***** The Myths of Military Opportunity
"The reason to have a military is to be prepared to fight and win wars... it's not a jobs program." Former Secretary of Defense Cheney
Many people believe that joining the military is a way out of poverty. Some veterans do say that their experience in the military, or the college benefits that they were able to get, was helpful to them. But the reality for most veterans is far different. The military spends $1.9 billion each year on recruiting, and the military's ads project an image of opportunity in the military that does not withstand sober analysis.
The first recruiting myth is how long you will serve. The military regards you as part of the Individual Ready Reserve, and therefore subject to call-up, for eight years from the date of your arrival at basic training, even if you only signed up for two years: ask those who were deployed to the Persian Gulf long after they thought their commitment had ended!
Get it from the horses mouth: a recruiter's letter to the Army Times [@ <http://www.objector.org/before-you-enlist/recruiter-letter.html>].
MONEY FOR COLLEGE
The military isn't a generous financial aid institution, and it isn't concerned with helping you pay for school. Two-thirds of all recruits never get any college funding from the military. Only 15% graduated with a four year degree.
What about going to school while you're in? Many GIs report that military life leaves them too busy and exhausted -- and doesn't really make time for them to go to class.
JOB SKILLS TRAINING
Veterans Earn Less than Non-Veterans
Perhaps one of the best measures of the economic impact of joining the military is the analysis of whether a person who enters the military, on average, earns more or less than a comparable non-veteran. In a comprehensive overview of 14 studies which analyzed this question, 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.
Military Training is Primarily for Military Jobs
Bryant and Wilhite found that veterans averaged only 1.78 months of training in 31 months of active duty. Mangum and Ball, Ohio State researchers who received funding from the military, found that only 12% of male veterans and 6% of female veterans surveyed made any use of skills learned in the military in their civilian jobs. Barley concludes, "The evidence on rates of return to training and the probability of finding a job in one's chosen occupation, strongly suggests that, all else being equal, young people should look to sources of training other than the military if they wish to optimize their careers."
Economic Opportunity?
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.
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE AND DISCIPLINE
People often talk about a skill that you are supposed to learn in the military: discipline. It's something that is valued highly. But what kind of discipline will you learn? Do you want to learn how to make decisions on your own or learn how to always follow someone else's orders? The military takes care of every detail, telling you where, when and how to do everything. Maybe that's the kind of discipline you think you need. But it isn't the kind of discipline most of us need in the real world. We need to think on our own and make our own decisions.
RACISM, SEXISM AND HOMOPHOBIA
It's a form of economic discrimination, sometimes called economic conscription or an economic draft, that forces lower income people into the military in order to earn a living, try to learn a trade or get money for their education. The American Council on Education even attributes a drop in black college enrollment to more aggressive military recruiting in the eighties. The worst thing is, often those who are forced into the military to learn a trade, or earn money for school, don't even get what they believe they were promised!
Check out CCCO's Third World Outreach Program
WAR
Above all else, the military is an institution with one overriding purpose: to prepare for and fight wars. You literally sign your life over to the military. For some who joined the military before the Gulf War, they didn't fully realize this until they were faced with an actual war in Saudi Arabia against Iraq. Don't make the same mistake they made. If you're going to join the military be prepared to fight a war, even a war you may not agree with. It could be a war we "lose," like Vietnam. Or, it could be a war we "win," like in Kuwait. Either way, people are killed and you might be the one who kills them. As much as the war in Iraq has been celebrated, you can find US veterans who can't forget some of the awful things they saw there. Is that the kind of risk you want to take to finance your college education?
<http://www.objector.org/before-you-enlist/myths.html> *****
***** GI Bill . . . No Sure Bet
Everyone agrees that going to college is an important goal for all our students. It's also a fact that finding the money to pay for college is a big stumbling block for many.
So is the U.S. military's heavily advertised promise to provide young people with money for college a solution to the dilemma of high college costs?
The Montgomery GI Bill, passed in 1985, promises money for college, but it is not comparable to the GI Bill of old. Many people hear the words "GI Bill" and imagine a guarantee of a college education for any member of the military service, like the GI Bill of the 1940's and 50's.
The "money for college" pitch helps the recruiters but hides a very different picture. The Pentagon has actually been making money off recruits under the Montgomery GI program.
To qualify for GI Bill benefits, recruits must first make a non-refundable contribution of $1200. Service members actually paid out more in these contributions than they received in return in benefits between 1985 and 1993 (service people paid in $1.84 billion and received only $1.12 billion in benefits). The reason is that although 71% of recruits had enrolled in the plan, only 35% of those enrolled had obtained funding.
The Pentagon has been making money because the benefits are hard to get. The rules concerning eligibility to use the benefits are more restrictive than other previous military educational plans. For example, if the recruit leaves the military with less than an honorable discharge (as many do), or does not end up attending college for some reason, he or she is ineligible and does not even get the $1200 back. There are other conditions that can even disqualify service members who have honorable discharges....
<http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/choices/gibillww.htm> ***** -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>