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).