Years into her retirement from teaching at an Oakland Adult School, June Brumer has returned to the classroom. June is a member of Alternatives to War through Education (AWE), a counter-recruitment group in Oakland, California, sponsored by the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and its Military Out of Our Schools (MOOS) program.
Members of AWE are in great demand these days. They make an average of five classroom presentations per week, speak at community forums and churches, participate in press conferences, and provide educational materials to students, parents, teachers, community and church groups, and activists. They publish a semi-weekly on-line calendar of counter-recruitment events in the Bay Area, and have initiated a Bay Area network of over 20 organizations that is now planning a regional counter-recruitment conference for the weekend of October 1, 2005.
This has come out of work begun less than a year ago. What has fueled all this activity?
Americans are finally waking up to the horrific toll taken by the Iraq war. The number of American military killed in Iraq has passed 1,600, and more than 25,000 have been medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan. Further, more than 50,000 have been discharged and are currently getting medical treatment from veterans hospitals. Post traumatic stress is common, especially among young women vets. The war and occupation have already cost the US over $170 billion, and violence continues to escalate as Iraq slides toward civil war. At home, enlistments are down, even though over 7,500 military recruiters are out in force, with a $2.7 billion dollar budget to attract high school youth into the armed services.
Last fall, Cathy Orozco and Elianne de la Vega, volunteer counselors at the G.I. Rights Hotline, felt called to action. For years they had listened to young soldiers in boot camp who called with stories of false promises by their recruiters: that they wouldn’t be sent to Iraq, that they would get the job they signed up for, that they would qualify for over $50,000 for college. The two women decided that now was the time to launch a Bay Area program that would reach these young people before they found themselves traumatized by a military life that they could not easily leave.
Fortunately, they were able to get help from Kevin Ramirez, coordinator of CCCO’s Military Out of Our Schools program in Philadelphia. Kevin came out to Oakland to give a counter-recruitment training. Doing the groundwork for even this first step took time and organization. But it paid off, with over 50 teachers, peace activists, veterans and students from Northern California and beyond coming together to discuss ways to inform youth of the truth about military service.
Following the October training, Elianne and Paul Matzner, another Hotline counselor, began meeting on Thursdays at the CCCO’s Oakland office. It wasn’t at all clear what specific direction the project would take — whether the emphasis would be on conscientious objection and the draft, the Opt Out provisions of No Child Left Behind, leafleting at high schools or direct action — but a new counter-recruitment effort in the East Bay had begun. Soon word got out, primarily through a Bay Area listserv Kevin set up, and interested folks wanted to get involved. Donna Foley, a concerned parent from Fremont, had become disturbed at the recruiters’ classroom presentations, and had begun working with local school administrators to adhere to the opt out requirements of No Child Left Behind. Donna offered to set up the contact list of volunteers and people wanting information.
Beth Wilson and other Women for Peace members took on the task of copying counter-recruitment fliers, a never-ending activity! Cecile Leneman, Rachel Goldden, Patti Marsh and several members of the Strawberry Creek affinity group took literature and tabled at career fairs, school and community events, counter-recruitment speeches and peace demonstrations. Jeanne Diller answered requests to our new phone line and e-mail address. Cathy began public speech engagements. And along with public speaking, Elianne gathered and evaluated material for the little counter-recruitment library that held the group’s brochures, DVDs, videos, posters, CDs, books and informational sheets. Susan Runyan, Diana Cabcabin and Myrna Schnur are continuing this task.
Gradually the direction of the group unfolded. Susan Quinlan, who had already started making presentations in high school classrooms, served as a model for others who wanted to provide information to students. Though AWE’s primary focus is on Oakland, she also worked with students at Berkeley High who organized a March 23 Teach In in which 2,000 students heard panels on the war in Iraq, military recruitment, conscientious objection and the draft. Meanwhile, June Brumer and Jane Eiseley contacted Oakland teachers to tell them of AWE’s availability to speak in classrooms, and the invitations started pouring in. Chelsea Collonge and Daniel Durazo, students at U.C. Berkeley’s Peace and Conflict Studies program, organized a presenters’ training, and AWE’s team continued to grow.
It is AWE’s practice to present in pairs, with one member being a veteran. Marc Liggin and Tahan Jones, both vets and conscientious objectors, provide concrete knowledge of life in the military — crucial information for students considering enlistment. Eduardo Cohen, a Vietnam vet and experienced speaker, has recently joined the presentation team. The group is eagerly seeking additional veterans who are interested in going into high school classrooms. AWE’s basic curriculum covers military culture, recruitment myths and realities, the horrors of war, conscientious objection, the possibility of a draft, options for resistance to war and non-military job training and education alternatives. AWE presenters are clear about providing an anti-war perspective to balance what students hear from military recruiters. Students are encouraged to seek out additional information and to use critical thinking to make their own decisions.
The Oakland AWE members understand the key role counter-recruitment plays in the peace movement. The Bush administration needs an ever-expanding military, including more and more bodies, to carry out its overseas ventures. Yet that strategy is straining the military’s capacities. If recruitment continues to drop, the country will be faced with the question, will it support a draft? If the answer is no, Bush and the nation will be forced to reassess its current military obligations. Counter-recruitment hits the illegal Iraq war at its most obvious contradiction — Bush’s attempt to pursue an unjust, unwinnable war without the informed consent of its citizens. The time is ripe and the nation needs counter-recruiters.
AWE’s successes are not due simply to our ominous political climate. They have come because of teamwork. But the demand is great and more volunteers are needed. AWE is off and running. The organizational model can be duplicated anywhere. Together, vets, peace activists, teachers, students and lawyers can work to provide youth and their parents with information to counteract the smooth Madison Avenue recruiter lies.
AWE can be reached at awe@objector.org or (510) 465-1617 x 4.