Let's Play War:
How Militarism
Is Marketed To Children
By Lucinda Marshall
13 August, 2005
Countercurrents.org
My
friend Loretta is hopping mad about the mail that her nine year old
grandson is receiving. While military recruiters cannot 'recruit' children
under seventeen years of age, there is nothing stopping them from waging
a marketing campaign to win the hearts and minds of much younger children
such as Loretta's grandson. She tells me that he just received a mailing
from the Marines labeled "Required Summer Reading" that offers
him limited edition posters. As any parent well knows, anything labeled
as 'limited edition' is irresistible to kids of that age.
Parents are becoming
more aware of the presence of military recruiters in high schools because
of the No Child Left Behind Act which requires schools to turn over
contact information on students to the military unless the students
request that their records not be shared. While this is an easy way
for the military to obtain information on prospective recruits, it is
only one of many ways in which the military can make a sales pitch to
children.
Each branch of the
military runs its own JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps)
programs. The Air Force alone runs 746 JROTC programs throughout the
U.S. with plans start more this year. The programs enroll more than
100,000 students. According to the American Friends Service Committee,
each program costs school districts an average of $76,000, effectively
putting cash-strapped schools in the position of subsidizing the military.
It is important to note that JROTC programs routinely bring weapons
into schools (and teach children how to use them) and there are numerous
reports of JROTC-related violence, including murder.
The programs claim
that they are not geared towards recruiting, that their purpose is to
teach leadership and discipline. But as former defense secretary William
Cohen told Congress in 2000, JROTC is "one of the best recruiting
devices we have." (1)
When now Vice President
Cheney served as Secretary of Defense, he summarized the purpose of
the military quite accurately, "The reason to have a military is
to be prepared to fight and win wars. That is our basic fundamental
mission. The military is not a social welfare agency, it's not a jobs
program." Yet recruiters and JROTC programs as well as television
ads routinely hawk the educational and job benefits of joining the military.
What they do not
tell prospective recruits is that 57% of military personnel receive
no educational benefits and only 5% receive the maximum benefit. The
military frequently boasts about the great job training it provides,
but according to the Army Times, only 12% of male veterans and 6% of
female veterans report using job skills learned in the military. According
to the Veterans Administration, veterans earn less, make up 1/3 of homeless
men and 20% of the nation's prison population. (2)
The military's presence
in schools is not limited to high schools. The Middle School Cadet program
at Lavizzo Elementary School in Chicago is one example. Youngsters wear
uniforms and are taught how to carry guns, a skill distinctly at odds
with the policies that virtually every school has banning weapons on
school property. (3)
The Navy also offers
a program geared at middle-schoolers, the Navy League Cadet Corp, designed
for children ages 11-14, in addition to their Naval Sea Cadet Corp which
is geared towards high schoolers. The Navy offers 300 such programs
reaching 11,000 children.
Another tool the
military uses is to send military recruiting trucks to visit U.S. high
schools. The trucks use high tech media and eye-catching graphics to
whet students interest. The Army describes its Special Operations Van
this way,
"The SOF incorporates
several exhibits. One can experience the excitement of flying a helicopter,
test your skills and landing accuracy in the Airborne parachute simulator,
or improve your driving or marksmanship (sic) in the Ground Mobility
Vehicle (GMV) system."
While the military
claims that vehicles like this are for educational purposes, their own
regulations indicate otherwise, stating that the vehicles are to be
sent to schools that recruiters are trying to target, and that recruiters
must stay with the trucks while they are open to the public. The purpose
of the trucks is to "Ensure that exhibits create a favorable image
of the Army and current Army enlistment opportunities." (Section
1-5.a.) (4) (5)
The Department of
Defense has been quick to understand that video games are an excellent
marketing tool. On the America's Army website, you can play all manner
of war games, although as Sheldon Rampton points out in his article
"War is Fun as Hell", the games are a, "sanitized, Tom
Clancy version of war."
Not only that, but
the website sexes up their offerings, providing what Rampton aptly describes
as a "babes-and-bullets fantasy", by employing a group of
young attractive female gamers known as the Frag Girls to market the
games. (6)
As one woman gamer
describes it,
"Lord knows
you wouldn't want someone that was a real gamer and a wife and mother.
What would the drooling masses have to drool over? Certainly it wouldn't
be a young attractive SINGLE female that they might think they had a
chance with right?" (7)
And just to make
sure there is no doubt as to what a Frag Girl is, they have their very
own website which offers these illuminating definitions:
"frag /frag/
n. & v. · n. 1 number of kills. 2 a fragmentation grenade.
· v. 1 to eliminate other players in multiplayer shooters (fragging).
rag·doll
physics {buzzword} /ragdol fiziks/ n. 1 a program allowing videogame
characters to react with realistic body and skeletal physics.
frag·doll
/fragdol/ n. 1 a female gamer with the skills to dominate in multiplayer
shooters. 2 a lady with the sass to use the laws of physics to her incontestable
advantage."
As concerned as many parents, schools and communities are about the
impact of No Child Left Behind, the Pentagon's recent announcement that
it intends to assemble a much more comprehensive database is far more
worrisome. According to the Pentagon, the database will contain some
30 million records of data about youth ages 16-25. The data kept will
include name, gender, address, birthday, email address, ethnicity, phone
number, education records including graduation dates, grade point averages
education level and military test scores. Parents, educators and privacy
rights activists have raised a number of objections to the planned database,
pointing out that it violates the Privacy Act and the DoD's own regulations
about the collection of information on citizens.
Misleading advertising
is always reprehensible. But when we allow our military to target children,
leading them to believe that war is a game and fighting is fun, one
has to wonder if the next logical step is camouflage diapers? (8)
-------------------------
Notes:
(1) "Air
Force Plans To Invade: 48 High Schools Set to Start AF JROTC".
Based on research by Peacework intern Jamie Munro and materials
on JROTC from the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors and
the American Friends Service Committee Youth and Militarism Program.
Compiled by Sam Diener.
(2) "Why Question
the Military's JROTC Program?", Central Committee for Conscientious
Objectors.
(3) "The
Childrens Crusade" by Jennifer Wedekind, In These
Times, June 3, 2005.
(4)
"US Army Makes Surprise Claim: We're Endangering US High Schools",
Peacework Co-Editor Sam Diener previously served on the staff of the
Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Bill Sweet, an AFSC and
GI Rights Hotline volunteer, contributed research to this article.
(5) "Army's
New Special Operations Van Invading US Schools", American
Friends Service Committee.
(6) "War
is Fun as Hell" by Sheldon Rampton, Alternet, August 2,
2005.
(7) "The
Fragtastic FragDolls" by Danielle "Sachant" Vanderlip.
(8) There are several
excellent organizations that offer more information about military recruiting
and marketing to youngsters. They include:
American
Friends Service Committee.
Center
on Conscience and War (NISBCO).
Leave
My Child Alone (has downloadable forms to opt out of having
a child's contact information given to the military and to opt out of
the new Pentagon database).
Lucinda Marshall
is a feminist
artist, writer and activist. She is the Founder of the Feminist Peace
Network, www.feministpeacenetwork.org.
Her work has been published in numerous publications in the U.S. and
abroad including, Awakened Woman, Alternet, Dissident Voice, Off Our
Backs, The Progressive, Rain and Thunder, Z Magazine , Common Dreams
and Information Clearinghouse. The author can be reached at [email protected]