Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents

The New York Times had a great article today: Growing Problem for Military Recruiters: Parents. For those of you with high school kids out there, it's definitely worth a read.

I am not anti-military, nor am I anti-support-our-troops. But to borrow a quote from another parent (listed as "Ms. Rachel Rogers" in the article): "The point is not whether I support the troops. It's about whether a well-organized propaganda machine should be targeted at children and enforced by the schools."

The schools, of course, have no choice: the "No Child Left Behind" act requires schools to turn over students' home phone numbers AND addresses to military recruiters -- unless the parents "opt out." The NCLB also mandates that school districts can receive federal funds only if they grant military recruiters "the same access to secondary school students" as is provided to colleges and employers.

The problem here is that recruiters are contacting the most vulnerable students, recruiting them to go to war by handing out free - and cheap - items (T-shirts, key chains, doughnuts, whatever it takes) and making it sound "fun."

How many of our young boys grew up wanting to "play war?" To play with toy guns? To be taught the very essence of what it means to be "patriotic?" Remember when you were 17? 18? How idealistic were you then? Weren't we all?

As a parent of a son who will be a high school junior this fall (and no end to the war in sight), my idea of him having "fun" is not killing innocent civilians or being killed in an unprovoked war. And to quote another parent (Mr. Terrazas), "It's the policy that I'm against, not the military."

I suspect one day, many of us will return to our former ideology that serving in the military is truly "patriotic" -- when those serving are doing so for the right reasons. Today, however, I do not want my son to become just another meal fed into Bush's propaganda machine.