Bush Admin​ force​s schoo​ls to give stude​nt info to milit​ary

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Bush Admin​ force​s schoo​ls to give stude​nt info to milit​ary


Subject Bush Admin forces schools to give student info to military
Body: School, Military Skirmish Over Data on Students
By Carolyn Jones
The San Francisco Chronicle

Tuesday 12 June 2007

Berkeley High remains the only high school in the nation that has failed to comply with the military's request for students' data, a Department of Defense spokesman said

A month ago, the school - under pressure from the government to release the data or lose funding - changed its policy that blocked the release of students' personal information.
The new policy allows students and parents who do not wish to be contacted by military recruiters to opt out by signing a form

But the school did not immediately release the data to the government.
Instead, a group of parents have been on a campaign to ask each and every student whether they want to opt out

Thus far, 90 percent of the students at Berkeley High have refused to have their names released to miliary recruiters

Berkeley High risked losing $10 million in federal funding, and possibly faced legal action, if it did not change its policy regarding military recruitment

The controversy began in 2001, when the federal No Child Left Behind law passed. It requires school districts to hand over personal contact information for all juniors and seniors to military recruiters.
The law also allows students to opt out

The Berkeley Unified School District board has a strict policy against releasing students' personal information.
So previously, instead of adopting an opt out policy, it used an "opt in" procedure in which students and parents could sign a form only if they wanted their information released to the military

The result was that only about two dozen students a year opted in.
One year only 16 did, said district spokesman Mark Coplan

The military was not thrilled with the results and began pressuring district and school administrators to increase the numbers

Maj.
Stewart Upton, Department of Defense spokesman, said that recruiters have a tough time finding students because of "reduced interest" among young people and the strict eligibility requirements

"Today's military recruiters must find and recruit from among the best and brightest of America's youth in a very challenging market," Upton wrote in an e-mail.
"One vital tool that our recruiters rely on to help them succeed is access to high schools, in order to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the option of military service"

Local military recruiters complained, and progressively higher-ranking officers all the way up to a general came to Berkeley and met with Superintendent Michele Lawrence to resolve the matter

Things escalated in May, when "the general got a call from the undersecretary of Defense, who made it clear in no uncertain terms that Berkeley was the last high school in the nation that has not complied and they would move forward with legal action," Coplan said. After that, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger asking for something to be done

The school held several assemblies a month ago, explaining why the district was changing its policy and advising students to sign the forms immediately - whether they wanted to opt in or opt out

Of the school's 1,500 juniors and seniors, 1,350 signed opt out forms prohibiting the district from turning over their data.
The remaining 150 either have not responded or signed consent forms allowing the district to turn over their names, address and phone numbers to the military

Parent volunteers are contacting the 150 to determine their intentions.
The results won't be available until next week, after school is out for the summer

"Not a lot of people know what's going on with the war," said Krystal Elebiary, a junior who joined with student Daniel Sandoval to write a letter and collect about 250 student signatures proclaiming, "We will not be used as tools for an unjust and imperialist war"

At a news conference Monday, the pair criticized the Bush administration for forcing Berkeley's compliance by threatening to withhold education funding from the school



America's Child Soldiers: US Military Recruiting Children

America's Child Soldiers: US Military Recruiting Children to Serve in the Armed Forces

By Sherwood Ross

Go To Original

In violation of its pledge to the United Nations not to recruit children into the military, the Pentagon “regularly target(s) children under 17,” the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) says

The Pentagon “heavily recruits on high school campuses, targeting students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without limits on the age of students they contact,” the ACLU states in a 46-page report titled “Soldiers of Misfortune”

This is in violation of the U.S.
Senate's 2002 ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Pentagon recruiters are enrolling children as young as 14 in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps(JROTC) in 3,000 middle-, junior-, and high schools nationwide, causing about 45 percent of the quarter of million students so enrolled to enlist, a rate much higher than in the general student population.
Clearly, this is the outcome of underage exposure

In some cities, such as Los Angeles, high school administrators have been enrolling reluctant students involuntarily in JROTC as an alternative to overcrowded gym classes! In Lincoln high school, enrollees were not told JROTC was involuntary. In Buffalo, N.Y., the entire incoming freshman class at Hutchinson Central Technical High School, (average age 14), was involuntarily enrolled in JROTC.
In Chicago, graduating eighth graders (average age 13) are allowed to join any of 45 JROTC programs

“Wartime enlistment quotas (for Iraq and Afghanistan) have placed increased pressure on military recruiters to fill the ranks of the armed services,” an ACLU report says.
Trying to fill its quotas without reinstituting a draft “has contributed to a rise in…allegations of misconduct and abuse by recruiters” that “often goes unchecked”

The Pentagon also spends about $6 million a year to flog an online video game called “America’s Army” to attract children as young as 13, “train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions…learn how to fire realistic Army weapons such as automatic rifles and grenade launchers and learn how to jump from airplanes,” the ACLU reports. As of Sept., 2006, 7.
5 million users were registered on the game’s website, which is linked to the Army’s main recruiting website

And when Pentagon recruiters sign 17-year-olds into the inactive reserves under the Future Soldiers Training Program, (the idea being to let them earn their high school diploma), they frequently don’t tell the children they can withdraw with no penalty

“Over the years, we have had reports from students who were told that if they change their minds, they would be considered deserters in war time and could be hunted down and shot,” the New York City-based Youth Activists-Youth Allies said. One young woman was told if she backed out of her enlistment her family would be deported.
And Bill Galvin, of the Center on Conscience and War, said one young man who changed his mind about enlisting and was told by his recruiter: “If you don’t report, that’s treason and you will be shot”

Singled out by the Pentagon for intense recruitment drives are urban centers such as Los Angeles and New York. The latter, in which low-income students account for 51% of all high school enrollment and where 71% are black or Latino, contains three of the nation’s top 32 counties for Army enlistment.
In Los Angeles, 91% of the students are non-white and 75% are low-income

And the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools says the 30 JROTC programs in Los Angeles Unified School District (with 4,754 students) are “Located in the most economically depressed communities of the city”

African-Americans make up 16% of the civilian population of military age but 22% of the Army’s enlisted personnel, the ACLU notes. It charges bluntly: “The U.
S military’s practice of targeting low-income youth and students of color in combination with exaggerated promises of financial rewards for enlistment, undermines the voluntariness of their enlistment…”

JROTC also runs a Middle School Cadet Corp for children as young as 11, that militarizes them even before they graduate elementary school. “Florida, Texas, and Chicago, offer military-run after-school programs to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders…(that) involve drills with wooden rifles and military chants….and military history.
” Children wear uniforms to school once a week for inspection

While the U.S. claims “no one under age 17 is eligible for recruitment,” the Pentagon’s Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies database(JAMRS) scoops up data on eleventh graders, typically just 16.
JAMRS has data on 30 million Americans between age 16 and 25 for recruitment purposes

The ACLU says this data includes “e-mail addresses, grade point averages, college intentions, height and weight information, schools attended, courses of study, military interests, and racial and ethnic data” as well as Social Security numbers

In the face of grim casualty reports from the Middle East, Pentagon recruiters appear increasingly desperate to make their quotas.
About one in five, the New York Times reported in 2004, was found to have engaged in “recruiting improprieties” ranging from “threats and coercion to making false promises to young people that they would not be sent to Iraq”

Given the Bush regime’s plunge into criminal wars of aggression that defy international law and the Geneva conventions, there is no reason why military recruitment of any kind should be allowed on any college campus, much less in the secondary schools.
If the United States truly wished to spread democracy, (rather than seize oil fields), it would be assigning vast numbers of Peace Corps recruiters to college campuses, and the budgets of the Peace Corps and the Defense Department would be reversed

As Eugene Debs, the presidential candidate on the Socialist ticket that went to prison for speaking against World War One, (he polled 913,000 votes in 1920) once said: “I would no more teach children military training than I would teach them arson, robbery or assassination”

The fact that the Pentagon is having such a daunting time these days filling its ranks as it wages an illegal war speaks very well for the intelligence of the American people.
That’s no excuse, though, for the Defense Department to illegally recruit impressionable children #

Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations consultant and columnist who previously worked for the Chicago Daily News, as a radio commentator, and as a columnist for wire services Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo. com

Eddie NWO Censored




High school students eat MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) during a lunch break at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York June 19, 2008, Each summer, 800 high school kids hoping to become soldiers spend a week at West Point to see what life is like at the prestigious US military academy for future army officers, With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan straining the US military and public support low for the Iraq war, recruiting future officers might seem a tough sell, But officials say applications to the summer program are at a record high, Picture taken June 19, 2008



High school students prepare to shoot at a virtual shooting range during engagement skills training at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York June 19, 2008, Each summer, 800 high school kids hoping to become soldiers spend a week at West Point to see what life is like at the prestigious US military academy for future army officers, With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan straining the US military and public support low for the Iraq war, recruiting future officers might seem a tough sell, But officials say applications to the summer program are at a record high, Picture taken June 19, 2008



Jun 26 - The US military academy at West Point says enrollment applications for its summer program are at record highs -The military's week long Summer Leadership seminar is attracting record numbers of participants, many of whom hope to attend West Point and become part of the US military

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Elite US Army academy lures kids with mud and duty
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Reuters
Fri Jun 27, 2008
By Claudia Parsons

http://www. reuters. com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2339048620080627...

WEST POINT, New York (Reuters) - Climbing ropes and crawling in the mud under barbed wire, dozens of American high school kids at an unusual summer camp vied to see who could get most dirty as they tackled an Army obstacle course

And as they ran between obstacles in the woods, the kids shouted Army chants. Asked by a cadet if they were motivated, they shouted back in unison: "Motivated, motivated, downright motivated.
Ooh, aah, ooh, aah, I want to kill somebody"

Each summer, 800 high school kids hoping to become soldiers spend a week at West Point to see what life is like at the prestigious U.S.
military academy for future army officers

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan straining the U.S. military and public support low for the Iraq war, recruiting future officers might seem a tough sell.
But officials say applications to the summer program are at a record high

West Point says it recruits "scholars, leaders and athletes.
" Kids at the Summer Leadership Seminar, a week-long residential program held over two sessions, have top grades and are strong in sports and extra-curricular activities

Alex Imbriale, a 17-year-old from North Carolina who is captain of his school's rifle team, attributed his interest in West Point to his father, who is in the army.
But there were plenty of students on the program who are not "army brats"

Kathleen Engle, 16, from Fairfield, California, said she had looked into the Peace Corps and other options but decided on the military

"I was in fifth grade when 9/11 happened and that's when I decided the best thing I could do for my country was this," she said, playing a video game called "America's Army"

"I guess it's going to be hard to kill someone, but if that's your job and that's what our commander tells us we need to do, I'm going to do that in order to protect my country"

IMMIGRANTS AND ADVENTURERS

Mario Vazquez, 17, from El Paso, Texas, hopes to be a neurosurgeon but first he says he has a duty to America

"My Mom is actually the one that found out about it," he said of the West Point summer program. "My mother is from Mexico ... she said it's a good place to get discipline"

"I owe a lot to this country because of what it's given me, because of what it's given my family, but I also have fears because it's a lot of sacrifice," he said.
"You put your country before yourself and you sacrifice your family and a lot of other privileges"

Austin Fullmer, 17, from Las Cruces, New Mexico, said he was attracted by the prospect of moving around the world and seeing new places, and although he would be nervous about deploying to a combat zone, "it's just another adventure"

"I didn't quite realize there were this many kids like me," he said, grinning as he sat in the doorway of Blackhawk helicopter parked in a field

Graduates of the academy founded in 1802 include former President Dwight Eisenhower, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S.
forces in the first Gulf War, and astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin

During their week at the picturesque campus on the banks of the Hudson river in New York state, the high-school students are immersed in cadet life

They are woken at 5 a.
m for physical training, they march in formation under the command of current cadets, take academic workshops and spend a day in the field

"We're able to pick the most competitive students," said Lt. Col. Dean Batchelder, who handles admissions.
There were 3,674 applications for 800 places on the high-school program

Those who attend are not guaranteed admission to the academy -- which offers a four-year college education in return for a commitment of five years active duty and three years as a reservist -- but they stand a good chance, he said

"I'm not here to screen them," Batchelder added.
"We're not trying to weed out the weak, we're trying to give them the information so they can make a better choice"

NATION AT WAR

Her jeans and pink shirt caked in mud, her face daubed with camouflage cream, 17-year-old Elise Fink put on a flak jacket, stuffed her blonde ponytail under a helmet, and climbed up into the gun turret of a Humvee to check out the machine gun

"In Iraq you'll be carrying about 40 pounds more than that," Specialist Justin Fletcher, a 10th Mountain Division soldier who returned from Iraq late last year, told her

The grand-daughter of two brigadier generals and daughter of a lieutenant colonel, Fink says her family was supportive of her interest in West Point or the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC).
Her friends in Wilton, Connecticut, less so

"My town doesn't do military," Fink said.
"My town is very anti-war right now, so to join the military means you're pro-war, and a lot of my friends are anti-war"

"When I said that I was planning on doing ROTC or coming to West Point, they said 'I don't want you to get killed'"

Fink says support or disapproval of the war in Iraq is irrelevant to her military ambitions. "I feel it's my duty, and it's people's duty to serve their country in some way," she said.
"This is the way I chose"

Lt. Col.
Jeffrey Wilson, who runs the summer academic program, said applications for the Summer Leadership Seminar were at a record high this year

"I'm not sure how the fact that we're a nation at war has influenced the motivation of any particular student to apply," he said.
"I think that there is a strong sense of service in this generation"

YELLING AND HAZING

Life as a cadet at West Point is highly regimented, with every detail from how to fold your underwear to the position of personal items on your desk dictated by regulations

Jordy Kronshag, a 17-year-old from Callumet, Michigan, whose skill at the pole vault made her the equal of much larger males on the obstacle course, said she enjoyed the teamwork and leadership training but was still unsure about applying to become a cadet

"This is the fun part," she said, her clothes muddy from the low crawl under barbed wire.
"But also a part I don't like is all the yelling and the hazing, that's going to be tough"

On a day set aside for academic workshops, students in one group staged a mock murder trial.
Others built a light-seeking robot in an electrical engineering class

A third group played "Double Philosophy Jeopardy," with pop culture categories showing how characters in "Star Wars" or "The Simpsons" illustrate stoicism or the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche

At a panel discussion with 10 current cadets one evening, the students asked about free time, punishments for alcohol use, how much cadets work out, whether they have online courses, how cold winters are and how much sleep cadets get

Cadet John Williams said he applied to West Point for the wrong reasons and didn't know much about it in advance

"I know a lot of you are doing it for the wrong reasons," he told the students. "You want people to be proud of you, it's pretty prestigious, you don't want to let people down," he said.
"That might not be a bad thing"

"I came for the wrong reasons, I've definitely stayed for the right reasons".