs for M240 machine-gunners stateside.)

7. War, combat, and your contract. First off, if it’s your first time enlisting, you’re signing up for eight years. On top of that, the military can, without your consent, extend active-duty obligations during times of conflict, “national emergency,” or when directed by the president. This means that even if an enlistee has two weeks left on his/ her contract (yes, even Guard/Reserve) or has already served in combat, she/he can still be sent to war. More than a dozen U.S. soldiers have challenged “stop-loss” measures like these in court so far, but people continue to be shipped off involuntarily. The military has called thousands up from Inactive Ready Reserve — soldiers who have served, some for as long as a decade, and been discharged. The numbers: twice as many troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan per year as during the Vietnam War. One-third of the troops who have gone to Iraq have gone more than once. The highest rate of first- time deployments belongs to the Marine Corps Reserve: almost 90 percent have fought.

Counterrecruitment for a better world

Ready to create a truly grassroots, people powered movement? Anti-war activism is changing. The familiar sights and sounds of large protests are giving way to quieter, but far more resonating, one-on-one work in classrooms, career centers, and communities. Whenever you hear people decry the lack of large-scale protest in the United States, even as the latest polls show more than 60 percent of people are opposed to the current war in Iraq, remember that the model for effectively challenging war is taking a different shape.

People from all walks of life are finding inspiration and success in working locally to educate students and mobilize against military recruitment where it happens. We can see counterrecruitment asserting itself as a viable movement as independently organized actions in Seattle, Austin and Los Angeles contribute to a national context in which public schools around the country limit military recruiter access, a huge success by any measure. Schools and communities are now considering deeper questions about the increasing militarization of our culture and recognizing the need for schools to teach and weave peace into the minds and aspirations of our children. We believe that 100,000 marching one day every six months is not as effective as 1,000 people talking to students every day.

In January 2006 the National Security Advisory Group, which includes former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, issued a report entitled “The U.S. Military: Under Strain and at Risk.” The report predicted a major recruiting crisis, pointing out that fewer than needed recruits, as well as first-time enlistees, could result in a “hollowing” and imbalance in the Army.

The fact is, at the end of 2005, the active Army fell 6,627 recruits short of its annual goal of 80,000. In addition, the Army Reserve fell 16 percent behind its recruiting target for the year, and the National Guard 20 percent short of its annual goal. Today approximately 9,000 soldiers are not permitted to leave the service because of “stop-loss” orders, which retain soldiers on active duty involuntarily after their period of enlistment is complete. Another 2,000 soldiers have been involuntarily recalled after leaving active Army service.

Despite this compulsory service, the Army Reserve has trouble achieving its target numbers. After the 2005 recruiting disaster, the military pulled out all stops in an effort to “make quota” in 2006. Army brass replaced the Army Recruiting Command’s top officer in October 2005 with Stanford-educated Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick. “A lot of concerns, I think, that the parents and applicants have are about Iraq and Afghanistan,” Bostick told the Tampa Tribune in October 2006. They also replaced Leo Burnett, their lead public relations agency, who created the “Army of One” campaign, with McCann-Erickson, who after a $200 million contract and year of research came up with “Army Strong” as the new recruiting slogan.

In their comprehensive new strategy, the military added 1,200 new recruiters and spent millions on a public relations blitz that included TV ads, video games, websites, cell phone text messages, helicopter simulators in the back of 18-wheelers, internet chat rooms, sports and public event sponsorships, and even ads on the ticket envelopes for Greyhound Bus lines (“This ticket will take you to where you are going, but the National Guard will take you to where you want to be”).

The Army also increased its relationship with NASCAR, the National Hot Rod Association and the Professional Bull Riders Association. The plan calls for recruiters to visit schools and malls a few days before an event, offering free tickets and the chance to meet famous drivers or bull riders.

In addition, the military dramatically lowered its educational and test standards and other qualifications. The U.S. Army recruited more than 2,600 soldiers under new, lower-aptitude test standards in 2006. They allowed neck and hand tattoos, increased the allowable age to 42, increased the enlistment bonus up to $40,000 and offered $1,000 to soldiers who persuaded friends to sign up. They have granted an unprecedented number of “moral character” waivers; around 17 percent of the first-time recruits, or about 13,600, were accepted under waivers for various medical, moral or criminal problems, including misdemeanor arrests and drunk driving. But even that was not enough to “meet quota.”

So, they also lied. From 2004 to 2005 the Govern ment Accounting Office found 6,600 allegations of recruiter crimes. Incidents included concealing medical information that would disqualify a recruit; making false promises and helping recruits get around test requirements. In 2006 the pressure was even greater, and seen in an ABC television investigation from Nov. 2, 2006, that sent undercover students into ten recruiters’offices in New York and New Jersey.

The program reported that more than half of the recruiters were “stretching the truth or even worse, lying.” They found “nearly half of the recruiters who talked to our under-cover students compared everyday risks here at home to being in Iraq.” A Patchogue recruiter was caught saying. “You have a 10 times greater chance of dying out here on the roads than you do dying in Iraq.”

It also reported that “some recruiters told our students if they enlisted, there was little chance they’d go to war. One recruiter told a student his chances of going to war were “slim to none.”

After all this, the military claims to have met its 2005-2006 goals of recruiting 80,000 people to fill its ranks. It has provided no independent verification of its alleged statistics, but it has launched a major public relations effort to counter the bleak news from the year before.

The Armed Forces Journal reported in March 2006 that recruiters “face an increasingly reluctant pool of potential recruits, opposition from anti-war protesters and perennial bureaucratic inefficiency in the recruitment system.” Scrambling in all of these ways to meet their numbers, the Army, more than ever before, needs fresh blood — recruits straight out of high school.

Is counterrecruitment just a way to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Counterrecruitment is not simply a tactic to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a broad-based, strategic approach to challenging the roots of unending war and militarization. The full potential of a progressive peace and justice movement will only be realized when there is an observable link between efforts to stop war and efforts to address inequality in class, race, ethnicity, immigration status and other socioeconomic factors that determine who ends up being sacrificed in our government’s wars.

As recent statistics demonstrate, there are limits to how far Bush and the neocons can go with their plan for global hegemony when the resources for it are running dangerously low. Fortunately, the peace movement is in a position to further diminish those resources. If we apply ourselves to countering military recruitment, it is in our power to both limit the government’s capacity to wage new wars and build a stronger base to challenge the nation’s spending priorities. Simply put, counterrecruitment is a strategic and effective way to challenge the pro-war, anti-education priorities of our government.

War and empire

As U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler put it in 1933, “There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.”

Racket is one term, empire is another to describe why the U.S. government spends $441 billion a year on a military of over two and a half million soldiers (2,685,713 with reserves), and why it has more than 700 military bases spread across 130 countries with another 6,000 bases in the United States and its “territories.”

Understanding what military recruits are used for in the world, understanding war, and creating viable alternatives to both are essential if we want to break out of the deadlock of militarism. Since the collapse of the “other superpower,” the Soviet Union, “empire” has become a common term among both critics and advocates referring to the unparalleled U.S. system of economic, political, cultural, and military domination of the world. The New York Times Magazine ran a 2003 cover story titled “The American Empire (Get Used to It.)” describing the United States as a reluctant but benevolent global empire. While Bush claimed in his 2004 State of the Union speech, “We have no ambitions of empire,” months later Karl Rove snapped at a New York Times reporter: “‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”

Some see the start of American empire in the wake of Second World War or after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Others trace it back to the invasion and conquest of numerous indigenous nations in North America from the 17th century onward, the development of a slave economy with tentacles reaching into Africa, and the 1848 seizure of Mexico’s northern half, which is now the Southwest. Another wave of aggression abroad began in the 20th century.

Smedley Butler describes the U.S. military’s role in this emerging empire: “I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to major general. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

The modern-day version of “war as a racket” and gangsterism for capitalism can be seen in the occupation of Iraq. Critics call the U.S. war in Iraq a failure, but behind the scenes, it has established several permanent U.S. military bases, allowed corporations like Halliburton to make billions from unfulfilled contracts to reconstruct war-destroyed schools, hospitals, power systems and infrastructure, and is in the final process of turning control of Iraq’s vast oil resources over to war profiteers such as Chevron.

The U.S. occupation’s “Provisional Authority” under Paul Bremer also laid the legal groundwork for much of the Iraqi economy to be privatized and then taken over by U.S.-based corporations. Thus Butler’s racket and its toll abroad. What does it cost us at home?

The price of two and a half million soldiers, aircraft carriers and military bases across the planet, and a massive array of weapons of mass destruction is high. It saps resources for healthcare, education and housing. It also requires keeping the domestic population in check through propaganda and the corrosion of civil liberties and human rights. Stifling domestic dissent, criminalizing immigrants, and torturing and illegally imprisoning citizens of other nations have all been stepped up under the guise of the so-called War on Terror.

In his book The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, Ivan Eland writes, “Intervention overseas is not needed for security against other nation-states and only leads to blowback from the one threat that is difficult to deter — terrorism.

In short, the U.S. empire lessens American prosperity, power, security and moral standing. It also erodes the founding principles of the American Constitution.” As we write this book (late 2006) nearly 3,000 U.S. soldiers and over 200 soldiers from other occupying countries have been killed in Iraq, at least 20,895 U.S. troops have been wounded, and a new Johns Hopkins report puts the number of violent Iraqi civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion at more than 600,000.

War’s side effects are bleak for the environment and human society; its direct and intended effect is mass death. Down the current road of imperial dominance and warfare at will, the use of weapons of mass destruction is nearly inevitable, with apocalyptic consequences.

But there are alternatives to the expense of maintaining a military and the atrocity that is war. One that has been developed over the last 50 years is called social defense. Brian Martin, Australian scholar and author of Social Defense: Social Change, describes social defense as unarmed “community resistance to aggression as an alternative to military defense. It is based on widespread protest, persuasion, noncooperation and intervention in order to oppose military aggression or political repression. There have been numerous nonviolent actions, to be sure, some of them quite spectacular, such as the Czechoslovak resistance to the 1968 Soviet invasion, the toppling of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986, the Palestinian Intifada from 1987 to 1993 and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989.”

Imagine if even a fraction of the resources put into military defense were available for the general population to organize social defense.

Replacing global empire with domestic democracy and well-being requires redefining democracy — pursuing ways to shift decision making and power from corporations and government to “we the people.” It’s not enough just to oppose something.

We need to envision, educate about, and then actually organize alternatives to the system of empire and war, to corporations, and to the lack of democratic participation in decisions that shape our lives and communities. What begin as pragmatic actions, like keeping youth from joining the military, are most effective when they have as their end the transformation of the root causes of war, undemocratic governance, and injustice. Every immediate action, when understood and explained as part of a bigger picture, can be another step toward this longer-term goal of getting to the roots of our problems and building a better world.

Today’s movement

Arlene Inouye, who began her activism during Vietnam, continues her work today in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where she founded the Coalition Against Militarism in our Schools (CAMS). Her support of a bright, young student named Sal illustrates how counterrecruitment works simultaneously to resist war and build alternatives.

Arlene says, “Sal is a bright JROTC student who lacked support for success in school and beyond. His father was deported to Mexico about two years ago, and he was told by the military recruiter that if Sal enlisted, his father could come back to the United States. His father begged him to enlist after high school. Sal later learned that the military was lying and that he couldn’t help his father come home.”

During the spring of 2006 there were student walkouts and marches supporting immigrant rights throughout Los Angeles. Arlene explains, “The activism around immigrant rights helped Sal to see the hypocrisy of fighting in a military that is being sent to the border and has been reported to shoot down undocumented people who try to cross.

“During a rally, Sal took off his JROTC uniform in front of the press, encouraging other students to resist war and drop out of JROTC. Unfortunately, most won’t because of concerns about their grades. This student who is articulate and smart is failing school and lacks the support he needs. I have mobilized help for him at the school and call him regularly. He just got back from a peace camp given by our partner organization, and that was a powerful experience for him.”

Creating a supportive community to enable Sal’s dissent, and help him forge an alternative path, is at the heart of counterrecruitment. As demonstrated by Sal’s example, the best movement is as much about envisioning and building a new world as it is about resisting the injustices of this one.

For more information on Army of None, visit the website.

Army veteran Aimee Allison has led school and community counterrecruitment activities over the last decade. David Solnit is the editor of Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World. For more information on Army of None, visit the website.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/62945/

From the Eureaka Observer: 

Veterans For Peace Humboldt Bay Chapter 56 recently announced the publication of Advice from Veterans on Military Service and Recruiting Practices: A Resource Guide for Young People Considering Enlistment.

After more than a year of development, the chapter’s Veterans Educational Outreach Program Committee published the first edition of the 32-page tabloid, according to a Veterans For Peace news release. It has also been posted in PDF format.

Aimed at helping individuals fully understand military recruitment and military life, the publication begins by explaining the recruitment process, paying special attention to recruiter fraud, the GI Bill for education, the enlistment agreement, the Delayed Entry Program, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, the No Child Left Behind Act and opting out, military job training and conscientious objection, the release stated.

The guide also details possible physical and mental health hazards of life in the military, including depleted uranium exposure, post-traumatic stress disorder, racism, discrimination, and sexual harassment and abuse of women. The document ends with local and national resources and a list of references.

The guide is not an attempt to provide legal advice, but is a researched and referenced document drawing from many sources, including the personal experiences of the veterans who participated in writing the guide, according to the release.

Copies of the resource guide can be obtained by e-mailing vfp-56@aol.com. The publication may also be downloaded free at www.vfp56.org/VEOP_RG_Final.pdf.

From the Daily Texan:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale Law School will end its policy of not working with military recruiters after a court ruling this week jeopardized about $300 million in federal funding, officials said Wednesday.

Yale and other universities have objected to the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which allows gay men and women to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Yale on Monday, rejecting its argument that its right to academic freedom was infringed by a federal law that says universities must give the military the same access as other job recruiters or forfeit federal money.

“The fact is we have been forced under enormous pressure to acquiescence in a policy that we believe is deeply offensive and harmful to our students,” said Robert Burt, a Yale law professor who was lead plaintiff in the case.

The funding loss would have devastated the university’s medical research into cancer, heart disease and other illnesses, Burt said.

Yale Law School policy requires all recruiters to sign a nondiscrimination pledge, which the Pentagon has not done.

Jan Conroy, a Yale Law spokeswoman, said faculty had authorized the dean to waive the nondiscrimination pledge in 2002 when the military challenged it.

The pledge requirement will now be waived if military recruiters ask to participate in job fairs, Conroy said.

She said the U.S. Air Force has already asked to participate in a job interview program that starts Monday.

The law school had refused to assist military recruiters, denying them access to Web-based programs that link students and employers, Burt said.

The appeals court decision came after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously last year that the government can force colleges to open their campuses to military recruiters despite university objections. Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law schools and professors who claimed they should not have to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances.

The decision upheld a federal law that says universities must give the military the same access as other job recruiters or forfeit federal money.

In Connecticut, a federal judge ruled in 2005 that Yale Law School had a right to bar military recruiters from its job interview program. After the Supreme Court decision, the government appealed that ruling. That appeal led to Monday’s 2nd Circuit ruling.

Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said in a statement Wednesday that he was disappointed by the appeals court decision. Yale has an obligation to “ameliorate the impact” of discriminatory hiring practices, he said.

“We intend to meet this obligation and will work alongside our students to identify the best ways of doing so, in accordance with the law,” Koh said. “We continue to look forward to the day when all members of our community will have an equal opportunity to serve in our nation’s armed forces.”

The military’s policy had put college leaders in a thorny situation because campus rules forbid participation of recruiters representing agencies or private companies that have discriminatory policies.

Defense officials argued that a federal law, the Solomon Amendment, requires Yale to allow recruiters on campus even without signing the pledge. Government lawyers have said blocking military recruiters makes it harder to hire huge teams of lawyers for issues related to operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A letter in the Herald Tribune:

Most Manatee County School Board members, under the advocacy of Superintendent Roger Dearing, are unwilling to distribute “Opt Out From the Military Recruiters” forms to students when high schools open on Monday.

Coalition of Concerned Patriots members have appeared monthly for three years at meetings, pointing out the need for making opt-out forms available to students.

Why? The No Child Left Behind Act requires that the names, addresses and phone numbers of all high school students be turned over to military recruiters, unless their parents/guardians tell schools, in writing, that they’re opting out. Collier, Lee and Pinellas counties distribute opt-out forms. Manatee and Sarasota counties continue to drag their feet.

Our coalition invites people to become involved so students’ personal information is not automatically given to the military. This will happen unless an opt-out form is submitted in writing to the appropriate high school principal by Sept. 15.

A sample letter is at www.manatee.k12.fl.us under “Hot topics” but it is not a form that can be downloaded and completed. Dearing and a School Board majority made it clear at the board’s meeting Thursday that no form will be distributed when schools open.

For many students badgered by recruiters, this could be a life and death issue if they’re deployed for war. Without the opt-out form, consequences may be dire. It’s time for the Manatee County School Board to distribute the forms. Let Dearing and the School Board know. Call 708-8770!

Don Thompson

The writer is co-chairman of the Coalition of Concerned Patriots. He resides in Bradenton.

From TIME Magazine:

With military recruitment a constant struggle, the U.S. Army is coming up with a new way to come up with bodies: it is going to build them. This week, the Army begins a “drive-off” to see what contractor is going to provide up to 1,000 bomb-clearing robots by year’s end, with a possible follow-up order for 2,000 more. The requirement is for a remote-controlled, wireless robot that weighs 50 pounds or less “to be used for Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detection and identification,” according to the Pentagon’s solicitation.

IEDs have killed 48.5% of the 3,270 U.S. troops killed in action in Iraq. Finding — and disarming — such roadside bombs before they detonate is one way to curb such bloodshed. “You send out a robot to interrogate these things to see if it is, in fact, a roadside bomb or if it’s just trash,” Army Colonel John Castles of the 82nd Airborne’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team said from Iraq last week. “They’re a huge benefit to what we’re trying to do.”

This is an “urgent” requirement, the military notes, and so there won’t be any of those lengthy development phases common to military hardware. In fact, the Army wants the first pair of robots delivered within 10 days of the contract award, expected to happen Sept. 14. This week, several contenders are putting their machines through the paces, running them over and around rocks, through rough terrain and water, and ensuring that the robots can peer into, and under, vehicles — and then let its human operator know what it has found.

The need is so pressing that the Pentagon is eliminating many of the hoops suppliers usually have to jump through. This time around, instead of filling in forms and submitting paperwork to qualify as a bidder, those interested in participating merely have to register at this week’s competition to qualify. Among the front-runners is iRobot, the same Massachusetts-based company that makes the Roomba vacuum cleaner.

Read the rest »

From the Indypendent:

Emotions ran high Aug. 17 at Cpl. Juan Alcántara’s military funeral. The circumstances of his death were hard to accept.

Alcántara’s deployment in Iraq was due to end June 28, the day before his daughter Jaylani was born. But after President Bush announced the “surge” in January, his unit’s term in Iraq was extended by three months. His request for leave to see his newborn child was refused. Five weeks later, on Aug. 6, he was killed by a homemade bomb that exploded during a house search.

The funeral service at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Washington Heights was attended by 70 people, mostly family and friends from the Dominican community there. Alcántara was a happy and much loved man, by all accounts. Over the course of the day, it became increasingly difficult to square the rhetoric of “heroic sacrifice” with the human cost.

Army representatives awarded Alcántara a posthumous Purple Heart for the wounds that killed him. As the soldiers attempted to present the medal to his mother, Maria Alcántara, she lost consciousness, hitting the ground. As her family attempted to revive her, the soldiers stepped forward again to present the medal but she was delirious, head rolling from side to side, and unable to stand. In the end, his sister Fredelinda Peña rose to accept the Purple Heart.

The chosen burial site was the Long Island National Cemetary in Farmingdale. Small white headstones stretched out in all directions in perfectly straight lines. The mourners were grouped together under a gazebo sheltering them from the sun. They watched as soldiers worked their way through a series of rituals. Three volleys of shots rang out. Underneath a tree at 30 yards distance, a soldier played “Taps.” But every time the military presented a folded flag or medal to a family member, the crying intensified.

Finally, Alcántara’s mother marched to the car to fetch a Dominican flag — it was the most purposeful she had been all day. At least ten military officials attended. They stood firm in the face of the increasing distress of Alcántara’s family. Command Sgt. Ray Lane commented that it is difficult “for people to understand the mentality of soldiers.”

“You have to remember this is a volunteer army,” he said. “The time you serve is mission driven. When I was in Iraq I stayed. Soldiers are not likely to leave their comrades — even if they could.” And then as he walked away: “Of course we don’t like it when we have to stay longer, but we do it.”

As the women handed out flowers to place on the coffin, a young man broke into the soldiers’ ranks and walked between those standing stiffly alongside the coffin, landing a kiss on the metal casket with his hand. As he walked away from the grave he said, “All I’ve got to say is Fuck Bush,” in the direction of the guards. A Dominican woman stood nearby murmuring in agreement. The young man remained at a distance, struggling to keep his composure. He and Alcántara were cousins who grew up like brothers under the same roof from the time Alcántara moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic following his father’s death.

“He died for nothing,” he said. “For oil. For nothing.” He shot an exasperated look in the direction of the row of some 20 flag-holding Patriot Guard Riders, a group of motocyclists who tour the country attending funerals to “stand for those who stood for us.” “He was supposed to be back in June,” said his cousin, who declined to give his name. “They could at least have let him see his daughter. He was so excited about his little girl. He said ‘Okay, I’ll stay but just let me go back for one or two days to see her’ but they didn’t let him.”

Alcántara’s cousin was bitter about the Army’s recruitment methods, feeling that Alcántara was misled and tricked into joining. “Juan was working in a snooker hall. He was bored one day and he called Army recruitment,” he said. “After that they wouldn’t let him alone. They put him under so much pressure, sending him letters, emailing, calling him. They told him about all these benefits. They told him he would get a good job afterwards. And they told him he wouldn’t go to Iraq. Everybody told him not to join.”

As the burial drew to a close, white flowers were laid on the coffin and the family clustered around the casket to say goodbye. For the first time, Alcántara’s daughter Jaylani began to cry. Her wails were joined by her those of her mother, Sayonara Lopez, Juan’s partner of five years. She embraced the metal coffin, alongside Juan’s mother, and her cries filled the graveyard. Eventually, Lopez was gently lifted off the coffin and led away.

Laid to Rest: Cpl. Juan Alcantara was buried Aug. 17 at Long Island National Cemetary in Farmingdale.

photo: Alex Nathanson

An editorial rom El Diario:

The city should channel teenagers into jobs but not at U.S. Army recruiting stations.

Yet that’s what happened this summer. Fourteen youths were assigned to work at an Army recruiting station through a Queens nonprofit organization participating in the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). The city’s Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) administers the program.

Fourteen is a drop out of the thousands of jobs that tax-payer dollars support. But the assignment is troublesome. These are impressionable youths working in centers geared precisely at convincing and enlisting young people. It is doubly troubling in light of the social context driving the latest aggressive push in military recruiting, namely the bloody and deeply unpopular war in Iraq.

In minority neighborhoods, Army recruiters have opened storefront “career centers.” They draw kids to recruitment booths at street festivals by giving away trinkets and blaring Hip Hop. The intrusive recruitment activities at high schools, especially where kids are lagging academically, have been documented by El Diario/la prensa and others. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, the Army has access to student information.

Intensified recruiting to meet enlistment quotas has included misleading information. Last fall, CNN showed how New York recruiters were downplaying the possibility of being sent to a battlefront.

With more than 150 New Yorkers dying in Iraq, our city and state have already carried a heavy burden. We’re still reeling from losing baby-faced soldiers like Juan Alcantara, the 22-year-old Washington Heights resident killed in Iraq earlier this month.

DYCD and contracted organizations should refrain from bringing kids a step closer to military service as a condition of their city-funded and assigned summer job.

Past coverage of the POG anti-war fast.  From the Pitt News, a student paper:

Since around 4 p.m. on Sept. 4, I haven’t eaten anything in protest of the occupation of Iraq and military recruitment in Pittsburgh. Here on day nine, I’m not feeling super up to writing anything. But Richard Brown’s column “Forbes Ave. demonstrators apathetic” has inspired me.

First, I think it’s really important to make sure we’re all on the same page as far as what is happening on Forbes Avenue. Brown seems to have read our website, seen if not read our flyer and even been down to the site itself, and yet he doesn’t make any indication at all that he knows that our event is a fast. That is, we’re sitting outside the recruiting station for the month of September, and during that month some of us are not eating. Regardless of what you think of it, let’s just make sure that this fact is clear.

That said, I’m not even sure if the bizarre apathy charge being leveled at us really needs to be addressed. Indeed, many times we don’t bother holding signs and just sit on the sidewalk. That’s because many of us have to work, go to school or have other obligations and can’t be there very often. And those of us who are focusing on the fast this month are tired.

Indeed, the point of a fast isn’t to be enthusiastic. We’re not fasting to get people pumped up for social change. We’re fasting and maintaining a camp because we want to draw attention to the occupation of Iraq and military recruitment. We’re not fasting because we think that if we don’t eat any food the war will suddenly end. We believe that by fasting and drawing attention to the war we can help put pressure on Congress to end it.

Congress has not tried to end the war. Rather than passing the war funding bills that Bush wants, the Democrats could just refuse to pass any funding bill. It’s also important to remember that the Republicans are trying to decide right now how the war will affect them in the coming election; showing them dissent puts pressure on them, too. After a while in his column, Brown gets to criticize our goals. He disagrees with immediate withdrawal because he believes that if you keep throwing bullets, bombs and money at a civil war, it will somehow abate.

I believe that if there were fewer holes being put in Iraqi homes and bodies, and less interference in its political affairs, Iraqis might be able to solve their own problems without dealing with ours. Some of Brown’s problems with our anti-military recruitment stance are old, and some are exclusive to him.

Never do we say that joining the military is a violation of our rights as Americans. We do say that when you sign that contract, you have no rights. It also sounds like Richard thinks that if new recruits don’t sign up, old ones don’t get out. That’s only half right; a lot of the old ones don’t get out easily (unless they are injured, then they are gone pretty quick).

As for the other problems with counter-recruitment: What other “job” can you spend years in prison for playing hooky, disobeying your boss or even disagreeing with your boss too strongly? And do you understand that many people who sign up for the army do so because they don’t feel they have any other options (this almost happened with me). And even for those who do join solely because they want to serve their country, how is Iraq serving us?

How is this multi-trillion dollar war going to help the people of this country? The only people this war is serving are power hungry politicians and huge corporations making a killing on “defense” contracts and the newly opened market of Iraq. As far as “honks for peace” goes, people in Oakland can hear them, and they sure as hell can stop this war. They just need to realize it and make it happen.

Power to the people.

Mike Butler
Pittsburgh Organizing Group
mdb20@pitt.edu