Educational Reform or Militarization
Marvin J. Berlowitz and Nathan A. Long
The primary objective of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) is to serve as a vehicle of military recruitment. There have been some attempts to deny this and portray JROTC as a viable contribution to educational reform. However, the events of September 11 have created a climate that glorifies and provides legitimacy and a necessity for the objective of recruitment. The resurgence of Reagan’s objective to destroy the evil empire, including the remnants of socialism in North Korea and Cuba; in addition to George W. Bush’s offensive against significant portions of the Arab world, including Libya, Iran, and Iraq, will necessitate simultaneously opening multiple military fronts around the world.
The recent worldwide decline of socialism has given rise to a resurgence of conservative ideology, which takes the position that the economics of free enterprise constitute the only viable road to social and economic development. Any semblance of the welfare state in the form of social programs, regulation, or economic safety nets is seen as extraneous at best and an unwarranted obstacle at worst. The most rapid deregulation and privatization of social and economic institutions is the order of the day. This global movement has come to be known as neoliberal ideology.
Neoliberal policies and legislations have dramatically impacted the most vulnerable of the world’s children, impoverishing them and often leading to their violent conscription into sweatshops, the sex industry, and the armed forces. In more developed nations such as the United States, the violent economic conscription of impoverished children into the armed forces is more indirect. Johan Galtung coined the term “structural violence” to describe the indirect violence that arranges institutions so that they systematically discriminate against specific groups; such discrimination is legitimated by dehumanizing ideologies such as racism.
The incorporation and proliferation of JROTC as part of the current U.S. educational reform movement constitutes a form of structural violence that employs economic coercion and deception to conscript disproportionate numbers of African Americans and other racially oppressed groups into the U.S. military.
Since its inception, the U.S. government has strategized the military indoctrination of its youth for the purpose of preparedness and recruitment. The first official movement to implement training in military and democratic processes began with President George Washington, who, as early as 1789, had sought support for a “national university.” It was Washington’s philosophy that such an institution would enforce the ideals of democracy and the need to protect America’s borders from foreign assaults against the free republic—both intellectually and militarily. The idea never fully materialized, due, in large part, to poor financial planning and lack of public support.
The concept of training youth to better serve America eventually came to fruition when Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. Congress founded West Point Military Academy (known more commonly as the U.S. Military Academy). Born out of concern that military officers were undereducated and lacking in skills that would benefit American forces in time of conflict, West Point Military Academy sought to rectify these issues via institutional military education. Over the next two centuries the country witnessed expansion ranging from the merchant marine, naval, coast guard, and air force academies to state preparatory academies, anchoring themselves throughout America effectively establishing military education as part of the American way of life.
The passage of the 1862 Morrill Act allowed for several million acres of public land to be set aside for the construction of land grant colleges and universities, and mandated that military instruction account for a portion of each new college or university’s curriculum (including drill, military history, tactics and strategies).1 Over time, this would set the framework for Senior and Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps within public educational settings.
However, the American public, most notably in the antebellum South, typically perceived both the academies, but more often the military establishment, with skepticism. Many citizens, still reeling from the rancor of the Civil War, found the idea of a federal standing militia unsettling. Standing militias and military training were sometimes viewed as “dangerous,” even unconstitutional, and threatening to civilians’ rights should a corrupt government seize control (it is interesting to note the irony of Southern concern over civil rights). This skepticism, alongside the growing isolationist tendencies of the American public, forced the government to impede growth with relation to increases in military-proposed aims.
Near the turn of the century (1898), the Spanish American War prompted some shift in attitude. America’s military performance was scattered, often haphazard. Military officials, including “Rough Rider” Theodore Roosevelt, exerted deep concern over American troops’ preparedness. This concern (bordering on hysteria) led to eighteen years of political confrontation between pacifist and preparedness activists. For the first few years of the twentieth century, the preparedness advocates were gaining some momentum, claiming that if America was to remain a prominent force in world affairs and continue protecting its people from foreign attack, strengthening military processes was critical, including the training of young men in military process.2 However, Woodrow Wilson’s election to the presidency struck a severe blow to preparedness rhetoric. Wilson, tied to Southern ideals, knew very well the concerns many had about a strong, standing military, in addition to his general repulsion to war.3 Instead, he advocated for America to be an influence abroad as a neutral power. His approach stemmed from economic as well as political motivations. His stance was increasingly powerful in light of the fact that American industry was able to cater to various European nations, increasing profits and economic stability for the United States.
The arrival of World War I in 1914 drastically affected the pacifistic leanings of President Wilson, causing him to gradually reverse his philosophy. Though not yet immersed in war, over the next two years, several members of the Wilson administration, most notably General Leonard Wood, began voicing opposition to antipreparedness activists. Wood believed that if America was drawn into a war with Europe or was attacked, the military forces would be rendered useless. He began a national campaign to discredit the neutrality movement, sounding alarms to Americans that the military was indeed unprepared for any war or defense of its borders. Wood continued to implement military training camps for youth and spoke at numerous colleges and universities in an attempt to generate support for his preparedness platform.4 He eventually received support from corporate executives and clubs devoted to the military in addition to the National Education Association, which advocated military discipline and training as relevant to a young American male’s education.
The success of the camps, which enrolled hundreds of young men in the first year, coupled with the attacks against American merchant ships, the sinking of the Lusitania, and the economic “stickiness” confounding American “neutrality,” prompted further (though strained) support from Congress and Wilson himself. As a result, on June 3, 1916, the most comprehensive congressional act for military reorganization in history was passed, known as the National Defense Act.5 Among many other components of the act (including strengthening of the army, reorganization of the National Guard, and strengthening the Department of War’s powers), the legislation established the Senior and Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. The original conception envisioned JROTC as the feeding element to ROTC. Though its impact was minimal at the onset, its objectives to establish an educated reserve officer commission were clear. Arthur Coumbe and Lee Harford, in U.S. Army Cadet Command: The 10 Year History noted that JROTC units “required a minimum of three hours per week of instruction in military instruction over a period of three years. Any JROTC graduate who completed this course of military instruction was authorized a certificate for a reserve commission, to be honored at age 21.”6 Schools shared the financial burden with the federal government, including texts, weapons, uniforms, and the like.
JROTC did not initially enjoy either the popular or institutional support that it does today. Even the efficacy of the program in serving its alleged purposes has always been questionable. In fact, numerous military and political officials questioned its viability from the moment the National Defense Act was ratified. Increasing criticism surrounding recruitment and JROTC’s drain on military resources were persistently voiced. In 1917, a report from the Bureau of Education, reviewed international efforts to train youth, and espoused the position that such training enhances military preparedness and operations.7 It may be assumed that this act was attempting to reinforce the viability of JROTC by addressing the concerns raised by the Corps’ critics. Yet as a result of the war effort and the mounting criticism, both Senior and Junior ROTC programs were temporarily dismantled, leaving approximately thirty units in operation nationally.
JROTC did not hold a strong grasp on the secondary schools until 1964, when President John F. Kennedy signed Public Law 88–647, commonly known as the ROTC Revitalization Act. This strengthened the amount of resources for the JROTC even though many of JROTC’s detractors drew concern out of the fact that it accomplished very little in terms of viable recruiting outcomes. The Revitalization Act of 1964 proved critical, however, as Robert McNamara (secretary of Defense) and military officials redirected JROTC to be more aligned with recruitment and enlistment processes. Hence, JROTC units “between School Year 1963–1964 and School Year 1973–1974 … grew from 294 to 646 units, while enrollment increased from 74,421 to 110,839.”8 From this period through the early 1990s, JROTC enjoyed expansion and reform with support from presidents and congressional representatives. President Gerald Ford expanded JROTC from 1,200 to 1,600 units and President George H. W. Bush signed the next initiative to increase the JROTC to 2,900 units. Bush’s drive toward expansion resulted from a successful new initiative titled “Operation Capital,” which targeted inner city urban schools in Washington, D.C. for JROTC units. “Today I’m … doubling the size of our Junior ROTC program … we’re going to expand it (from 1,500) to 2,900 schools … [JROTC is] a great program that boosts high schools completion rates, reduces drug use, raises self-esteem, and gets these kids firmly on the right track.”9
Bush’s proposed expansion was further buoyed by a memorandum issued from General Colin Powell in reference to Operation Capital. Powell emphasized that “[JROTC should have] particular emphasis … where drugs, gangs and juvenile delinquency flourish.”10
Hence, the military retooled and billed the Junior ROTC operation as a means for providing leadership and development programs to at-risk youth. General Colin Powell solidified this stance by supporting Operation Capital, with its large successes, proliferate nationwide. Thus the push for JROTC units in every school was made and for all intents and purposes has succeeded. It is important to stress that JROTC on the surface states that its mission is not to recruit for the military, but to “motivate and develop young people.” In 1999, President Bill Clinton expanded the units to over 3,500; and, as of September 20, 2001, Congress passed a reappropriations bill for the National Defense Act, with full executive branch support, for lifting the caps entirely.11
The recent globalization of the U.S. economy has resulted in dramatic structural changes. It has been transformed from a primarily industrial economy to one dominated by information technology and service. Dramatic increases in wealth and productivity have benefited a wealthy minority, but have led to a decline of the middle class and an intensification of the economic disparities between the very wealthy and the very poor. Current educational reform movements in the U.S. have concentrated upon preparing the U.S. to engage in more successful global competition, as typified in the Nation at Risk Report. In so doing, the focus on “urban education” which was so central to the “War on Poverty” of the 1960s has been omitted from the current agenda of reform. Not coincidentally, it is precisely in the population of urban school children where we find the highest concentration of poverty and racially oppressed groups.
Almost half a century after the landmark Brown decision which mandated an end to racial segregation and unequal opportunity in U.S. public schools, the majority of urban school children still attend racially segregated schools where inequities in funding and facilities preclude their viable participation in an economy dominated by the current scientific and technological revolution. For these children, the economics of racism so exacerbate the growing disparities between the wealthiest sector of the population and the poor that the latter have been referred to by some social scientists as the urban “underclass.” And neoliberal ideology merely contributes to these economic disparities by making the privatization of public schools their central focus for educational reform.
The advocates of JROTC, who are endeavoring to transform their schools into military academies, target these “urban underclass” school children for recruitment. Defense Department guidelines for JROTC specifically seek “the less affluent large urban schools” and populations who are “at-risk.” These children are trapped by a form of economic conscription referred to as the “push-pull phenomenon,” in which they are pushed by poverty and the economics of racism and pulled by the promise of military benefits.12 Once enrolled in JROTC, they are locked in by JROTC requirements, which are so time consuming that they preclude most college preparatory courses. The JROTC further channels these students by enticing them with a menu of “watered down” academic courses. Their function in the new global economy will be to serve as cannon fodder in the proliferation of “limited wars” waged against those forces that might interfere with U.S. protection and expansion of the free market.
The current approach of our federal government to the growing impoverishment of urban underclass youth is to institute the most draconian welfare reform in the brief history of the welfare system. Families are being deprived of even the most meager welfare benefits and sent forth to compete in a labor market that is infinitely more demanding than that of the industrial economy where even school dropouts could find viable long-term employment. Now they are being asked to enter this competition in a climate where the most severe austerity and drives for privatization are dismantling their public schools.
In response to the impoverishment of these families the Pentagon lavishes money on its campaign to proliferate JROTC. According to the Washington Post, in the past decade, their JROTC budget has more than doubled from $76 million to $156 million.13 The most recent budgetary estimates from Army Cadet Command and the Department of Defense indicated monies for fiscal year 2001 show an increase in $7 million from the previous year amounting to $108 million. In addition, Congress approved an additional $65 million from reserve coffers for a total of $173 million. The number of JROTC high schools has risen from 1,464 to 2,267, with a 32 percent increase in enrollment bringing the number of adolescents enrolled to 310,358.14 The most recent defense authorization bill (June 5, 2001) called for the lifting of all caps on JROTC expansion, giving the Corps a green light for expansion into the secondary school system. Finally, it is crucial to understand the potential relationship between the above-mentioned statistics and military recruitment efforts. Over the past decade, the military experienced one of the largest draw-downs since the implementation of the National Defense Act. This severely cut recruitment efforts and budgets. A recent Rand research study of recruitment trends depicts the recruiting conundrum as sizable and potentially detrimental to enlistment needs due to the aforementioned draw-downs, budget cuts, and the lack of good recruiters and recruiter training. The study cites the need for more aggressive recruitment of those in high school (reaching students at an earlier age). One could assume the JROTC with its expansive budget and proliferation of units is perhaps the military’s best response to its “recruiting crisis” as the program targets efforts toward first- and second-year high school students. Louis Caldera, Secretary of the Army during the Clinton administration, cited in his 2000 Report on the Army (ironically under the heading of “Meeting the Recruitment and Retention Challenge”) that “the [JROTC] program may help motivate young Americans toward military service … [JROTC] will inform young Americans about the opportunities available in the military while providing a positive influence during the high school years.”15 Army Cadet Command, while attempting to maintain its “veil of secrecy” over its real intentions toward recruitment, states in an internal presentation by Colonel Carlos Glover, JROTC director, that the main objective is to “Recruit quality prospects, retain quality cadets to commission, and sustain the force.”16 No matter how resolute the military elite remains about JROTC as a “nonrecruitment” source, the evidence points to recruitment as the main goal and primary benefit of the program.
In a surrealistic Horatio Alger extravaganza, General Colin Powell, an African American, has been cast as the Pentagon’s Pied Piper of JROTC recruitment. The strategy appears promising as the proportion of African American cadets recently exceeded 54 percent. As for Latino immigrants, the federal government is unequivocal about waiving the requirement of a high school diploma as a condition for admission into the army, while continuing to vacillate in its support of the bilingual programs so critical to their academic development.17
Duplicity has always been standard operating procedure for military recruiters. There are at least four major deceptions central to the proliferation of JROTC. The first two of these deceptions are embodied in the assertion that JROTC will contribute to a reduction of violence and drug abuse in the public schools and enhance educational attainment and academic success. After the Los Angeles riots in 1991, Colin Powell contributed to this myth by claiming that the armed forces could provide an alternative, leading to a reduction of drug trafficking and gang activity. But then as the deception unfolds, the Pentagon assures itself the appearance of success by excluding many of the very students it claims to help. JROTC requirements include a minimum grade point average of “C” for admission and no prior history of behavior problems.18 Furthermore, the image of the Pentagon as a role model for violence reduction requires the suspension of logic. The Pentagon institutionalizes the centrality of violence as a mode of conflict resolution. The JROTC specifically raises mixed messages to new levels, as the study of weapons, marksmanship, and membership in the National Rifle Association (NRA) are central to its curriculum in school systems attempting to enforce zero tolerance policies regarding the possession of weapons.
It is interesting to note that despite the abundant knowledge base, research, and programs committed to the nonviolent resolution of conflict and violence prevention, the federal government has chosen the militarization of public high schools as its priority. This policy decision was certainly not grounded in research and evaluation. A search of the social science databases revealed 157 studies on the efficacy of conflict resolution and violence prevention programs. Although results varied, this body of data tended to support the notion that conflict resolution and violence prevention programs have some measurable effect in reducing the level of violence in schools and improving school climate and academic achievement. A similar search, which included the Government Publications Office (GPO), revealed only four studies on JROTC. These studies focused upon JROTC objectives relating to “leadership skills” training. There was no accountability for JROTC’s other claims of success because none of the studies included any school-based outcomes, such as a reduction of violence or drug abuse in schools, improved school climate, or measures of academic achievement or educational attainment.19
If we acknowledge the ability of JROTC to impart leadership skills, we must also take note of the fact that skilled leadership does not ensure constructive outcomes. Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, and Al Capone serve as excellent examples of highly skilled leaders. Manuals dealing with leadership emphasize “following the orders of those above you” as the central element of leadership. History has demonstrated that the confusion of authoritarianism with leadership facilitates atrocities such as the Nazi death camps and the infamous massacre of the Mylai villagers in Vietnam. The Pentagon blithely ignores such connections in their JROTC history textbooks.
The Central Committee of Conscientious Objectors (CCCO–Western Region) has gathered relevant anecdotal evidence from newspapers. They found evidence to substantiate the claim that the institutionalization and glorification of violence in JROTC actually contributes to violence among its students. The following is a sample of these incidents:20
1 In Detroit, Michigan, a JROTC squad leader at Cooley High School reportedly formed a gang called the Fenkell Mafia Killers. The squad leader personally shot and wounded one person. Police say that on September 26, 1994, she ordered “a hit” at school in which a student was shot twice in the thigh.
2 Members of a Long Beach, California, JROTC unit formed a gang called the Ace of Spades (based on a special forces unit in Vietnam known for leaving cards on people they killed), went on crime sprees (including vandalizing a gay bar), then murdered Alex Giraldo, age sixteen, one of their members who they believed was talking with the police.
3 A year later, also in Long Beach, in August 1993, a member of the JROTC drill team scheduled to be the commander of this unit was arrested and charged, along with a former member of the JROTC program, with kidnapping and murdering an elementary school crossing guard.
4 In Arizona, Jonathan Doody, a seventeen-year-old ROTC enthusiast, murdered nine residents of a Buddhist temple. He was wearing military fatigues as he committed the crime.
5 In Clifton, New Jersey, one member of the Sea Cadets, a navy program for high school youths, conspired with his gang to murder, execution style, another member of the Sea Cadets.
6 In South San Diego County, JROTC students dressed in camouflage fatigues led “war games” in which they attacked and robbed immigrants coming across the border from Mexico.
7 On February 22, 1994, three JROTC cadets at Balboa High School in San Francisco were physically assaulted by the rest of the drill under the orders of the senior commander. One student suffered a punctured eardrum. The three have filed a suit. A secret city attorney’s report, leaked to a reporter, revealed a five-plus year tradition of hazing, including “a drill team initiation in which cadets jumped their victims, stripped off their clothes and paddled them with their hands and with a wooden slab from a broken desk. The investigation also found that members of the Balboa high drill team commonly beat fellow cadets as punishment.”
8 An anonymous student in JROTC at a second San Francisco high school, Wilson, has admitted to taking part in a hazing at that school in 1991.
9 At Lowell, a third school with JROTC in San Francisco, the student paper reported “friendly” hazing is a tradition there too.
10 In Houston, Texas, in May of 1993, despite similar problems in previous years, the assembled drill teams were ordered to stand in formation in the hot sun. Over fifty students were overcome with dizziness and/or fainted. Twenty-six students were hospitalized.
11 The most recent incident occurred in April 2001, involving an eighteen-year-old JROTC cadet from New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was charged after police found a small arsenal of explosives and machine gun bullets in his home. Ironically, he appeared in district court wearing the army shirt and pants issued by the JROTC.21
While the generalizability of these incidents might be questioned, these, along with the other evidence cited, seriously call into question the militarization of our high schools as a national priority.
The third deception of JROTC recruitment is the notion that such training enhances employability. Proponents of JROTC appeal to the popular belief that the military service increases employability by increasing discipline and by developing skills transferable to the civilian labor market.
Available evidence indicates that this argument is as weak as the first two. Among Vietnam-era African Americans, both veterans and nonveterans had a 9 percent rate of unemployment in contrast to a rate of 4.3 percent for whites.22 In a longitudinal study of more recent cohorts, funded by the assistant secretary of Defense, it was reported that only 12.4 percent of male veterans and 5.0 percent of males who left the military reported any use of occupational skills acquired in the military in their postmilitary employment. However, their data on males who never served in the military revealed higher degrees of labor force participation and higher income. It comes as no surprise that the military terminated funding for the study in 1984.23
The fourth deception of JROTC recruitment perpetuates the myth that the armed forces are a sanctuary from the racist abuses prevalent in civilian life. Using General Colin Powell as their African American spokesperson, the Department of Defense has attempted to make the case that the military is a meritocratic sanctuary for those seeking refuge from the patterns of racist discrimination in civilian life. Despite the military’s claim to be an equal opportunity employer, people of color currently constitute 32 percent of enlisted personnel while only 13 percent are officers.24 The rates of conviction in court-martials, less-than-honorable discharges, and incarceration in military prisons are more than triple for people of color.25 Thus patterns of racist discrimination in the military are comparable to the civilian criminal justice system. It should come as no surprise that a society in which racist patterns of structural violence are central would replicate these patterns in its military. Perhaps the myth of a meritocratic military is the cruelest hoax.
The most horrific and even genocidal manifestation of racism in the military is signified by the disparities in combat casualties. This is compounded by the prospect that U.S. imperialism pits people of color in disproportionate numbers in this country in mortal combat with people of color around the world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. captured the essence of the intersection of an economic conscription at home and disparities in combat casualties in a statement aired by a Canadian radio station, opposing the war in Vietnam:
It was sending the sons, brothers, and husbands of the poor to fight and die and in extraordinarily higher proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia, which they had not found in southwest Georgia and east Harlem. And so we have been faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools.26
In an information paper by the Department of the Army titled “Blacks in the Vietnam Conflict,” cited in Binkin, it was reported that between 1961 and 1966 the casualty rate for African Americans was 20.1 percent. The proportion of African Americans in the general population during this period was only 10 percent and in the armed forces it was 13.7 percent.27
In his last Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) presidential address, Dr. Martin Luther King made the following demographic observations:
When we view the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share. There are twice as many unemployed. The rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites and there are twice as many Negroes dying in Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population.28
Patterns of participation in the Gulf War reveal that the trend to disproportionately subject African Americans to the perils of combat is accelerating. Out of a general population of 12.4 percent, they were 30 percent of the troops in the Gulf. African American participation in the army was 29.1 percent, in the marine corps 16.9 percent, in the navy 21.3 percent, and in the air force 13.5 percent.29
The Gulf War was heralded as ushering in a new era of high technology warfare, which was limited in duration and U.S. combat casualties. And of course it was portrayed as a decisive “victory” for President Bush and future leaders of the New World Order. But revelations by the Czechoslovakian military and a protracted struggle by U.S. veterans’ groups with the Congress and the Veterans Administration have revealed the unprecedented horrors collectively labeled as Gulf War Syndrome. The survivors of the Gulf War and future “victories” can look forward to incurable lesions covering their bodies, disabling chronic cancer, headaches, vision loss, and a legacy of birth defects for their children.30 Given the trends discussed, it is likely that people of color will suffer these horrors in disproportionate numbers.
As stated earlier, conscription in developed nations such as the United States takes the form of structural violence with racism as central to its self-perpetuation. It is therefore imperative that the lack of racial diversity in peace organizations be overcome if they are to be effective in their struggles against conscription. And the strategy for overcoming this lack of diversity must be multifaceted. The concept of positive peace, which recognizes the dialectical relationship between the struggle for social justice and the struggle for peace must replace concepts of negative peace, which define peace, merely as the absence of violence.
In his analysis of the shortcomings of socialist as well as trade Union organizations, William Z. Foster called for a struggle against white chauvinism, which would lead to a greater acceptance of leadership from people of color. Peace organizations must also accept a significantly increased leadership from people of color. Peace researchers and peace organizations must begin to study and celebrate the contributions of peace leaders such as Mary Church Terrell, Coretta Scott King, Diane Nash, Bayard Rustin, Ralph Bunche, and James Farmer with the same enthusiasm as they extend to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace can never be achieved “in a white skin while the black is branded.”
1 Russell Weigley, History of the United States Army (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 282.
2 Ibid., 342–54.
3 Ibid., 378–80.
4 Ibid., 342–54.
5 The United States Statutes at Large (Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office) (39), 191–94.
6 Arthur Coumbe and Lee Harford, U.S. Army Cadet Command: The 10 Year History (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1996), 258.
7 W.S. Jeswein, Military Training of Youths of School Age in Foreign Countries, Report prepared for Bureau of Education, Bulletin 17, No. 25 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1917).
8 Coumbe and Harford, U.S. Army Cadet Command, 261.
9 President George H. W. Bush, Speech to Lincoln Technical Institute Students, August 24, 1992.
10 Coumbe and Harford, U.S. Army Cadet Command, 276.
11 Congressional Record, House, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002 (147: 123), (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Record, September 20, 2001), sec. 538.
12 Marvin J. Berlowitz, “Racism and Conscription in JROTC,” Peace Review 12, 3 (2000): 394.
13 Coleman McCarthy, “ROTC and the Three Rs: A Bad Mix,” Washington Post (April 18, 1995): C9.
14 Ibid.
15 Louis Caldera, “Report of the Secretary of the Army,” available at www.dod.mil/execsec/adr2000/army.html (accessed April 25, 2010).
16 Col. Carlos R. Glover, “Junior ROTC: Forging Leaders and Citizens,” available at www.acc.mil (last accessed December 10, 2001).
17 Catherine Lutz and Leslie Bartlett, Making Soldiers in the Public Schools: An Analysis of the JROTC Curriculum (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 1995), 6.
18 Ibid., 12.
19 Daniel Kmitta, “Effects of JROTC Programs: Negative Evidence,” University of Cincinnati, unpublished paper presented at the second annual International Education Conference (1994), 1.
20 These incidents were compiled by the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO) Western Region located at 655 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA 94102. The CCCO provided the following primary sources:
• Detroit News 9/28/94;
• Press Telegram 6/18/92, 6/21/92, 8/5/92;
• LA Times 6/22/92;
• LA Times 8/11/93;
• Morning Call 5/17/93;
• New York Times 2/15/94;
• LA Times 2/24/90, 4/26/90, 10/3/90;
• San Francisco Examiner 3/4/94, 3/5/94, 3/9/94, 4/6/94, 10/9/94, 10/30/94;
• San Francisco Chronicle 3/5/94, 4/6/94, 6/16/94, 10/10/94;
• San Francisco Independent 3/11/94, 3/22/94;
• San Francisco Guardian 3/9/94, 6/15/94;
• San Francisco Weekly 3/9/94, 5/4/94, 5/18/94;
• Washington Eagle 4/94;
• Bay Area Reporter 6/30/94;
• Philadelphia News 10/14/94;
• Sentinel 9/28/94.
21 Megan Tench, “On the Defensive JROTC Says it Teaches Discipline, Critics Say Violence,” Boston Globe (April 13, 2001): B1.
22 Sharon R. Cohaney, “Employment and Unemployment Among Vietnam Era Veterans,” Monthly Labor Review 113, 4 (1990): 22–29.
23 Stephen L. Magnum and David E. Ball, Military Service, Occupational Training, and Labor Market Outcomes (Columbus: Center for Human Resources Research of the Ohio State University, 1986).
24 Judy Rohrer, “JROTC Expansion: The Defense Department’s Plan for the Public Education,” Z Magazine (June 1994): 36.
25 Martin Binkin and Mark Eitelberg, Blacks and the Military (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1982), 170.
26 Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Trumpet of Conscience” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr., edited by Melvin J. Washington (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1986), 635.
27 Binkin and Eitelberg, Blacks and the Military, 76.
28 Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr., edited by Melvin J. Washington (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1986), 245.
29 Marc Crawford, “Fighting Wars Abroad,” Emerge Magazine (April 1991): 16.
30 Gregory Jaynes, “Walking Wounded,” Esquire Magazine (May 1994): 70–75.