Pentagon's Teen Recruiting Methods Would Make Tobacco Companies Proud (AlterNet)

[marmar]

Pentagon's Teen Recruiting Methods Would Make Tobacco Companies Proud

By Terry J. Allen, In These Times. Posted May 22, 2007.



With over half of America's 1 million active and reserve soldiers enlisted as teens, the military is luring kids as young as 13 using a PR machine that would make Joe Camel proud.

Congratulations: You have lived long enough to cringe at the bad decisions you were seduced, dared, stoned, bullied, or inspired into making as a teenager.

Thousands of America's children, however, are not so lucky. Almost 600,000 of America's 1 million active and reserve soldiers enlisted as teens. The military lures these physiologically immature kids with a PR machine that would make Joe Camel proud.

While the age of legal and cultural adulthood can vary, science is now able to determine the physiological markers of maturity. A recent study headed by Jay Giedd of the National Institutes of Health using MRI scans shows that the brain of an 18-year-old is not fully developed, with the limbic cortex-brain structures, the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex still undergoing substantial changes.

As of March 31, the U.S. military included 81,000 teenagers. Its 7,350 17-year-olds needed parental consent to enlist, and only this April were all barred from battle zones.

But the military aims even lower, marketing itself to children as young as 13 with multimedia videos, school visits and cold calls to teens' homes and cell phones. In Junior ROTC, kids get uniforms, win medals, fire real guns and play soldier, while adults trained in psychological manipulation steer them toward the army. The Army's JROTC website lists such motivating activities as "eating at concession stands."

...(snip)...

A DoD training manual instructs recruiters to appropriate the techniques that pharmaceutical salespeople use to convince doctors to prescribe the most profitable drugs: "Pharmaceutical representatives court doctors and provide incentives to them in exchange for listening to a sales pitch and considering their products." DoD advises following the pharma model by offering "personalized incentives in exchange for some of their time (bring food when asking favors.)"

The manual suggests bribing teachers: "Provide lunch for teachers in exchange for information." It quotes an anonymous teacher: "Giving teachers pencils and calendars lets us know that you understand our needs and support us. We, in turn, are more likely to support your efforts in the future."

"Chiefs of warfare reach out to children precisely because they are innocent, malleable, impressionable," says Olara Otunnu, the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

The science is clear: Turning children below the age of brain maturity into soldiers, whether in the United States or Sudan, exploits that vulnerability.

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/51889/

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. I keep telling anyone who will listen, they are after our children.

I am watching parents around me struggle with the fact that their children have enlisted in the Armed Forces. One woman I know lost her daughter, another's son was hit by an IED, lost his eye and has a brain injury that will be a factor for the rest of his life.

I know another parent whose daughter just joined. The daughter is 17 and has caused her single mother some distress with her behavior. So the mom is thinking this might "turn her around", although mom is worried sick about her going to Iraq.

The recruitment ads imploring parents to sign off on their children's enlistment are a transparent effort to trump parents' extremely legitimate concerns and rights when their children are minors.

The cabal needs our children to feed the machine. It's disgusting. :puke: MKJ