Panel: Drafting Legionnaires For Pax Americana -
Understanding and Confronting U.S Military Recruitment

Thomas Heikkala, PeaceRoots Alliance and Non-Military Options For Youth  (Austin, Texas)
Bill Galvin of the Center for Conscience and War (Wash. DC)
Oscar Castro, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) (Philadelphia)
Arlene Inouye, a public school teacher that works with the Coalition Against Militarism In Our Schools (Los Angeles, CA)

A theme that is heard around the country and many times during this conference was that military recruiters deceive recruits to get them to sign the enlistment agreement. This panel talked about the lies that recruiters tell the kids, the poverty draft, the Stop-Loss measures, and the manipulation that takes place. These indivisuals work at educating people about the dishonorable recruitment process, the difficult, if not impossible process of getting out of enlistment, and the atrocious realities of the war.

This is a growing movement around the USA and is now starting up in Canada due to the increased militarism of the government there. Many people across the economic strata are outraged that the American No Child Left Behind (NCLB) laws are exploiting their children’s schooling and privacy along with the deceptive imposition of the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) testing in publicly funded schools to get their contact information for recruitment purposes. Often called the Counter-Recruitment Movement, these people are angry and getting inspired to take on this issue in the positive struggle for sanity and justice. 

Bill Galvin

         Bill talked about the military’s conscientious objector (CO) process, saying the system is broken, because they aren’t letting out the people that have legitimate claims. From the time that a claim is made it can take 18 months to 2 years to process it. So the people who have made the claims aren’t getting their due process and Canada has become a better option.

         He has taken a thousand calls from GI’s on the national GI Rights Hot Line, see www.girights.org, and knows how difficult it is to help soldiers to understand their situation, be it Discharges, AWOL/UA, Hazing, Harassment, Gay, or the Delayed Enlistment Program.

         The Center on Conscience and War has been around since 1940 and continues to assist GI’s with their CO claims.

Oscar Castro Works for the American Friends Service Committee in their main offices in Philadelphia, Pa. He heads up their Youth and Militarism Program and provides up to date information and resources to all who work on these issues. This is an invaluable service to Americans struggling with bringing up their children

Tomas Heikkala, a Vietnam War veteran, spoke of his groups work in the high schools of Austin, Texas. Non-military Options for Youth, brings information to students and others about what they can do, other than joining the military, to find money for education and travel, to understand that military discipline is a perversion of traditional life support disciplines that provide a person with a sane attitude in life, to know about the conscientious objector option, and to know more of the realities about military life that recruiters are reluctant to give out.

He also sends out information to people who contact him through his PeaceRoots Alliance web site at www.objector.us about how a person can create a Conscientious Objector File to document their beliefs that war is essentially immoral.

Arlene Inouye talked to us about how students, teachers, parents and administrators in the Los Angeles public school district have come together to oppose the military’s exploitation of their children. As an educator, she knows our society’s need of truth in education and has educated many people about the hidden truths of the military recruitment process, such as, the goal stated in the military recruitment manuals of the its goal to infiltrate and take over the schools in America; the hyped up use on school campus’ of helicopters, humvees, war simulation video games, and trinkets; the misuse of “friendship” to create the illusion of sincerity; and the selected use of coercion and intimidation to lure the students into service.   She is a dynamic speaker who continues to inspire and organize concerned citizens to take on these issues.