(Photo: txindoki/Flickr/cc)
By Ernie McCray
As we opened our hearts, this past Veteran’s Day, to our nation’s warriors with hearty “Thank you for your service” like cliches, alongside heaping praise on them for being strong heroic and brave – I kept thinking of two young men I met a little over a decade ago.
They were among the first to die in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I met them at career fairs at their schools, while I was sitting at a table letting kids know that they (no matter what they might hear that night with recruiters of every stripe in the room standing erect and spit and shined with video games and gadgets glowing next to papers to sign) – well, I just wanted them to know that they didn’t have to join the military to learn valuable skills or find adventure or pay for college or serve others.
I love having conversations with students about how they might go about pursuing their life’s dreams, or go about, maybe, for the first time, even entertaining the notion of having hopes and dreams.
But, the one young man came over to our table and just glared at us and scolded us for our lack of patriotism and puffed his chest out about how, although he didn’t agree with us (he didn’t pick up a single flyer or pamphlet), he was joining the military so we could be free.
He never considered that he could have just passed us by as we, Project YANO (Youth and Non-Military Opportunities), don’t beckon students our way unless they look like they’re leaning our way. And we never say “Don’t enlist.” We just say “Check out this.”
The other young man hung out and conversed with us for a little while although he was firmly determined to “Be All He Could Be.” I wished him well.
The career tech at his school, however, was another story, as she paraded back and forth in front of our display, shooting daggers our way, mumbling words that fit the way she looked. It was such a sad sight to see.
But not as sad as seeing, maybe a year later, these young men’s pictures and names in the paper along with others who had lost their lives, convinced, in their innocent, un-explored minds, that they were “fighting for freedom” and “making a difference” and “keeping America safe.”
Our youth buy into the spiels before they’ve made any other serious commitment in their lives because Uncle Sam locks in on them with concentrated diligence.
He lets them play war games and ride in tanks at assemblies, from elementary school on up.
He’s stationed JROTC and recruiters on school campuses everywhere.
He’s got commercials all over primetime TV, slick and hip and powerful and appealing to young minds trying to figure out “What’s up”: “America’s Navy”; “The Few. The Proud…”; “Aim High!”
He can persuade a teenage boy to lash out at someone who showed up at his school to simply, in a spirit of love, share some info designed to get him to think critically.
It’s a money game, this militarization of our children. And the Pentagon and the Halliburtons of the world have the money to sell them on their wars.
Anyone who wants to help them wrap their minds and hearts around creating a more peaceful planet, has to hustle funds like a beggar on the street.
Like David Chesky, the three time Grammy nominee who has composed a comedic children’s musical called “The Mice War”: a film about the absurdity and senselessness of armed conflicts that has played to sold out crowds of children in Asia and Europe as a theater production. He now wants to reach a broader audience by producing it as an animated movie.
But he’s come up $283,055 short of his fundraising goal of $298,000 on KICKSTARTER.
So a large audience of children misses out on a story that can help them to see how our differences as well as our similarities can be embraced and celebrated, perhaps, before their young minds become conditioned to accepting war.
They are denied, due to lack of funds, an opportunity to get insights into how wars come about, how often groups are in conflict with each other because of a sinister story, a lie, that has been contrived.
In “The Mice War” the Blue Mice cry: “What we need is a war!” And they make up excuses for starting one, much like Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, et al, spun tall-tales about weapons of mass destruction.
The Blue Mice create a military draft that leads to a “War Machine” designed to destroy the Red Mice who are peace loving, believing that all mice, no matter their color or shape or size are creed, should open their hearts to each other.
How does it end? I don’t know. I’d guess wonderfully as it’s a Broadway kind of show.
But I do know deep down in my soul that peace has to be the answer for human survival down the line and there could be no greater way to tell veterans “Thank you for your service” more than by honoring them with the nurturing of a generation who might just grow up with ideas that can lead to what “Veterans of Peace” are dedicated to: the building of a culture of peace.
If mice can do it, as I’m thinking they did in “The Mice War,” why can’t we?
Ernie McCray
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As you say they are “selling” the glories of the military life everywhere. Who is selling the glories of the Peace Corps or other non-violent development efforts and the opportunities to serve therein? The military even pays NFL teams for “patriotic displays.” People eat it up. Where are the displays for refugees, the poverty stricken, the homeless veterans? For what it costs for one star studded display by the Blue Angels, homelessness could probably be eradicated.
It’s like we don’t even try as a society.
I’ll swear to it; this country’s values have been perverted by fear and violence. And it’s no accident. Money is made from promoting both low traits. There are many more people enrolling in universities to study management, finance, accounting, advertising and mass comm. than there are studying history, literature and philosophy. Freedom, sisterhood and liberty have been reduced to roles of goods to be protected by guns, along with one’s money (though I’d guess money might be more widely viewed as the more valuable than either of the other three).
So, for sure, my head vibrates to these words: “…there could be no greater way to tell veterans “Thank you for your service” more than by honoring them with the nurturing of a generation who might just grow up with ideas that can lead to what “Veterans of Peace” are dedicated to: the building of a culture of peace.” Thank you, Ernie.
Though we have relatively little money to help us “sell” alternatives to war and militarism, we do have a dedicated group of local volunteers who continue to staff displays at school career fairs and give presentation to young people (this Sat. Project YANO be at the conference for high school students sponsored by SDSU MEChA). And this happens to be the International Week of Action Against the Militarization of Youth, organized by a network of groups around the world (see http://www.antimili-youth.net/articles/2015/11/week-action-against-militarisation-youth-events-happening-week). The movement is there waiting for more people to join it.
Another excellent article, Ernie. Perhaps if the U.S. guaranteed universal education for everyone through college as some European nations do, high school students wouldn’t be so vulnerable to military recruitment.
Thanks for bringing this problem to our attention, Ernie.