Veterans Speak Truth in Dalton Georgia

Members of the Dalton State University Peace and Justice group asked American Friends Service Committee to put together an event that would educate students and faculty about the realities of military service and the recruitment process. For those that don’t know DSU is not only a major target for military recruiters, the school has many Iraq/Afghanistan veterans enrolled in classes.

So we organized an event entitled, “Veterans Speak Truth”. We were honored to be able to have Iraq War veteran and form Marine Corps recruiter Chris Raissi and Vietnam combat medic John Zientowski come speak at the event. Chris and John both shared their experience in the service and expressed feeling like they had joined the military to protect their country and ended up feeling betrayed by the military industrial complex. John stated, “we were sent over there(Vietnam) to kill working people with families just like us”. Chris stated, “I joined after 9-11, I was gung-ho. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this war(Iraq) had nothing to do with freedom or 9-11. I felt totally used”.

During the question and answer session a rather large young man in the back raised his hand and identified himself as an Iraq combat veteran. He proceeded to thank us for coming out and shared his feelings of frustration with our Government and the Iraq and Afghanistan war. He brought this writer to tears as he spoke of others he was close with who were killed on the battle field in Iraq. He stated, “The military exploited my patriotic sentiment, they used me, they used us and it’s a shame.”

After we left the college we took the opportunity to flyer downtown Dalton with, "Be the Change" Youth Convergence brochures.

The War Racket

This Past Saturday, March 27th, Veterans for Truth(Who's headquarters are provided by AFSC) hosted a workshop entitled, "The War Racket". The title is of course inspired by the WWI two star general who came out against the military, admitting that it was a big profit scheme.
Veteran's for Truth(VTF) had a number of presenters that covered a variety of topics. Bruce Dixon from the Black Agenda Report talked about the militarization of the Chicago School system, Ingemar Smith, a veteran and DJ AT WRFG spoke about racism and misogyny in the military, and former Marine Corps recruiter Chris Raissi answered questions about the realities of military recruitment in Georgia. Other speakers included Gloria Tatum( Atlanta Grandmothers for Peace), Stephanie Stuckey Benifield( Georgia Representative), Hugh Esco(Georgia Green Party), and John Zientowski( Student Career Alternatives Program).
The crowd was also treated to a wonderful performance by the spoken word collective, "Guilty Penmanship" who put pieces together that highlighted the injustice of the military industrial complex.
The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta's Peace Network was also on hand to present the first Annual "Ed Arnold Peacemaker Award" to your truly, what an honor! Ed was a great man who I had only met a few times back in 2003, 2004 before he passed away. He left behind a mighty legacy of peace and justice work in the southeast. I can't tell you how honored I was to receive the award. I only hope I can life up to Ed's example.

Senate Hearing on Military Recruitment Resolution 955

There's been a ton of work that has gone into the effort to introduce SR 955 (http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/fulltext/sr955.htm),educate folks on the realities of military recruitment in Georgia high schools, why it's an important measure, and to develop constituent support in rural Georgia. Right from the get go SR 955 has had the deck staked against it.Those of us that spent time putting the resolution together where rather perplexed that upon it's introduction it was assigned to the more harsh "Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security" Senate committee despite the fact that it clearly belonged in the, "Education and Youth" committee.
Caitlin Barrow spent countless hours calling and emailing folks/organizations around the state and asking them to sign petitions, call their Senators, and come out to the Senate hearing. Here at the AFSC we fielded dozens of media inquiries and took calls from parents,students, clergy, veterans, and educators all over the state that volunteered to come to the Senate hearing and share their stories of inappropriate behavior by military recruiters.
AFSC was very lucky to have the support of Senator Nan Orrock on Representative Stephanie Stuckey Benfield who both sponsored the resolution, along with other Georgia polititians. We also never would have been able to get SR 955 introduced without the hard work of Azedah Shahshahani with the ACLU of Georgia who drafted the original version of the resolution and organized a dozen conference call on the matter.
Despite all the effort that went into preparing, despite that the resolution made sound sense, we all expected the SR 955 to be easily defeated. To everyone's surprise, it did not.
After hearing testimony from John Zientowski(Vietnam combat Veteran), Doug Ament(Iraq war veteran, former UN peace keeper, and global security advisor), Chris Raissi( Iraq war veteran, former Marine Corps recruiter), Susan Keith(Dekalb mother), Andy Fritz( recent high school graduate from Mcdonough), and others the Chairman of the Senate committee said he had heard enough from supporters and wanted to hear from representative from the Georgia National Guard. Two uniformed men proceeded to claim to the Senate committee that they will not even speak to minors about military service with out a signed permission slip from a parent, a claim we know to be false.
After several committee members made comments that came across as demeaning towards constituents that came from all over the state to attend the hearing Senator Jack Murphy made a motion to kill SR 955. When the committee chairperson asked for a second, to our shock, the room got very quiet. Most of the Senators were just stairing at each other. Senator Jim Butterworth, who had shown signs of not supporting the resolution, broke the silence. He said that he believed that there were things about the resolution that he did agree with. Republican Senator Bill Jackson then chimed in stating, "I don't like these wars we're in, I think they're garbage. I can't support this resolution, but I think we have to do something about all these upset parents." There was then a motion to table the resolution and the meeting was adjourned.
After the meeting was over senator Jack Murphy agreed that some sort of standardized Opt Out system would be something he would feel comfortable urging the department of Education to adopt.The standardized Opt Out system that we could life with would be the Opt Out forms being sent to parents at the beginning of the school year behind the emergency contact forms that are mandatory. This would be considered a major victory for young people and parents across the state.
After a debriefing session with Senator Nan Orrock it become clear that we were going to get a standardized Opt out system in Georgia, and that's a pretty good start.
We've come along way, thanks to the effort, support, and donations of so many people, yet we still have a long way to go. Hang in there with us, our future may depend on it!

We hope to soon add video footage of the hearing shot by Artemis productions so check back.

Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

AFSC/ACLU Press Conference Introducing Resolution Designed to Protect Minors From Deceptive Military Recruitment Practices.

On Thursday January 28th The American Friends Service Committee and The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia held a joint press conference at the State Capitol to mark the introduction of a resolution that would protect children under 17 from direct contact from military recruiters. The Resolution is the culmination of months of work that began when Azadeh Shahshahani of the ACLU offered to work with AFSC during our campaign to halt the Dekalb Marine Corps Institute project, which would have been a publicly funded Marine Corps themed School run by the Marines and funded by recruitment dollars.
After the successful campaign we began looking at the state of military recruitment in Georgia and came to some troubling conclusions.
Our concerns continue to grow over the racial and economic inequities in military recruitments.Low income recruits continue to fill the majority of boots on the front line, many will also end up filling up homeless shelters as a results of the wounds of war(1/3 of homeless people are veterans).More troubling is the continued reports of deceptive military recruitment practices used on children,often times under 17 years old, in our public school system. Every year the army experience convoys rolls through middle schools all over Georgia, and the rest of the country, to demonstrate how exciting and fun war can be. In their army recruitment pitches combat is relegated to nothing more then a video game.
In our high schools military recruiters enjoy as much access to students as they want, often times parading themselves as career counselors who are only there to help young people with their futures. The recruitment pitch that kids are given often includes promises of college cash, jobs skills training, top notch lifetime benefits, seeing the world, and some kids are even told they will likely not see combat. What young people are getting from military service is usually very different then the picture painted by recruiters. Veterans make 15% less then their non-veteran counter parts, 1/3 of female vets report being sexually assaulted while on duty, only 1/5 of vets every get a four year degree, modern veterans have the highest suicide rate in recorded history, and the enlistment contract binds you but not the military-they can breach the contract as they please.
So this is at the core of our support of the resolution. Children under 17 should have no direct contact with recruiters or military recruitment tools including the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery(ASVAB) and the army experience. Recruiters should not have access to minors, especially without parental consent. Under the "no child left behind" act high schools must release private contact information of all 11th and 12th grade students or face losing their federal funding, this is a pretty scary concept. Often times parents and students are unaware that they have the option to protect their information from falling into the hands of recruiters. This resolution urges school districts to step up their efforts to provide every parent with a form that would enable them to remove their child's info from the hands of military recruiters."
We believe that students, parents, and teachers have the right to have a realistic picture of what military service and military benefits actually looks like before on the front end of the recruitment process.
Chris Raissi, an Iraq war veteran and former Marine Corps recruiter, spoke at the press conference stating, "I think the resolution is very reasonable. Recruiters are trained to work everyone in a high school, from freshmen to seniors. From my experience, the schools don't give any notification to the parents about dissemination of student's personal information to recruiters. If Parents ignore their phone calls, recruiters are trained to track down every kid on the list, either at school or at home."
Azadeh Shahshahani of the ACLU and the sponsors of the resolution in both the Georgia House(Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield) and the Georgia Senate( Senator Nan Orrock) all spoke in support of the resolution at the press conference. The resolution was assigned a number in the Georgia House(HR 1219) and the Georgia Senate (SR 955), and you can expect a lot of organizing around the state on this important resolution.

To read a full copy of the resolution go to:
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2009_10/fulltext/hr1219.

YOU CAN HELP NOW!

To support the resolution call your Representative and urge him to support HR 1219, if he's a Georgia Representative and SR955 if they are your Senator. To find out who your Representatives are in the house and senate are go to the VoteSmart website - http://www.votesmart.org/ - in the upper left-hand corner there is a field where you can enter your 5-digit zip code.



Tim Franzen
AFSC

AFSC and ACLU Work With GA Lawmakers to Address Abusive Military Recruitment Practices

The United States has long participated in programs abroad that prevent the recruitment of child soldiers. The added strain of fulfilling enlistment quotas necessary to carry out sustained U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan without reinstituting a draft, however, has contributed to a rise in aggressive recruitment tactics and misconduct by recruiters here at home. Such abuse by recruiters, including coercion, deception, and false promises, nullify the voluntariness of youths’ enlistment and are in contravention of the United States international human rights obligations.

The U.S. ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict in 2002. The Protocol is therefore binding on the U.S. government and state and local government entities and agents, including Georgia public schools.

Under a binding declaration entered by the U.S. when ratifying the Optional Protocol, 17 is the absolute minimum age for military recruitment - even though the prevailing international standard is to prohibit the voluntary recruitment of children under the age of 18 into the military (in fact, 89 of 128 countries that are parties to the Optional Protocol have a “straight-18” standard that sets 18 as the minimum age for recruitment).

In May 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union submitted a report to the Committee on Rights of the Child (CRC), the United Nations body that monitors compliance with the Optional Protocol, detailing the government’s failure to comply with its obligations under the Optional Protocol. The ACLU found that the U.S. military continues to engage in tactics designed to recruit students under the age of 17, and fails to protect 17-year-old students from aggressive and abusive recruitment. The ACLU also found that U.S. military recruitment tactics disproportionately target low-income youth and students of color.

After examining U.S. recruitment practices last year, the CRC called on the U.S. to end military training in public schools and stop targeting racial minorities and children of low-income families and other vulnerable socio-economic groups for military recruitment, as such activities run counter to the object and purpose of the Optional Protocol.

In Georgia, there are clear indications of violations of the Optional Protocol. According to the No Child Left Behind Act, high schools must disclose student records of juniors and seniors, including students under 17 years of age, to military recruiters or risk losing federal aid unless parents or students sign and submit a form requesting that the data be withheld. Many Georgia schools do not make the exemption forms or information about the exemption forms readily available to high school students and their parents. This is confirmed by Iraq war veteran Christopher Raissi who was working as a Marine recruiter in Macon, Georgia, as recently as 2005. In Raissi’s words: “Recruiters are trained to work everyone in a high school, from freshmen to seniors. From my experience, the schools don’t give any notification to the parents about dissemination of students’ personal information to recruiters. If parents ignore their phone calls, recruiters are trained to track down every kid on the list, either at school or at home.”

Some Georgia high schools also encourage students, including students under 17 years of age, to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a military placement exam that serves as a military recruiting tool. In fact, students have reported taking the test at 16, because high schools have administered the exam to the entire 11th grade. 16-year-olds who have taken the ASVAB have subsequently been approached by military recruiters at home.

We have also witnessed attempts to open a military school, as recently as this past April. The DeKalb Marine Corp Institute would expose students as young as 14 to military discipline, military culture, and military training. The DMCI would have been funded in part by the Marine Corps out of its recruitment budget and could become a pipeline for targeted minority recruitment into the military.

The school was originally slated to open in August. Due to the strong community mobilization against this proposal, the DeKalb County Board of Education announced in early June that it has postponed the opening date. While celebrating the victory, DeKalb County parents called on the Board of Education not to revive this or similar proposals meant to militarize public school education.

Georgia State Senator Nan Orrock and State Representative Stephanie Stuckey Benfield along with other Georgia lawmakers have introduced a resolution that urges the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia schools to safeguard the rights of children under the age 17 from military recruitment and to implement basic safeguards for recruitment of 17-year-olds .



The resolution encourages Georgia to cease current and future programs and activities designed to recruit children under the age of 17 into the military. The resolution also encourages Georgia to implement basic safeguards for recruitment of 17-year-olds by requiring that military recruitment activities be genuinely voluntary and carried out with the consent of the child’s parents or guardians. To ensure children aren’t recruited without their parents’ consent, the resolution encourages Georgia to actively provide students and parents with exemption (or “opt-out”) forms and information regarding exemption forms that prohibit schools from disclosing students' records to military recruiters as required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

This resolution will be a first step on the path of ensuring that abusive military recruitment practices of the kind we have seen in Georgia will end, and that any recruitment of 17-year-olds is completely voluntary and carried out with the full consent of the child’s parents. America and Georgia must continue to lead by example.



Azadeh Shahshahani is National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director the ACLU of Georgia. Tim Franzen is the Peace Building program Director for the Southeastern Office of the American Friends Service Committee.