Military recruiting in schools

Young people are not stupid – they know that there are risks involved in joining the military. In fact the media usually focuses on the bad news coming out of Afghanistan and Iraq, ignoring the good work of our military there. A career in the military also offers young people a lot of benefits, and it is only right that they should get to hear about those as well. And no one is signed up on the spot in the classroom; they always get the chance to think about it over a few months or more, and to discuss the decision carefully with parents.

Our military is an all-volunteer force and must recruit openly to keep up its numbers. The army, navy and air force need well-educated and motivated recruits so that they can defend our country from its enemies. Visits to schools are not about forcing militaristic propaganda on children, but about making sure that 16-18 year olds know about the military as a possible career choice. After all, college representatives and local employers are allowed to make presentations to students, so it would be unfair to keep just the military out. If you accept that we need armed forces, then you must allow them to recruit openly.

Recruiters should not minimise the risks of a military career, but the armed forces do have a good story to tell and they should not be prevented from doing so. There really are great opportunities for keen, talented young people in the military, and almost all soldiers, etc. find it a very satisfying life. And compared with the past, soldiers today are much better looked after in terms of physical, medical and psychological wellbeing.

All young people should have the chance to think about whether joining the military is right for them. For that reason recruiters should not visit some types of schools and not others. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with recruiters making extra visits to schools from which many students have joined up in the past. And students from poorer areas may be particularly keen to hear about some of the benefits a military career can offer, such as free college tuition and good opportunities for promotion. The military can provide an important role in disadvantaged communities, providing positive role models and encouraging students to finish school (the US army now requires recruits to have at least a high school diploma). And many soldiers from tough areas say that if they hadn’t joined the military they would have been sucked into criminal gangs instead.

In the UK the army does not directly recruit in schools but does visit many each year “with the aim of raising the general awareness of the armed forces in society”. And they always visit by invitation of the Headteacher. Compared to the USA fewer young people have local or family connections with the military, so it is important for them to learn about the role the armed forces play in our country. And in both the UK and the USA the military offers other services to schools, from educational materials to leadership courses and team-building exercises. Banning the military from visiting schools would deny students all these opportunities.

There is nothing wrong with collecting information about students. As no one thinks that students should be signed up at their classroom desks, recruiters need to record contact details so that they can follow up students who have shown an interest in the military. The new law was necessary as some schools tried to deny recruiters a chance to contact students. If parents don’t want their son or daughter to be included in the database, they can opt out by writing to the district superintendent.

The USA has not signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, although it has signed the UN’s Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. But the US military does not recruit under-18s anyway, so it is keeping to it agreement. In any case, neither of these agreements stops recruiters visiting schools in order to make students aware of military career options once they turn 18.

No one can have escaped over the last few years the media attention on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To think that children wouldn’t know that the armed forces are dangerous is a naive and frankly ridiculous proposition.

School-leavers are indeed old enough to decide upon a career path for themselves. They are free to join any job they wish, and the army is a legitimate career path for them to follow. To stop them from doing so, or learning about the great opportunities the armed forces presents, is to deny them the right to determine what they do with their lives.

As already noted, there is a wealth of information about how dangerous the armed forces are. Just because they don’t tell children themselves about how many soldiers have been killed or wounded in the past x years, doesn’t mean those children don’t know about it. Any recruiter will naturally present the best side of their organisation, but at least in the armed forces’ case, the darker side is right there in the national press every day.

In any case, arguing that children are unaware of the possibility of being injured in the armed forces is unreasonable. By the time they are eligible to join (currently 15 years 9 months at the very earliest) they will undoubtedly have had an adequate chance to consider all aspects of the career. No one should choose a career on a whim, so assuming they have thought about it at all, they will surely be aware of the fact that as a soldier you may very well be shot at and in the worst case killed or horrifically injured. I don’t think recruiters are inherently more dishonest than most other professions. What about fire fighters and police officers? Are those recruiters dishonest for not showing examples of where members of the profession have been injured?

The massive media attention on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has not gone unnoticed. Even young children know that British troops are dying and being wounded in these conflicts, so to suggest that they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into is a ridiculous idea. This is merely an example of the nanny state trying to interfere too much in the lives of its citizens.

The young men and women who join the army when leaving school at 16 are those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Without the army to instil discipline and responsibility into these young people, there would be little else for them to do. They do not have many qualifications, and there is a statistical link between education and crime; without the army taking people off our streets and employing them for good – patrolling dangerous places, helping people across the world – they would be worse off.

Banning the army from schools would see a drop in recruitment in precisely the groups it helps, to the detriment of the army and young men and women.

Recruitment is already shrinking as a result of negative media attention over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is bad news for our country. Banning recruitment in schools would exacerbate this problem.

We need an army to maintain our role in the world as exporter of peace and democracy, as one of the few countries that seek actively to make the world a better place. Without brave young men and women to help this aid, millions of people across the world would find themselves living under repressive regimes, and without access to clean food and water.

Our armed forces are a benevolent force in the world. Banning recruitment in schools would damage their legitimate mission, and be a victory for our enemies.