Student personal information will go to military recruiters unless they opt out

Post Date August 31, 2010
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Category Action Alerts and Events, Counter Recruitment, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Militarization of Society, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), Youth and Militarization

ALERT!   All secondary students and parents should know about the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) military recruitment list opt-out form and deadline for opting out!

AFSC Hawai’i’s CHOICES project, Truth2Youth, Maui Careers in Peacemaking, and the Kaua’i Alliance for Peace and Social Justice have worked for years to get the Hawai’i Department of Education to improve its “opt out” procedures for the military recruitment list created under the NCLB.  The forms were inaccessible and difficult to understand. Some schools did not notify students or notified students until after the deadline.  And there were cases where parents opted out and the names were still given to the military.

According to the Haleakala Times, when students were first allowed to opt out themselves in the 2006/2007 school year, the opt out roll jumped from 1,913 the previous year to 21,836, nearly a quarter of the secondary student body.

This year, we received reports that the opt-out forms were in the registration packets as we had recommended. A teacher at Farrington reported that he had a 4-inch high stack of student-completed opt-out forms.

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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/101860428.html#axzz0yDAYbaqs

Students given chance to remove names from schools’ list given to military recruiters

By Star-Advertiser Staff

POSTED: 09:51 p.m. HST, Aug 30, 2010

Students and parents at state middle, intermediate and high schools have until Sept. 15 to remove their names from a national list given annually to military recruiters by the Department of Education under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The DOE has developed an opt-out form for military recruiting for students and parents, available for download on the DOE website. Students or guardians that submit the forms will have their names and contact information removed from a list sent to Inter-Service Recruitment Council in mid-October. Requests filed between 2007 and 2010 will be honored until the students leave the DOE system.

Request forms are accepted year-round, but may take longer to process if submitted after the Sept. 15 deadline. For more information, students and parents can call the DOE at (808) 692-7290.

Recruiter misled students, a Navy investigation finds

Post Date August 31, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), Youth and Militarization

Recruiter misled students, a Navy investigation finds

Because of the Kapolei High case, students’ information will be held unless they approve

By Susan Essoyan

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 31, 2009

A military recruiter accused of using false promises to lure two Kapolei students into enlisting in the Navy has been pulled off recruiting and given shipboard duty after a Navy investigation concluded he had misled the boys.

Partly in response to that case, Hawaii’s public schools will no longer give student contact information and test scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to recruiters unless students go to a recruiting station off campus and sign a form expressly requesting the information be given.

“There were cases that came to our attention, and we started investigating and came up with a consistent statewide procedure to protect student privacy,” said Helen Uyehara, information specialist in the Department of Education’s Information Resource Management Branch. “No information through ASVAB will go to the recruiter.”

In the past, the decision was left to the schools, and most of them automatically released student information and scores to military recruiters, which was the default option if no preference was indicated. Such information included a student’s phone number, address, Social Security number and career interests.

The issue of student recruiting surfaced locally in June 2008 when the Star-Bulletin reported on the case of Cory Miyasato and Joseph Mauga Jr., who said they were railroaded into joining the Navy under false pretenses. They were about to graduate from Kapolei High School when a fast-talking recruiter persuaded them to enlist, promising them a free four-year college education before going to sea, among other things.

The recruiter, Petty Officer 1st Class Jimmy Pecadeso, contacted them by phone because he had already been banned from the Kapolei campus for his questionable tactics. The boys and their parents appealed to the Navy Recruiting Command to void their contracts and investigate the recruiter.

The investigation concluded the recruiter was at fault, according to a July 31 letter from K.S. Southwell, head of the Congressional and Special Inquiries Branch of the Office of the Inspector General, Navy Recruiting Command.

“Misrepresentation or deception shall not be tolerated,” Southwell wrote in the letter, which was sent to state Sen. Mike Gabbard, who has been acting as an advocate for Miyasato. “The allegation that his Navy recruiter misled Mr. Miyasato concerning his enlistment entitlements was substantiated.”

The letter continued, “As you are aware, Mr. Miyasato has been released from the Navy’s Delayed Entry Program. We can also report that the Navy recruiter in this case has transferred out of recruiting and is currently assigned to an afloat command aboard a naval vessel.”

Last week the boys’ mothers were relieved that the recruiter had been found at fault. Both boys are doing well at Leeward Community College.

“I finally feel some peace, closure,” said Miyasato’s mother, Jayne Arasaki. “I’m so glad that we made a difference and that policies have been changed. That’s an added benefit.”

Arasaki and Mauga’s mother, Gloria, testified before the Board of Education late last year, along with other teachers and community advocates concerned about recruiter tactics and access to student information.

In January the father of a Konawaena High School student also contacted the Board of Education, incensed that his son’s personal information had been released to a Marine recruiter who he said used “unscrupulous methods” to try and enlist his son. The parent had filled out an “opt-out” form to shield his son from recruiter contact under the No Child Left Behind Act. But that form does not apply to the ASVAB test.

Starting this year, however, no student information should go to recruiters through the ASVAB test because schools will no longer release it. In addition, students will no longer have to sign the Privacy Act statement on the test that is normally required by the military before tests are scored, Uyehara said. Now students will have to go to a recruiting office and sign a form if they wish to have their scores and contact information released to recruiters.

“It puts the parents and student in the driver’s seat,” said Kyle Kajihiro, area program director of the American Friends Service Committee, which had lobbied the school board to respect student privacy. “This will benefit all the students in public education in the state of Hawaii.”

“I think this is probably one of the most far-reaching policies of its kind in the U.S.,” he said. “The key principle is prior informed consent. That’s the gold standard in terms of ensuring that whatever happens with someone’s information, they know ahead of time and they give permission for it to be released.”

Joe Stephenson, ASVAB program coordinator for the Honolulu Military Entrance Processing Station, said the test is a useful tool for all students. Most students who take the free test are not interested in military careers.

“Roughly a good 70 to 75 percent of the people who take ASVAB want to go to college or a trade or technical school,” he said. “Only about 9 percent indicate they want to use their scores to go into the military. It’s a great assessment tool, academically and occupationally. It compares them to their peers nationwide.”

Both public and private schools offer it. McKinley High School plans to give the test on Sept. 10 on a voluntary basis to students who have permission from their parents as well as teachers, said Jenny Taufa, career coordinator at the school.

“We encourage students to take the ASVAB mainly for career exploration,” she said. “It’s a useful career tool, even if you don’t want to go into the military, because it measures all of their strengths. It is the only test that really measures everything, including mechanical strengths.”

Students, parents can block information report

Sept. 15 is the deadline for public school students to submit “opt-out” forms to prevent disclosure of their contact information to recruiters under the No Child Left Behind Act.

The form can be signed by the student or a parent or guardian and is available on the Department of Education’s Web site, doe.k12.hi.us.

Opt-out requests will be accepted at any time, but the department is required to turn over a list of secondary students’ names, addresses and phone numbers to the Inter-Service Recruitment Council in mid-October.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090831_Recruiter_misled_students_a_Navy_investigation_finds.html

Don't let your tax dollars fund violent military recruitment video games!

Post Date August 27, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, Militarization of Society, War and Peace, Youth and Militarization

This action alert was sent by AFSC’s Youth and Militarism Program.  I wonder if these military recruitment video simulation games also simulate the horror, carnage and haunting memories of real war.  Somehow, I doubt it.

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Don’t let your tax dollars fund violent military recruitment video games!

The Army has spent over $21 million on recruiting tools that use gaming technology, including life sized video games and game consoles shaped like Hummers and Blackhawk Helicopters.

In the travelling Virtual Army Experience (VAE) and the Philadelphia based Army Experience Center, youth as young as 13 years old, are encouraged to play violent military video games. These games glamorize soldiers’ experiences and leave out information on the challenges people face when they enlist. These centers may be billed as education hubs but they don’t include conversations about the financial, physical or emotional costs of war.

Last month, the House Armed Services Committee commended the Army “for using game technology and other high-tech systems to reach out to and communicate with America’s youth.” Only you can set Congress straight. Tell your members of Congress to discontinue the Virtual Army Experience and Army Experience Center. These centers are pilot programs and if you don’t speak out, Congress will probably fund more of them.

American Friends Service Committee and other organizations are joining hands to work against the Virtual Army Experience and Army Experience Center. Here are ways you can participate.

Email or Call your member of Congress
Congressional staffers value personal messages over form letters. Please:

  • Mention that you are a constituent;
  • Explain why you care about this issue;
  • Ask your representative to initiate and /or support initiatives to defund the Virtual Army Experience and Army Experience Center;
  • Thank your member of Congress for his or her attention to this issue.

Immediate or Long-term Actions

Community Meetings
This issue needs more attention, especially since these centers have been praised by Congress and could possibly receive more money in the future. Hold a community meeting to educate your neighbors about these centers.

Boycott VAE and Army Experience Center Locations
Your money talks. The mobile VAE is exhibited at popular events around the country. When the VAE comes to your area, organize a boycott of the event and let the event organizers know why the boycott is happening. The Philadelphia based AEC is located at the Franklin Mills Mall (a Simon mall). If you live in the area, organize a boycott of this mall and write The Simon Property Group to let them know about your decision. (Email: http://www.simon.com/about_simon/sbv/contact_us.aspx)

Meeting with your member of Congress
You may be able to meet with your members of Congress on a Monday or Friday when they are in your home state of during a Congressional recess period. If a meeting with your member is not possible, meet with a local staff member who covers defense issues. AFSC can provide a sheet on conducting a meeting.

Get media attention
The media has cast the Virtual Army Experience and Army Experience Center in a positive light. They haven’t discussed the negative moral and ethical implications of using video games to recruit youth. Send local print, radio and television media a press release on your meeting with Congress or any community meetings about this issue. You might also consider inviting the media with you to your Congressional meeting but make sure this is alright with the office first.

Send a statement to your local community radio station
Many community radio stations will read public service announcements over the air for free so send them a statement signed by organizations or individuals in your community. You may also be able to find a local show that can highlight this topic. Try shows that cover youth and/or local issues, national politics, or social change in general.

Sign the petition to shut down the Army Experience Center
A regional coalition of organizations and individuals are collaborating to oppose the Army Experience Center, which uses violent video games and does not contextualize these experiences. You can read and sign the petition they have created here:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petitions/shutdowntheaec/

More details on the Virtual Army Experience and Army Experience Center:

The Army launched the $9.8 million Virtual Army Experience (VAE) in 2007 as a mobile exhibit featuring Up-Armored Hummers and Blackhawk Helicopter simulator stations with M4 Rifles and M249 Squad Automatic Weapons realistically mounted on the vehicles. The 19,500 sq. foot exhibit also features numerous consoles where young people can play the taxpayer funded America’s Army computer game. The VAE travels throughout the country and is exhibited at events where large numbers of youth can be found, like music festivals, air shows and expos.

The $12 million Army Experience Center launched in August 2008 at a 14,500 sq. foot facility in Philadelphia’s Franklin Mills Mall. It has similar components as the Virtual Army Experience but is a pilot program to determine if video games and simulators that youth are familiar with should be the future of military recruiting and the army should open additional centers around the country.

Oskar Castro
Program Analyst for Youth & Militarism
Office – 215-241-7046
Cell – 267-266-8745
www.youth4peace.org

Military Recruiter "Opt Out" Requests due Sept. 15

Post Date August 26, 2009
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Category Action Alerts and Events, Counter Recruitment, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), Youth and Militarization

News Release
Department of Education State of Hawaii

Contact: Sandra Goya
Telephone: 808-586-3232

Date: August 25, 2009

Military Recruiter “Opt Out” Requests due Sept. 15

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires the DOE to provide names, addresses, and telephone numbers (including unlisted numbers) of secondary students to military recruiters when requested. Secondary school students are broadly defined as students enrolled in middle, intermediate, and high schools.

A student in a secondary school can, on his/her own, submit a signed, written request for non-disclosure of his/her information. Or the parent/guardian of a secondary student or an eligible student (18 years or older) can submit an “OPT OUT” request.

Although not legally required, the DOE has developed an “OPT OUT” form for military recruiting to facilitate response from students or their parents. The form can be downloaded from the DOE website at http://doe.k12.hi.us.

If an “OPT OUT” for military recruiters was filed with the school during the 2007-2008 and/or 2008-2009 school year, the most recent request will be honored until the student leaves the Hawaii DOE public school system or until the submitter rescinds the “OPT OUT” request.

“OPT OUT” requests will be accepted at anytime during the school year. However, the DOE is required to turn over a student list to the Inter-Service Recruitment Council (IRC) in mid-October. If a request comes in after student lists have been submitted to the IRC, the DOE Information Resource Management (IRM) Branch will inform the IRC to have recruiters remove the student’s information from the list.

Students or their parents should submit “OPT OUT” requests to school offices no later than September 15. Schools will distribute annual notices by the end of August 2009. For questions, contact the DOE IRM Branch (808) 692-7290, option #5.

-DOE-

With jobs harder to find, work gets easier for Army recruiters

Post Date August 15, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, Youth and Militarization

August 12th, 2009 6:36 pm

With jobs harder to find, work gets easier for Army recruiters

Traditionally the Army has attracted the young. But as the number of jobs dwindles across the country, more Americans are enlisting later in life, drawn by the promise of steady work and benefits.

By Alexandra Zavis / Los Angeles Times

If you’re looking for Michael March, he’s probably in the basement, slogging on the treadmill. Or he may be doing push-ups in front of the TV.

At 38, he wants to be prepared when he begins Army basic training later this week.

“I know I’m going to get picked on as the old guy in boot camp,” he said. “I don’t want to be last.”

Traditionally the Army has attracted the young, many of them fresh out of high school. They join for the promise of adventure, the chance to be part of something bigger, and a free college education. But as the number of jobs dwindles across the country, more Americans are enlisting later in life, drawn by the promise of steady work and generous benefits.

Although March may not be as fit as he was in his teens, his recruiters in Torrance say he brings to the Army experience and maturity that younger soldiers lack.

Not long ago, the Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion struggled to find applicants who met the minimum education requirements: a high school diploma or equivalent. Now, says the station commander, Staff Sgt. A.J. Calderon, he has people turning up with master’s degrees.

“I’ve been a recruiter for four years, and I’ve never seen that before,” Calderon said. “This is definitely a good thing for the Army.”

More than 1,800 recruits who were 30 or older signed up for the Army in the first half of the 2009 fiscal year that began last October, a 59% increase over the same period last year. The Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion enlisted 63 of them, a 50% increase. An additional 713 people 30 or older joined the Army Reserve, including 22 in Los Angeles.

Although the pace slowed over the summer, recruiters say they continue to get inquiries from people well over 30, many of them facing financial hardship because of the loss of a job or reduced work hours.

March, who is from Torrance, signed up in April. If he was feeling anxious about the decision, he did not show it when he walked into the busy office in a Torrance strip mall two weeks ago to meet with his recruiter before shipping out to Ft. Sill in Oklahoma. He had already shaved his head, and he smiled broadly when he was asked to stand in front of an American flag for a commemorative snapshot.

March had drifted between jobs for years as he tried to raise the money to complete a computer science degree. In 2007, he was offered a position managing the bars at the Tulsa County Fairgrounds in Oklahoma and thought he might make a career in the food and beverage business. But last November, he was laid off. Already deep into debt, he returned to California and moved in with his father.

“I figured I would get a job in a hotel, but there was nothing out there,” he said. “I had resumes out on every job search engine. I was interviewing three, four times a week. No one would offer me anything that I can support myself on.”

It took him three months to land a job making pizzas for $10 an hour, about what he was earning when he graduated from high school.

“That’s when I decided I could either rack up more loans while I complete my degree, or I can have the military pay for it,” March said.

March thinks it’s likely he will be sent to Afghanistan, where U.S. casualties are mounting. He’s decided the benefits outweigh the risks. In addition to a free education, the job comes with attractive health, retirement and housing options. March had also accumulated sufficient college credit to enlist as a private first class, which means more pay.

Four years ago, the Army would not have been an option for a man his age. The cutoff for new recruits without previous military experience was 35. But in June 2006, the Army, then barely meeting recruiting goals, raised the age to 42, the highest among the branches.

The Army has the military’s largest quota to fill, and along with the Marine Corps, its members have borne the brunt of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the Army has met its annual recruitment goals every year since 2006, officers say it was difficult until recently — especially in large cities like Los Angeles, where there are many other options for young people.

But rising unemployment and recent cuts to the state welfare system have helped make the Army more attractive to people of all ages, recruiters say. They also credit security gains in Iraq and the expanded education benefits contained in the new GI Bill, which took effect this month.

With more applicants, the Army can be more choosy. In March, it stopped issuing waivers for recruits who committed serious crimes as adults or who tested positive for drugs or alcohol use.

The decision to raise the cutoff age brought in 1,329 additional active-duty soldiers in 2007 and 1,243 in 2008. But they remained a relatively small portion of the 80,517 men and women who enlisted last year.

Recruiters in Torrance said they have been receiving more inquiries since the fall, when major financial institutions collapsed and unemployment spread rapidly. As March went over a pre-boot camp checklist with his recruiter, two other people over the age of 30 dropped by.

Laurel Smith, 33, a divorced mother of two from Lomita, wanted to know if she could earn some money in the Army Reserve while searching for full-time work. Smith was laid off from two administrative posts this year. Then she learned the state was reducing her medical coverage to help close a massive budget deficit.

“It looks good on the resume to have the military experience,” said Smith, whose father was in the Air Force.

Brian Bolte, 40, served as a tank gunner in the Army Reserve after high school but left in 1990 to start his own printing company. He got married, had a daughter and bought a home in Redondo Beach. Last year, the bottom fell out of the printing business and he lost half his income.

Bolte had already weathered three economic downturns and decided it was time for a career change. So he went back to the Army to see if he could enlist as a military policeman and pursue a degree in criminology.

“I have faith the economy will turn around,” he said, “and hopefully I will be in a good position in five years when I come out.” Like March, he worries about keeping up with younger soldiers and has started training twice a day. But that is less of a concern to the Army.

“Today’s older adults are probably in better physical shape than previous generations,” said S. Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Ft. Knox, Ky. At the same time, he said, “these older recruits would bring a wide variety of life experience and maturity that our more youthful recruits might not have.”

For Calderon, who runs the Torrance station, the only drawback is that older recruits tend not to stay in the Army as long.

“The young ones tend to . . . make it more of a career,” he said. “The older ones go in, get the benefits and leave.”

March is planning to stay only long enough to clear his debts, pick up some new skills and finish his degree.

“A piece of paper means a lot, believe me,” he said. “It only took me 20 years to figure it out.”

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-older-recruits11-2009aug11,0,4342762.story

New policy will shield students from some unwanted military recruiter contact

Post Date August 05, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), Youth and Militarization

Good news! The State of Hawai’i Department of Education confirmed that starting this year all public schools in Hawai’i that choose to offer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), the military-sponsored career aptitude test, must designate “Option 8” on the test that no student information or test results will be released to military recruiters.  (See the memo from Hawai’i schools superintendent Pat Hamamoto below)  Students may still choose to take the test and release their test results to the military.  In order for a student to take the test and have it scored, the student must request an authorization form from the military recruiting office, sign it and turn it in.

In the past, students who took the ASVAB test routinely had their information and test results forwarded to military recruiters without their knowledge or consent, even if they opted out of military recruitment lists under the No Child Left Behind Act.   Here is a list of schools in Hawai’i that administered the ASVAB in 2006-07. Parents and students in these schools might want to ensure that the schools are properly protecting student information and privacy if the ASVAB continues to be offered.

The tricky thing about the ASVAB test is that it is exempt from FERPA, the law that governs privacy of information in schools.   So student’s (even minors) signing the test answer sheet (a requirement for having the test scored) are authorizing that their information would be made available to the military: “To compute and furnish test score products for career/vocational guidance and group assessment of aptitude test performance; for up to 2 years, to establish eligibility for enlistment (only for students at the eleventh grade or higher and only with the expressed permission of the school); for marketing evaluation, assessment of manpower trends and characteristics; and for related statistical studies and reports.”

Last year, in the wake of recruiter abuse cases at Kapolei High School, AFSC Hawai’i worked with parents, counter recruitment activists and other concerned community members on a campaign to educate the Board of Education about the problem and to call for changes that close this loophole in the ASVAB policy. We submitted model policies to the Board of Education and warned that the release of student information through the ASVAB tests were a violation of student privacy and a liability to the DOE.

As some predicted may happen, a parent from Kona threatened to sue the DOE for the release of his son’s information to recruiters even after opting out of the No Child Left Behind military recruitment lists.  In this case, military recruiters had invited several youth to a pool party and told them to lie to their parents about their whereabouts. When parents found out that their children had signed up for the Marine Corps at this “pool party”, they were obviously quite upset.

The combined pressure led to the DOE adopting a new policy to make the “no release of student information” option the default on all DOE sponsored ASVAB tests. This parent had given us an early notice of these changes, but this is the first public confirmation we have seen.

Thank you and congratulations to all who testified and advocated for protecting the rights of youth and parents. This is a big win for peace advocates and an important measure to protect students.

Also, please note that the deadline for opting out of No Child Left Behind military recruitment lists is September 15, 2009.   The notification will not be as widely distributed this year.  So please help to inform students and parents of their right to protect their privacy from military recruiters.

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STATE OF HAWAII
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
P.O. BOX 2360
HONOLULU, HAWAII 96804

D A T E
08/05/2009 Action Required
Originating Office: Office of Information Technology Services,
Branch: IRMB

TO:
Complex Area Superintendents
Principals (all)
School Counselors
Testing Coordinators Due Date:
c:
Assistant Superintendents
Superintendent’s Office Directors
Deputy Superintendent
Charter School Administrative Office
Office of Curriculum, Instruction and Student Services
Office of Information Technology Services

F R O M:
Patricia Hamamoto, Superintendent
Office of the Superintendent

SUBJECT: ARMED SERVICES VOCATIONAL APTITUDE BATTERY (ASVAB) TEST ADMINISTRATION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (DOE) SCHOOLS

The ASVAB test is a voluntary aptitude test available to high school students. The results of the ASVAB test provide career/vocational guidance and establish eligibility for enlistment into the military.

Effective immediately, all DOE schools that administer the ASVAB test will choose “Option 8” for test administration. This option means that no student information will be released to the military services through the ASVAB test unless a student chooses to opt-in. Schools may also choose not to administer the ASVAB test.

The ASVAB test administration requires a student who chooses to take the test to sign a privacy act statement which reads, “Purpose: To compute and furnish test score products for career/vocational guidance and group assessment of aptitude test performance; for up to 2 years, to establish eligibility for enlistment (only for students at the eleventh grade or higher and only with the expressed permission of the school); for marketing evaluation, assessment of manpower trends and characteristics; and for related statistical studies and reports.” Without the student signature on the privacy act statement, his/her test will not be scored. School principals must be aware of this and notify the student and parent that they must opt-in for release of information in order to take the ASVAB test.

Students who opt-in to take the ASVAB test will be allowing their personal information to be released to the military through the ASVAB test and to be contacted by a military recruiter. Students who wish to opt-in to take the test must visit their local military recruiting office for the appropriate forms to do so. Attached are sample copies of the Form 680 to opt-in and Page 2 of the ASVAB test answer sheet.

If you need further assistance, please contact Karl Yoshida, Director, or Helen Uyehara, Information Specialist, Information Resource Management Branch, at 692-7263, or via lotus notes.

PH:HU:mc

Attachments

ASVAB answer sheet, pg2

Form 680 to authorize release of ASVAB information to military recruiters

Judge overturns laws barring recruiters from contacting minors

Post Date June 18, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, Youth and Militarization

Judge tosses laws restricting recruiters

Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, June 18, 2009

(06-18) 18:44 PDT — Without fanfare, a federal judge in Oakland today threw out voter-approved laws in two upper Northern California cities barring military recruiters from contacting minors.

U.S. District Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled that laws passed in Arcata and Eureka in November were unconstitutional and invalid.

The finding was not unexpected by proponents of the laws, which passed with 73 percent of the vote in Arcata and 57 percent in Eureka. The federal government quickly sued to overturn the laws, which have been stayed ever since.

But Dave Meserve, the former Arcata councilman behind the laws, said he was disappointed that the judge ruled without hearing arguments on the case. Armstrong ruled on filed pleadings after a hearing scheduled this month was canceled.

“She doesn’t respond to any of our arguments in any way,” he said. “The order reads like a restatement of the government’s case.”

Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller said “We are pleased with the court’s ruling.”

Eileen Lainez, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, declined comment on the suit but said “It is important for recruiters to provide information to youth and their parents.”

The Arcata and Eureka laws join a long list of failed attempts to restrict military recruiting.

Opponents of recruiting have tried to keep recruiters off college campuses nationwide. Berkeley issued and then rescinded a letter calling Marine recruiters “unwelcome intruders.”

And the San Francisco school board in 2006 killed the local Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, which some members saw as a recruiting tool, launching a three-year battle that ended last month with JROTC back in place.

The Arcata and Eureka laws represented a new tactic that experts said appeared to have been the first of its kind in America: a counter-recruitment law passed not by a handful of elected activists, but by a plurality of voters.

Many voters in Arcata and Eureka who supported the measures saw the laws not as anti-military, but as an expression of a community’s right to set its own rules – particularly relating to children.

Opponents said the laws were unpatriotic, pointlessly quixotic, and imposed a government regulation on a domain that would be better handled by parents.

The laws made it illegal to contact anyone under the age of 18 to recruit that person into the military or promote future enlistment. Minors could still initiate contact with recruiters if they chose.

“The judge said that the question of military recruitment is a subject which must be regulated by the federal government and may not be regulated by states and localities,” said Stanford Law School Senior Lecturer Allen Weiner, who read the opinion but did not take part in the case.

Under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, federal laws trump state laws on issues the federal government is responsible for, like foreign affairs and national defense.

The cities tried to head off that finding by arguing that the United States is party to international treaties prohibiting the recruiting of children under 17. The treaties, the cities argue, hold equal standing to the supremacy clause, so recruitment aimed at children under 17 – such as posters or recruiter calls – is unconstitutional.

Armstrong did not address that argument. Brad Yamauchi, a San Francisco attorney who represented Arcata pro bono, said the reason she didn’t may have been because the treaty addresses recruitment of children under age 17, but the laws in Arcata and Eureka barred recruiting anybody under 18.

Recruits must be 18 to enlist in the U.S. military, or 17 with parental permission, although contact with recruiters may begin earlier.

If the cities choose to appeal or draft a new law, Yamauchi said, they might focus on the 17-and-under crowd. But they would still need to solve other constitutional concerns raised by Armstrong – a task he said will be difficult at best.

But Yamauchi said an appeal might still be worth pursuing.

“Everything has to be done to put this pressure (on policymakers), and having an appeal could be part of that pressure,” he said. Arcata City Attorney Nancy Diamond said the city has made no decision on whether to pursue an appeal.

But Meserve said that no matter what, the effort was worthwhile.

“Whatever the outcome, I think it’s been very positive,” he said. “It has opened people’s eyes across the country to the fact that recruiters target kids.”

E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at mstannard@sfchronicle.com.

Source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/18/MNC3189PQJ.DTL

Marine recruiter charged with pimping 14 year old girl

Post Date June 03, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, Youth and Militarization

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090603/ap_on_re_us/us_recruiter_sex_charges

Marine recruiter charged with pimping girl, 14

AP

Tue Jun 2, 11:04 pm ET

HEMET, Calif. – Police have arrested a U.S. Marine Corps recruiter on charges of felony pimping and kidnapping and are looking into whether he used sex with a 14-year-old girl to entice potential recruits.

Staff Sgt. Bryan Damone Cunningham, 33, of San Pedro pleaded not guilty to seven felonies last Thursday after police in Orange discovered the teenage girl in a car with Cunningham and two other men. The two men, ages 18 and 19, were potential Marine recruits, police said.

The girl, who has since been returned to her parents in Hemet, told police that she met Cunningham online and had sex with all three men. She also told police Cunningham wanted her to work as a prostitute and had tried to take her to Los Angeles County against her will.

Police said they are trying to determine if Cunningham may have been using the girl to entice Marine recruits.

“It’s not proven … but when you look at it, this is a grown man, a Marine staff sergeant,” said Hemet police Lt. Joe Nevarez. “Why would he be taking them out to have sex with a 14-year-old girl?”

Cunningham’s attorney, Dane Levy, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

The two potential Marine recruits face felony charges on having sex with a minor.

Cunningham is being held on $1 million bail and has a court hearing June 18, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney’s office.

Hemet is east-southeast of Los Angeles.

Drafted at 19, Opposing Military Recruiters at 61

Post Date May 13, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, Youth and Militarization

May 10, 2009
American Album

Drafted at 19, Opposing Military Recruiters at 61

By TAMAR LEWIN

MIAMI – Every morning before school starts, Miles Woolley, a drafting teacher at Southwest Miami High School, gets a reminder of military life when the Junior R.O.T.C. honor guard marches by his classroom.

“Their marching and parading around in uniforms stirs bad memories in me,” he said.

Mr. Woolley, 61, is a Vietnam veteran whose service left him with a bullet in his head, a mostly useless left hand and a dragging left foot. He was drafted at age 19, not much older than his students are now, and transformed from a small-town newlywed into a fast-shooting reconnaissance soldier.

The prospect that his students might follow that path haunts him.

Southwest Miami High is a sprawling but orderly place that offers a wide range of classes, including cosmetology, auto shop and Advanced Placement calculus, to 2,800 students, most of whom are Hispanic and from low-income families.

Like many such high schools, it is also a focus for military recruiting. Hundreds of students take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or Asvab, test each year. More than 100 are enrolled in the Army J.R.O.T.C., drilling, marching and using dummy guns. And every Tuesday and Wednesday, recruiters from the Army, Navy and Marines set up tables in the lobby outside the cafeteria, handing out water bottles, key chains and stickers and talking up the benefits of a military career.

“There’s a lot of student interest,” said Sgt. Juan Montoya, an Army recruiter who visits the school and calls students’ homes. “The big obstacle is the parents, who think we’re going to send their kids off into combat.”

Mr. Woolley avoids the lobby.

“I don’t go there if I can help it,” Mr. Woolley said. “I don’t want to see it.”

In his three decades of teaching in Miami, Mr. Woolley’s way of handling his wartime memories has evolved.

At first, he said, he rarely talked about the war. “When I got back from Vietnam, I couldn’t imagine myself being civilized ever again,” he said.

In the 1980s, when Americans were held hostage in Iran, he was hospitalized with post-traumatic stress disorder. “The hostages, the yellow ribbons, that all hit me hard,” he said.

In the 1990s, he wrote about his Vietnam experiences, sending copies of his memoir to family and friends. “It was cathartic,” he said.

Mr. Woolley later became an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, posting thoughts on a libertarian Web site, LewRockwell .com, and, closer to home, trying to get the military out of his school.

“I love my school and my students, and in a way they’ve become my children, so the intensity of recruitment struck me as wrong,” Mr. Woolley said. “I recognize the need for a national defense, but high school students are too young and unformed to really question what they’re being told, and it feels to me like exploitation.”

In his classroom, where students independently worked on their long-term drafting assignment, Mr. Woolley, a tall man with a white beard and a warm manner, was a gentle presence, patiently offering guidance when a student ran into trouble adjusting a tracking machine or centering a line.

Mr. Woolley does not discuss the military, unless students ask.

“I can’t tell them what to do,” he said. “I can tell them what happened to me. And answer questions. Honestly.”

Even that has been a struggle for him.

“Sometimes students ask about what happened to me, and I tell them as much as I think they can stand to hear,” he said. “Some come talk to me after they’ve already been recruited and signed their papers. I don’t want them to think that this is a mass murderer who’s been in the classroom with them. But I do want them to know that we weren’t peacemakers, we weren’t freeing anybody. Those bombs and guns do one thing. They kill.”

Mr. Woolley did his share of killing, he said, as part of a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol unit that went into enemy territory to gather intelligence. He has vivid memories of a firefight in which he and his unit shot not only enemy soldiers, but three women, two children and a boy about 6 months old – the same age as his own son back home.

Mr. Woolley estimates that he was shot at about 100 times without being hit. But on Aug. 13, 1969, he was ambushed on a nighttime operation, took a bullet in the head and was airlifted out, paralyzed on the left side of his body. In months of rehabilitation, he regained the ability to walk and some use of his left hand. After trying the construction business and earning a degree in civil engineering, Mr. Woolley moved to Florida and began teaching. His marriage broke up after his third child was born. Remarried now, he and his wife are raising two of their seven grandchildren.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, passed two years before the war in Iraq began, military recruiters are given access to high school students on the same basis as college recruiters. In many parts of the country, with varying success, opponents of the war organized a counter-recruitment movement to try to limit both recruiters’ access to students and the use of the Asvab. The test is widespread in Texas and Florida, like J.R.O.T.C.

When the Iraq war started, Mr. Woolley began researching the law on how the school was required to help the military, and discovered that schools have a good deal of wiggle room. He worked with a journalism student at his school on a lengthy analysis of those requirements – only to be bitterly disappointed when the article in the school newspaper last spring was cut short.

Mr. Woolley talked with the principal, James Haj, about how Southwest could, lawfully, limit the military presence. He told the principal that, for example, recruiters could be kept to rare visits and confined to an out-of-the-way room. And if the school wanted to keep offering the Asvab for career counseling, it could block recruiters from accessing the results, a change Southwest adopted last year.

The young principal and the older veteran express great mutual respect, but where Mr. Woolley wants the military presence erased, Mr. Haj is striving for a middle ground.

“It’s a delicate issue,” Mr. Haj said. “I think all voices should be heard.”

So he lets recruiters come every week but keeps them in the lobby. “Some schools let recruiters wander the halls, but I want to be able to keep my eyes on them,” Mr. Haj said. “I know Mr. Woolley doesn’t like J.R.O.T.C., but I’ve never had a single parent complaint.”

Mr. Woolley, who grew up in a small town near Buffalo, said he was content with his life and happy to be a good husband and grandfather, but was still troubled by his military actions.

“I did a very good job for the military, but it’s torn me up for my whole life,” he said. “I was a good guy when I was drafted, a good guy from a good family. I wonder a lot, how did that good guy turn into something else?”

With J.R.O.T.C. and the drafting classroom both housed in the same wing of the school, Mr. Woolley often sees the cadets in their uniforms.

“I am repulsed by what the uniforms represent,” he said. “At the same time, if a kid walks past me with his or her shirt not tucked in, or the belt not properly buckled, I stop them and tell them, ‘If you want to play this game, you have to play it by the rules. In the military, the uniform isn’t worn like this, and you know it.’ I want them to know it is not a joke.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/education/10veteran.html?_r=1&ref=education&pagewanted=print

Military using citizenship to bribe immigrants to enlist

Post Date May 05, 2009
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Category Counter Recruitment, Youth and Militarization

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immigrant-recruits4-2009may04,0,5003914.story

Army extends immigrant recruiting

Pilot program seeks to boost the ranks of language and healthcare specialists by offering citizenship.

By Alexandra Zavis and Andrew Becker

May 4, 2009

The lanky 19-year-old from South Korea has lived in the Southland since he was 9 years old. He is as comfortable speaking English as his native Korean. And he desperately wants to join the Army.

Late last week, the teenager walked into a recruiting office in an Eagle Rock mall wearing a pendant shaped like a dog tag around his neck. Until recently, local recruiters would have had to turn him away. His student visa would not have qualified him to enlist. Only citizens or permanent residents who carry green cards were eligible to serve.

But starting today, 10 Los Angeles-area Army recruiting offices w ill begin taking applications from some foreigners who are here on temporary visas or who have been granted asylum.

In all, the pilot program, which was launched in New York in February, seeks to enlist 1,000 military recruits with special language and medical skills, most of whom will join the Army. Response to the program has exceeded expectations, drawing applications from more than 7,000 people around the country, many of them highly educated, defense officials said.

Those who are accepted will get an expedited path to citizenship in return for their service. “Ever since I entered high school, I was waiting for this opportunity,” Jason, the 19-year-old aspiring soldier, told recruiters as they helped him prepare documents to submit today. “As soon as it came, I just jumped.”

The Army requested that applicants’ full names not be used because, in some cases, it could put them or family members at risk in their home countries.

Although the Army has been meeting or exceeding its recruiting goals, defense officials say there is a shortage of soldiers with medical, foreign language and cultural abilities needed in the war on terror and peacekeeping efforts around the world.

“What we’re looking for are critical, vital skills,” said Naomi Verdugo, assistant deputy for recruiting in the office of the assistant secretary of the Army.

The Army hopes to enlist 333 healthcare professionals, including doctors, dentists, nurses and others. It is also looking for 557 people with any of 35 languages, including Arabic and Yoruba, spoken in West Africa. Spanish is not on the list. An additional 110 slots are earmarked for other services, which have not yet started taking applications for the program.

Although the effort is limited in scope, it has raised concerns among some veterans groups and advocates for tighter immigration controls. They question whether the policy shift could pave the way for large numbers of foreigners, including ones who might have entered the U.S. illegally, to join the armed services.

“By aggressively recruiting foreigners abroad, or illegal immigrants who could use such a program to get legalized, we could easily create a situation where the Pentagon comes to rely on cheap foreign labor,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.

“That’s not where we are now. . . . But we always need to be careful that we don’t start going down a steep, slippery slope.”

Defense officials emphasize that the program is only open to foreigners who have lived legally in the U.S. for at least two years, including students, some professionals and refugees.

Those who enlist are required to meet the same physical and conduct standards as other recruits and exceed the educational standards. They are also vetted by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, and they will not be granted waivers for any criminal offenses.

Foreign-born residents have a long history in the U.S. armed forces.

Under a wartime statute invoked in 2002, those who serve can apply for citizenship on the first day of active duty. Naturalization fees are waived. About 29,000 people with green cards are in the military and about 8,000 enlist each year, according to Pentagon figures.

Recruiters have already signed up 105 people with targeted languages and two medical professionals under the new program.

More than 60% of those enlisting under the pilot program have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with roughly 7% of those joining the Army through regular channels.

Their average score on a required math and verbal aptitude test is 79 out of a possible 99 points. That’s compared with 62 for the average citizen or permanent resident who enlisted in the Army in the 12 months ending in September.

As word of the New York pilot program spread, many people traveled across the country to apply.

The 107 enlisted so far include 13 California residents, officials said. Less than half came from the New York area, including New Jersey.

Jason was among those who traveled to New York. But he arrived so tired after an overnight flight that he failed to score the minimum 50 points on a sample aptitude test.

By extending the program to Los Angeles, Army officials hope to make it easier for applicants on the West Coast to be considered and to ease the pressure on New York recruiters.

They also want to reach a broader range of language experts. So far, most of the recruits have been Korean, Indian and Chinese language speakers. The Army needs more people with languages used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, among others. Only four of the recruits enlisted as Arabic speakers, one speaks Urdu and one speaks Punjabi.

Staff Sgt. Joshua Cannon, who commands the recruiting station where Jason is applying, is pleased to be able to sign up more aspiring Americans. The policy restricting applications to people with green cards has been a source of frustration to local recruiters, who have struggled for years to find qualified applicants in a city with many immigrants, especially when the country is at war.

Cannon said his office had been getting calls about the new program for months. For most of the callers, the biggest draw is the chance to become citizens in as little as six months, he said. The normal naturalization process can take five to 15 years.

To retain their citizenship, participants must honorably complete at least five years of service.

When Jason heard he could apply closer to home, he headed straight over. This time he scored a respectable 67 on the sample aptitude test.

After 10 years of living with the uncertainty of temporary visas, he too is hoping to finally become an American.

His mother, who raised two children alone, never bothered to apply for green cards for the family, so now he faces the possibility of being summoned back to South Korea for mandatory military service.

Jason is also looking for a way to complete his studies at Pasadena City College.

His mother’s grocery store is struggling, so he had to defer for two semesters after his first year to help keep the business going. Although his mother worries that Jason could be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, he will not be dissuaded.

“I would have to go to the army in Korea anyway, so let’s make it count for something,” he said. “A new life. A new beginning.”

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

abecker@cironline.org

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