This deserves main page attention.

You Can’t Be All That You Can Be If You’re Dead
www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1732939.php

Counter recruiting activists handed out fliers, talked to students, and were threatened with arrest at a job fair at Fresno City College today. Army recruiters objected to the activists and claimed they were interfering with their job. After complaints were made to the event organizers the counter recruiters were asked to leave. Instead of leaving they were joined by more supporters and continued to hand out fliers and talk to students.

Read More:
www.indybay.org/news/2005/04/1732939.php

For those interested in going, we will be carpooling from UCSC and leaving from the Bay Tree plaza at 9:00am. If you havent already signed up for the carpool, email rides2watsonville (at) yahoo.com to reserve your spot.

As the Army rep. entices students at Harbor HS to enlist, the Peace and Justice Klub of Harbor HS sets up an anti-recruitment table where they provide more information about enlisting than the Army rep. provides.

Harbor HS students do have a fully informed choice and no thanks to the Army recruiters!!

Hey guys and gals just remember that the non-seniors from WHS will be taking a state test, so lets not interupt them.

O.K., I get it. Let's eliminate all military recruiting. The Iraq war won't go away whether you like it or not and there will be more wars in the future (for those of you History majors out there tell me when there was a time in history when we DIDN'T have a war somewhere), but HEY, let's eliminate the all volunteer Army. GREAT IDEA!!! No volunteer Army = AN INVOLUNTARY DRAFT! That way we won't have to worry about having an Army made up of people who benefit from military service, get educational incentives which help to break the cycle of poverty, receive veteran's benefits, and learn a level of discipline which will help them to function in the real world (in which ALL of you will someday have to live). As a matter of fact I think it might be a great idea to begin Selective Service (i.e. The Draft) with those of you who are screwing it up for everyone else. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!

ok. mr or mrs (i'm really hoping you're not a women cause you sure as hell sound like a white middle class male with no real experience with the extremities of power dynamics in this world) "someone with a brain". my guess is you too have made assumptions about the people invoved in these recent actions. no i'm not a student. no my parents don't support me. yes i function in your "real world" whatever the hell that means. first of all have you ever heard of the poverty draft. have you researched the reality of what recruits receive after they have joined the military: Two-thirds of all recruits never get any college funding from the military. Only 15% graduated with a four year degree. (www.objector.org/before-you-enlist/myths.html)

Stephen R. Barley of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell U. found that the average post-Vietnam War-era veteran will earn between 11% (Crane and Wise 1987) and 19% (Rosen and Taubman, 1982) less than non-veterans from comparable socioeconomic backgrounds. According to a 1990 study by Bryant and Wilhite, the average veteran will earn 85 cents less per hour (about $1700 less per year) than non-veteran peers.

Army Times reports that over 50,000 unemployed veterans are on the waiting list for the military's "retraining" program. The VA estimates that 1/3 of homeless people are vets.

Why do people of color represent 1/3 of all enlisted personnel but only 1/8 of the officers?

During the Gulf War, over 50 percent of front-line troops were people of color. Overall, over 30 percent of enlisted personnel but only 12 percent of officers are people of color, who are then disciplined and discharged under other than honorable conditions at a much higher rate than whites. When recent studies showed a slight dip in young African-Americans' (disproportionately high) interest in the military, the Pentagon reacted with a new ad campaign. They're targeting Latino youth with special Spanish-language ads. The recruiters' lethal result: tracking high achieving young people in communities of color into a dead-end, deadly occupation.

and as a woman, my favorite fact: The VA's own figures show 90 percent of recent women veterans reporting harassment - a third of whom were raped.

DO YOUR FUCKING RESEARCH!!!

and by the way, this protest was not just to protest it was to supply youth with scholarship information, resources so they can go to college without going to the military, and connect them to resources in the community that can help empower them, educate them, and help them move towards their own self-determination. qualities i personally think you would benefit from.

by the way...are you from watsonville? are you a person of color? are poor? if not, how do you know anything abotu getting out of poverty?

in peace and solidarity with peoples movements all over the world. hasta liberacion gente!

ps. are you going to be one of those willing to enlist so we don't have draft that you so much fear?

until you do, i would stop being so grateful for all those "poor brown folk that need discipline so they can funtion in your capitalist white supremicist world" that enlist. you think they are saving your ass, but really it is your priveleged, self-righteous, complacency not enlisting that is perpetuating the poverty draft?

and just because there always have been wars, means we should keep massacuring our own species beacause of a limited few power tripping and decidig to monopolize the worlds oil who happen to own all of main stream media and therefore the mass populas' minds and the largest military in the world. yes, because fascists have always existed we should sit quietly and non-shamefully and watch millions of people (children, grandparents i might add) get killed.
get on the front lines then you could talk some shit.

Photos from the 2nd day of the Watsonville High Counter-Recruitment rallies can be found here:

santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17522/index.php

Can anyone tell me where to find the SOURCE documents for some of the recruitment myths that are talked about? I've noticed that many of the citations are for other anti-military pamphlets or documents, but don't reference the original source. Most of the references that do cite university studies are pretty old (1982, etc). Is there any updated information? I'm trying to do my research and get the facts. Where is the source for 90% of women vets being sexually harassed and 30% raped? I'm confused as to who is throwing out the dis- or misinformation. Disabled vets CAN get their full retirement AND disability pay. The bill was signed into law. I just want the truth. Any suggestions, anyone?

For some of the statistics check out:

www.papertiger.org/media/Military-Myths-Stats.pdf

Many of the stats come from the DoD itself, as well as Veterans Affairs and other gov. units. There's a few studies that have been done as well.

I checked out "Paper Tiger" and that didn't help much. It's the same stuff. I'm looking for SOURCE documents. Everyone seems to cite the same studies without knowing where to actually look at them. I could do the same thing: "43% of veterans report being ordered to stand on their head. - Veteran's Administration 2001" Where can I find the Murdoch & Nichols study? Extensive web searches only leads to hits on anti-recruitment papers that CITE the study, not the study itself. I'm a "show me the money" type of person. I want to see it in black and white. If I have to make a decision about my future, I want to base it on facts, not 3rd hand refererences. One out of every three women in the military report being raped? My God, wouldn't CNN/60 Minutes/someone be all over this? I'm not willing to accept empty rhetoric from anyone. What does barring military recruiters from schools have to do with keeping guns out? Do recruiters carry guns to school? I want to see it for myself. Anyone else out there that can help?

Look.. if you're really interested in seeing the source documents, you're going to have to do the research. That's how it works. We have to do it to get them in the first place.

Call up the Veterans Admin. Call up the DoD. It's a matter of talking to the right people and checking out the right studies. It took the Military Myths people over a year to find all of that data.

I just want to point out something really funny.

confused wrote: "I'm not willing to accept empty rhetoric from anyone."

That statement immediately followed this one: "My God, wouldn't CNN/60 Minutes/someone be all over this?"

bwahahaha

Sense of Humor: I'm afraid I am missing your point. I'm not sure what an aversion to empty rhetoric has to do with investigative journalism. Is the point of this forum to have a free exchange of information or a place to belittle others that YOU think don't share your beliefs/ideas?

Confused:

There is this exclusive place that houses all sorts of government documents and other secret wisdom... it's known as the LIBRARY.

If you "want to see it for yourself," do your homework and go find the documents at an academic library. Most all reputable studies are published in peer-reviewed journals, which are archived in those things called LIBRARIES. Sites like Paper Tiger have taken the hard work out of the process for you, but, please, you should spend hours in the library looking for the infomation. I think it might have a transformative effect on your outlook.

BTW, 60 Minutes recently did a report on sex abuse of women in the military. Most of the statistics they cite on their show come straight from a special task force set up by the government to study the problem. And, yes, the numbers are as high as these signs claim, Einstein.

Glad to have friendly discourse. Is it possible for either of you to make a point without being insulting? My questions were originally posed because I'm trying to sort through all the BS that comes from both sides. I can see that it's a waste of time to ask for anything besides the blind "party line" like the government dishes out.

Hey Confused,

Glad that you're dedicated to finding the source materials to get answers to your questions.

Since you don't seem to trust the accuracy and/or truthfulness of the previously mentioned sources, then going direct is a good step.

Of course, once you get to the original source, you'll be confronted with the same problem:
Do you really trust the researchers who did the work? Why?
Is their methodology sound?
What sort of biases may have been introduced into their research methods?
How (and how much) may those biases have affected the conclusions offered?
Even if it is sound research, is it applicable to the questions that you have? Has the "real world" situation changed materially since the conclusion of their study?

Personally, I don't think you should trust those scientists. If they even know what they're doing, they're probably leaving out important stuff and making other things up just to get exciting results.

So you should actually DO THE RESEARCH YOURSELF.

In terms of researching the military, Id suggest that the quickest route is to enlist.

When you have your results, please let us know. We'll read your post as soon as we get back from the big anti-war march. ;-p

mf- thanks, I found the answers I was looking for. Airborne All The Way.

Odd that no one here is able to show the exact documents when this ‘confused’ person was asking for them. Leads me to believe that no one here who wanted to rid the campus of the recruiters has done their homework either.

Thanks to you guys, I'm all over the research these days. ReSista says only 1/8 of officers are "people of color". That's 12.5% right? Not sure where she got those figures, but...
According to the Army demographics report for Fiscal Year 2004- 24.6% of commissioned officers are African-American, Hispanic, Asian, etc. Almost 30% of Warrant Officers are minorities. If you look just at female Commissioned Officers- 38.1% are "people of color". How many Fortune 500 companies employ minority females in over 1/3 of their management positions? I'll even give you the source: www.armyg1.army.mil/demographics.asp
It's amazing what a little research will do! More to follow, I'm on a roll now.

Dear Not Confused Anymore,

Try looking at other statistics besides the Army. They are notorious for having more people of color than other branches of the military.

Try doing a military-wide statistical analysis and come back with those. Your results will be much different.

The murdoch and nichol's study was called "women veterans' experiences with domestic violence and sexualy violence while in the militay." published in archives of family medicide, may 4, 1995. While not the most current information, it isn't that long ago, so it's still relevant. You have every reason to be scholarly about this and get the sources right, look up how they conducted the study, etc. because the army tries to say that only 4% of women in the army are raped, this is still a high percentage, but there is obviously a different method of collecting - or suppressing- information in each study.

I too have been wondering where the facts have been coming from. I did some limited research on the rape and harassment numbers and the only article I could find referenced a report from the VA during the Vietnam War. I am currently in the Navy and at my last command I was the only male in my work center of six. I had an professional open relationship with my coworkers and never once did I hear of harassment let alone rape.

I did find in the same article though that 20% to 40% of undergraduate female students reported rape as well. I have always heard that the military is a reflection of society and these numbers would prove that. www.odu.edu/webroot/instr/sci/bwinstea.nsf/4a87ff3bf2c03cc38525646f0072ffa9/8e2bb7340d42cb8485256841004e7f06

I did a search for the article that "scribler" refers to and came up with zero hits. I did find that the DOD, thats Department of Defense for you civilians. Has done more to curtail sexual harassment than the civilian sector. Here is a direct quote from an article on a DOD website. Over the years, DoD has done a number of sexual abuse surveys, the doctor noted. "The best survey we have was done in 1999 where 8.6 percent of military women said they were sexually assaulted during their military service," Ritchie said. Here is the link. www.defenselink.mil/news/May2003/n05152003_200305154.html
From my experience of working in the civilian sector and being in the military I know first hand that there is more being done to stop this type of behavior in the military than out of the military.