Diatribune

Thank you Kerry for the invitation to post here. I originally posted this over at Truth & Progress and then followed at Daily Kos. I look forward to the insight of the Diatribune community. Here goes... Dog Tags! Shiny personalized dog tags, required to be worn around the neck of all military personnel. Now they're sometimes known simply as ID tags .  I distinctly remember my uncle proudly wearing his dog tags when he enlisted to serve in The Air Force (bomb demolition) during Vietnam.  Since he died shortly thereafter, I'll have to be content to wonder how he would feel about current events, but that's besides the point.
Back to the dog tags. You know the ones: 

(source: wiki)Wearing of the tag is required at all times by soldiers in the field. It may contain two copies of the information and be designed to break easily into two pieces. This allows half the tag to be collected for notification while the other half remains with the body when battle conditions do not allow the casualty to be immediately recovered.

Alternately, two identical tags are issued. One is worn on a long chain around the neck; the second on a much smaller chain attached to the first chain. In the event the wearer is killed the second tag is collected and the first remains with the body.

Well, these sturdy strips of metal are no longer just used just for identification of mangled bodies--they're now doubling as a military recruiting tool in the high school cafeteria.  Stationed in the Marblehead High School cafeteria last Thursday recruiters announced,

(paraphrased) "Special for today, in exchange for filling in your personal information on this card, we will, FREE of charge, give you personalized dog tags right on the spot."  

The article from The Marblehead Reporter (linked before the flip and here) was very good but merely scratched the surface.  According to my daughter, over half her lunch table was quickly flaunting these dog tags and by the end of the day, by her estimation, over half of the school. A fashion statement?  Military chic?  The symbolism goes beyond fatigues that are so fashionable now, but still, self-expression is NOT the issue here.

Last summer, we received a packet from the high school for all parents of incoming freshmen.  In that packet was a notice printed on red paper explaining our rights (under the No Child Left Behind Act)that if you sign and return this sheet to the school your child's personal information including home address, phone number, email address, and school record would not be sent to military recruiting as is now the case.  She was only 14 and we weren't interested in having her recruited for the military, so we signed and sent it back to the school.  Great.

Well, you've probably already figured out where I'm going with this.  If we opted out of sharing our daughter's personal information with military recruiting and then Army recruiting shows up at the high school, offering shiny trinkets in return for said information, doesn't that violate our express wishes?  You bet.  Last I knew, 14 year olds are still considered minors.

Within a half hour after we notified the Superintendent, he had contacted the recruiter and demanded the return of the cards that were filled in by the kids and called me back. He could not however guarantee that the information had not already been entered into a database for recruitment. This matter will need to be left to the other parents to figure out since my daughter didn't take the bait. [puffs out chest just a bit]

Our kids are bombarded with so much propaganda from soda machines to cereal ads, that it's amazing they can even find enough peace to think. Madison Ave relentlessly pushes their wares on our kids promising them health in a bowl and happiness in a can when in reality, the product is as empty as the lies.  Well, now we have the Army showing up at our public high school doing the same only this time the promises are more insidious, making the bait and switch more outrageous. The Bush Administration hoodwinked us into this war with promises of flowers and chocolate, they've kept us there with empty promises of progress and peace, and now with the sliding "surge" they argue to escalate our involvement with more empty promises. Only now the machine desperately needs to be fed with more kids to fill the void left by the dead, wounded and demoralized troops that are no longer available.  And how do they solicit them??? With more empty promises.

As long as we don't have a draft, parents' wishes to shield their minor children from this must be respected. 

Enter Rep. Mike Honda (D, Calif.) with The Student Privacy Protection Act:

An amendment to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act seeks to keep military recruiters from accessing secondary students' personal data by requiring parents to choose to share that information rather than having to opt out of sharing it.

Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) introduced the legislation March 6. The Student Privacy Protection Act would require local school systems to obtain written consent before releasing information on secondary school students to military recruiters or their agents.

The measure will next be referred to the House Education and Labor Committee sometime during this session, said a spokesperson for Honda. That committee's chairman, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), is a co-sponsor of the bill.

Because of a provision in the NCLB, school districts are directed to give information about students to military recruiters unless parents explicitly request that their children's data remains private. Since the enacting of NCLB, secondary schools have been supplying the names, addresses and telephone numbers of students to recruiters sponsored by the military services.
In Congressman Honda's own words: 

"My constituents brought this matter to my attention, expressing frustration that their children were being persistently being contacted at home by military recruiters," Honda said. "They wanted to know how the military gained access to their personal information without their consent."

Military recruiting efforts must respect the privacy rights of children and their families, Honda said.

If you're interested, the proposed language is here.

I'm both gratified and horrified to know that I'm not alone. Thank you, Congressman Honda for listening to your constituents. Deceptive recruiting tactics aren't new, as we witnessed back in November of 2006 when this ABC News undercover investigation in which it was revealed that military recruiters would routinely tell kids that the war in Iraq was actually over to entice them into enlisting. And wasn't Goldie Hawn's character in Private Benjamin hoodwinked into enlisting? But this is recruiting NOW, it's THIS war, and it's impossible to separate the tactic from the outcome. It does make me wonder about just how many kids have been tempted with promises and bling when their parents have opted out. Or how many parents who have opted out haven't even mentioned it to their kids? And while we're all scratching our heads anyway, let me leave you to wonder:  What the heck are solicitors, military and otherwise who are granted equal access to our kids under NCLB, doing in the high school cafeteria in the first place? Can't a kid just eat?

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