Saturday, May 19, 2018

Why I Wrote Price of Duty


Several years ago, while doing a Skype session about my book, The Wave, with a 9th grade class in Mississippi, I noticed that among the students sitting at their desks, half a dozen were wearing uniforms comprised of a light blue shirt and dark slacks.  I asked the students about their uniforms, and they told me that they members of their high school’s unit of the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC). 

I was not familiar with the JROTC but it struck me as curious that an organization sponsored by the United States Military would be allowed in a public school to solicit members who were 14 and 15 years old. That is, students who were still basically children.

It raised questions in my mind: At what age should the US military be allowed to begin the indoctrination of young people? Is someone at the age of 14 or 15 mature enough to comprehend the life and death implications of a career track that might eventually lead to going to war? 

I began to do research and quickly learned a number of facts that I found personally disturbing, including the discovery that I was wrong to think that military indoctrination in schools begins as young as 14 years old. Thanks to a program called the National Middle School Cadet Corps (NMSCC), there are nearly 100 middle schools in this country that allow indoctrination to begin at the age of 11, or younger if the student has an older sibling already in the program.[1] The majority of these middle school programs are located in the states of Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Texas.
Here’s some more information about JROTC:

1)    There are roughly 3,000 JROTC units in high schools in the United States. These units represent all branches of the military.

2)    Most schools that offer JROTC allow students to substitute it for their physical education classes. Furthermore, here’s a National Institute of Health article[2] that found that participants in JROTC were required to do significantly less physical activity than those in a typical high school PE class. 

3)    In any given year, somewhere between 30% and 50% of JROTC enrollees enlist in the armed services after high school.

4)    The JROTC and the National Rifle Association (NRA) enjoy a cozy relationship. While weapons training is not allowed in most schools, JROTC units frequently receive NRA grants for air rifles, spotting scopes, and pellets.  In addition, JROTC members are encouraged to participate in NRA shooting matches. (Air rifles have come a long way from the BB guns we shot as kids. Today’s air rifles are often designed to look very similar to the various models of M16s currently in use in the military).

 

Here’s something else I learned: According to Wikipedia, “In May 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union stated that JROTC violates the United Nations sponsored Convention on the Rights of the Child by targeting students as young as 14 for recruitment to the military.[3]  The United States has not ratified the Convention, although it has ratified an optional protocol to the Convention on "the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict." [4]
 
In other words, while supporting a ban on the use of child soldiers elsewhere in the world, the United States has opted to allow for their training here. How?  By insisting that recruitment for the military is not an official goal of JROTC. (Despite, as I mentioned before, that fact that somewhere between 30% and 50% of JROTC members will enlist). That rate is many times higher than the average enlistment rate of high school graduates of roughly 5%.

JROTC is one of several issues that my new novel for teens, Price of Duty, confronts. In it, Jake Liddell is a 19-year-old heroic wounded warrior who’s just returned from America’s Forever War in the Middle East – as of this writing, now more than 17 years and running. Thanks to his bravery, Jake is being considered for the Silver Star for valor in combat. A graduate of his high school’s JROTC, he is a hero to his military family and his town.

In many ways, Jake’s high school experience mirrored that of many young people in JROTC today. He believed in his country, right or wrong. He was dazzled by the military’s media campaign (in TV advertisements and on social media) promoting strength, teamwork, and valor. He was aware that the military offers lucrative signing bonuses (up to $40,000) to enlistees. And, as in many high schools around the country, he was tempted to enlist by the recruitment officers who showed up at his school on a weekly basis.

Despite the protests of his family, Jake enlisted immediately after high school. But like so many in his position, his experience in the military was not what he’d imagined. Nothing had prepared him for the reality of war – the horror, the death (not just of soldiers, but of civilians, children included), the mutilation, the psychological toll, the terror. Now he’s returned home, torn between the pressure to be the hero everyone thinks he is, and the shaken, wounded witness to a devastation few outside opf soldiers in combat have known.

In my mind, a school should be a place for education, not militarization. Yes, we do need a military in this country, but I don’t believe that military education should be an option available in schools. At least, not in public schools. When military education is available in schools, and presented as an easy and lucrative option, it can be a temptation.   

One thing I remember about middle school and high school was the number of students who disliked PE because they didn’t enjoy the exercise and it left them sweaty. In addition, at that sensitive and insecure time of life, it meant undressing in locker rooms and showering with other students.  I don’t know how many young people would have opted for JROTC, had it existed in my school, just to get out of the exercise, sweating and showering. But I suspect some would have for that reason alone.

I also remember being 11 or 12 and playing Army with my friends, using sticks as pretend rifles. We would shoot each other, fall down and “die,” and then get right back up and continue playing. At the age of 12, or 14, or even 16, are young people really prepared to make a decision that will put them on a track that will eventually lead to military service? 

While the exact number of students in JROTC programs varies from year to year, it is estimated that at any given time more than half a million young people are enrolled. A significant number of these young people will eventually join the military. Some will go to war. Some will die.





[1] http://www.nationalmiddleschoolcadetcorps.com/Home_Page.html
[2] JROTC as a Substitute for PE: Really?  (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4285375/)
[3] "Soldiers of Misfortune" (PDF). American Civil Liberties Union. 2008.

[4] "11.b Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict". United Nations Treaty Collection. May 25, 2000. Retrieved August 28, 2013.