[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Campus Military Recruitment: Actions, events,
information, personal stories..
David Green
davegreen48 at yahoo.com
Fri Apr 8 08:32:05 CDT 2005
This is from a friend of 35 years (Maureen Cruise) in
L.A. She has also sent me some free DVDs (not about
recruiting in particular) which I will be distributing
at the meeting on Sunday.
David
--- Mcruised at aol.com wrote:
> From: Mcruised at aol.com
> Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 20:14:50 EDT
> Subject: Campus Military Recruitment: Actions,
> events, information, personal stories..
> To: Mcruised at aol.com
>
>
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> Palisadians for Peace are conducting High
> School campus visits about
> once a week now. Usually early in the morning
> (arrive on site about 7:00 am).
> We also canvass other events and distribute
> information pamphlets in
> commercial and residential areas.
>
> We offer students alternatives and factual
> information they should
> consider before considering enlistment under the
> relentless campus recruitment
> from the military. False promises and distortions
> accompany much of the high
> pressure tactics used on campus often without
> parental knowledge. Students and
> parents are also called or visited at home with
> offers of financial bonuses.
> Since students records are now available to the
> military and used to craft
> individual "marketing plans" to "make the sale".
> High School students are
> referred to as a "sale" in the recruiters handbook.
> If you would like to join these efforts, please
> contact Sandra or Ulis
> _ulisandra.paz at verizon.net_
> (mailto:ulisandra.paz at verizon.net)
>
> Also the National Lawyers Guild is instituting
> Counseling Centers for
> military personnel and for students. They are
> seeking more locations and will
> train counselors 323 653-4510 _www.nlg-la.org_
> (http://www.nlg-la.org)
>
> G.I. RIGHTS HOTLINE 1-800- 394-9544
> _www.girights.org_
> (http://www.girights.org)
>
>
> THREE EVENTS- April 9th, 17th and 19th
>
> "Military Recruitment Myths & College Prep Tips"
> Sponsored By
> Progressive Democrats of LA
> &
> Coalition Against Militarism In Our Schools
>
>
> Saturday, April 9th, 10 - noon
> La Parrilla Restaurant
> 2126 Cesar Chavez Ave., East LA
> (San Luis & Cesar Chavez)
> Los Angeles, CA 90033 (323) 262-3434
>
> 1st Hour
>
> Dialogue with students, teachers, parents and other
> community members
> involved in counter-military recruitment on campus.
>
>
>
> 2nd Hour
> What does it take to prepare for college? Hear from
> counselors and teachers
> & pick up valuable SAT study tools.
>
> Free Admission
> Enjoy coffee and pastries
>
> Students, Parents, Teachers, Counselors
> &
> Fellow Peace Activists are welcome!
>
> For more information, contact: winogradcoach at aol.com
>
>
> ********************
>
>
> Peace Guides
> Main guest speaker will be Congresswoman Diane
> Watson.
>
> Sunday April 17th at 5:00 PM
> Culver-Palms Methodist Church
> 4464 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City
>
> Find out what YOU can do to save lives everywhere.
> Topics of both meetings will highlight the
> DRAFT, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, and RECRUITMENT.
>
> For more information call Adele Siegel -
> 310/838-8513
> Email: dynosaur at earthlink.net
> or Dawn Burns - 310-439-1712, Email:
> _DawnBurns at comcast.net_
> (mailto:DawnBurns at comcast.net)
>
> 43% of veterans actually receive GI Bill money for
> college.
> 23% receive only half the maximum benefit
> 5% collect the maximum benefit
> 84% are eligible for Basic College Benefit: $17,808
> total
> GI Bill money replaces any other qualifying
> financial aid which may be more
> 70%of students receive financial aid without joining
> the military
> Financing College Without Joining the Military
> _www.objector.org_ (http://www.objector.org)
>
>
>
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
>
> U.S. TOUR OF DUTY PRESENTS
>
> WHEN
> RESISTANCE IS RIGHT
>
> Americans Support Soldiers Who Oppose the Iraq War
>
> Tuesday, April 19 from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
> Venice United Methodist Church
> 1020 Victoria Avenue at Lincoln Boulevard
> (One block north of Venice Boulevard)
>
> SPEAKERS: Two soldiers who are refusing to serve
> in Iraq
>
> PABLO PAREDES (San Diego Military Counseling
> Project)
>
> CARL WEBB (Iraq Veterans Against the War)
> Also appearing:
>
> SERGE LOUCHNIKOV (Iraq Veterans Against the War,
> participated in combat
> operations during the initial invasion of Iraq in
> 2003)
> RAY McGOVERN (Former CIA analyst, featured
> prominently in Robert Greenwald’s
> “Uncoveredâ€)
> BILL MITCHELL (Gold Star Families for Peace, father
> of fallen soldier)
> CINDY SHEEHAN (Gold Star Families for Peace, mother
> of fallen soldier)
>
> REV. THOMAS ZIEGERT (Venice United Methodist
> Church)
>
> SUGGESTED DONATION: $5 (Nobody turned away)
>
> FREE LOT AND STREET PARKING
>
>
> U.S. Tour of Duty (_www.ustourofduty.org_
> (http://www.ustourofduty.org/) ) is
> a non-profit project of SEE
> (_www.saveourplanet.org_
> (http://www.saveourplanet.org/) ).
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Make people afraid and they will give up every
> right,
> they will become compliant and do what they are
> told.
> Condemn the opposition as unpatriotic. Divide and
> conquer.
> It's easy. It works every time.
> Goerring in 1947 and Kissinger in 1992, made the
> same point.
>
> Those who have the ability to make you believe
> absurdities
> have the ability to make you commit atrocities.
>
> Voltaire 1789
>
>
>
>
> FACTS : Returning veterans show stress signs
>
> A Department of Veterans Affairs analysis of almost
> 50,000 troops
> returning from Iraq and Afghanistan found that as
> many as 17 percent have
> been
> diagnosed with major depression, anxiety or
> post-traumatic stress disorder.
>
> Tens of thousands of local Marines and sailors have
> served, but Camp
> Pendleton officials, commenting on the study
> published Thursday in The
> New England Journal of Medicine, say only a small
> percentage of the local
> troops
> have complained of mental disorders.
>
> The study also estimated that as many as 26 percent
> of returning troops
> have some mental disorder brought about by wartime
> service. About 1 million
> U.S. troops have been deployed in the engagements,
> according to the
> Pentagon.
>
>
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20050403-9999-lz1m3theweek.html
>
>
> ____________________________________
> PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS
>
> Human Rights of the Enlisted
> I have one story about Jason a young 24 yr old
> man ( I knew him at Pali
> HS- a sweetheart) who was only employed part-time
> and enlisted to get $,
> skills and an education. He was in Iraq 12 months
> ago, felt very ill for a few
> weeks, couldn't breathe. The CO of his unit
> repeatedly refused him medical
> care and verbally abused him for being a "sissy".
> Jason collapsed into a
> coma, was eventually med-evacued out to Germany
> since his condition was too
> serious to treat in Iraq. He had emergency
> surgery, drained and removed part of
> his lung as it had been filled with fluid for some
> time. They notified his
> mother but she could not afford to travel to see
> him. After several weeks
> in Germany, they brought him home to recuperate with
> orders to return to Iraq
> as soon as deemed able. His mother has found an
> attorney in an attempt to keep him from returning
> to his unit - I don't
> know what has happened since. From Rose to Maureen
>
> EDUCATION BENEFITS
> The following is part of a letter from a friend
> of mine who is a
> business professional and tutors military veterans
> in math and other subjects so
> that they can continue in school. The topic
> discussed was education benefits.
> Kathy is an avid anti- war advocate and frequently
> confronts military
> recruiters on the campus where she volunteers.
> Bryan is one of her students
>
> From Desert Storm Vet Bryan:
> "I'm not really representative of normal VA
> benefits. A fraction of a
> percent of veterans get as much money and
> educational assistance as I do. For
> normal soldiers I surfed the internet and found
> current GI bill amounts
> $36,048. There is a college fund that when added
> to the $36,048 will amount to
> $50,000, but it's hard to get. So basically the
> kids have to ask themselves
> why they want to go to the military. If they are
> going just for college, it's
> a bad move. They can go to the super cheap Cal
> state system and since they
> are poor, they will get most of it paid for anyway.
> If they want an
> education and want to have some benefits of veteran
> life post-military: priority
> selection for law enforcement, gov't, politics and
> etc, then it's a good idea."
>
> From Kathy, the tutor:
> Brian receives the EXTRA assistance because he
> is disabled. However, I
> know from working with him that he wanted to become
> a nurse (he was a medic
> in the Navy) but the military refused to pay for
> his education because they
> determined that "he did not have the personality" to
> be a nurse. They told him
> that they would only pay for a business degree.
> Although he likes
> computers, and has chosen computer science as a
> field, his first love is the nursing
> profession.
>
> In addition, you should tell the students that it is
> a long involved
> humiliating and frustrating process to qualify and
> receive the college benefits.
> The military does everything to delay and block vets
> from receiving their
> college benefits in the time frame in which they are
> eligible to receive them. In
> addition, in order to qualify for tutoring or other
> extra assistance, a vet
> must get a letter from their professor stating that
> they are failing (F
> grade). By that time it is too late to get an A or
> B in a class. Since I have
> been through it with several vets, I can tell you
> it is a struggle to get and
> keep them above D's - - the point at which the
> military cuts off college
> benefits. You can see the Catch-22 in this
> situation. . .
>
> There is a short article in this weeks Newsweek on
> page 11. Go to
> militaryfreezone.org. There is a new "campaign
> against an obscure provision of the No
> Child Left Behind Act dictating that public-school
> districts supply
> high-school students' names, phone numbers and
> addresses to military recruiters.
> According to the Department of Defense, info about
> potential enlistees can
> significantly reduce recruiting costs, which have
> nearly doubled, from $6500 to
> $11600 per recruit in the past decade." * It now
> costs $18,000 per recruit.mc
>
> Tell the kids that the value of a college education
> far exceeds any
> government service. As a one-time military kid
> myself, I cannot begin to find the
> words to describe the psychological (and physical)
> damage that military action
> inflicts on those who have seen combat. My
> step-father (an Air Force Col.)
> NEVER SLEPT because when he did he had screaming
> nightmares of Viet Nam.
>
> My advice: Go to college and be a whole human being
> with the tools and
> knowledge that it takes to create peace on earth and
> within yourself . . .
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Kathy
>
> CAMPUS VISIT MARCH 2005
> A group of 7 Palisadians for Peace engaged in a
> counter recruitment action a
> couple of weeks ago. This is a letter to the
> Coalition Against
> Militarization of the Schools from a teacher who
> asked us to come to LA 's Bravo Medical
> Magnet High School in East LA.
>
> I wanted to let you in on some of the latest
> happenings at Bravo. Palisadians for Peace were out
> to
> Bravo about two weeks ago on a Thursday. They
> passed
> out leaflets to the students as they got off the
> buses. The leaflets were a huge success with the
> students. The school police were not too happy as
> well as the Administration; however, that soon
> changed. That afternoon the recruiters showed up.
> They
> are only allowed on campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays
> and they are supposed to stay in the college
> center.
> Of course they ignored our guidelines and went
> right
> to the cafeteria during lunch. The students have
> been
> reading and sharing the pamphlets all morning. When
> the recruiters showed up the were mobbed by
> students
> holding leaflets and demanding answers. One of our
> teachers got into the middle of it all and demanded
> that if they were going to talk to our students
> they
> better tell them the truth. The recruiter responded
> with, "What do you mean?" The teacher who is a
> Vietnam
> Veteran responded with the, "The ASVAB, tell them
> what
> the test is really used for." It was on the verge
> of
> getting out of hand when the lunch bell rang. I was
> told by some students that the recruiters were very
> upset and demanded to see the teacher in charge of
> the
> school newspaper because they wanted to submit an
> article in the next paper in response to my article.
>
> The journalist teacher refused to meet with them.
> The
> recruiters even said they would pay to place an
> article in the school paper. He still refused to
> see
> them, which made them even more upset. The
> recruiters
> then went to the principal with their complaints,
> and
> the principal referred them to the College Center
> advisor who is in charge of them on campus. They
> demanded to know who was responsible for the
> leaflets.
> I don't think they got anywhere with him. I heard
> that
> after lunch the recruiters were in the P.E. area,
> which for us is Hazard Park and tried to speak to
> the
> students during their P.E. class. Some of the
> students
> told me the recruiters received a number of middle
> finger gestures. This was a couple of weeks ago and
> we
> have not seen a recruiter on campus since.
> Hopefully,
> they will stay away.
>
> On another note, I know of a small group of
> students
> that have gotten together to launch an opt-out
> campaign in the fall. They plan on getting every
> student in the school to return the opt-out form.
>
> I will keep you informed of anything new that
> emerges.
>
>
>
>
More information about the Peace-discuss
mailing list