Go To Iraq Or Go To Jail

Take your pick: prison or war.

That's what some army recruiters are telling high school students in Houston, Texas to scare teenagers into joining the army.

On July 29th, 2008, a local CBS affiliate in Houston broke this story about illegal army recruitment tactics and a shady new strategy called the "Delayed Entry Program." As part of a $5 billion recruitment budget for 2008--that's right, $5 billion—Army recruiters ask high school students to sign a non-binding contract that says they intend to enlist in the army upon graduation.

According to the Army's own policies for the new program, "under no circumstances will any [recruiter] threaten, coerce, manipulate, or intimidate future soldiers, nor may they obstruct separation requests... At no time will any [recruiter] tell a Delayed Entry Program member he or she must go in the Army or he or she will go to jail."

So when Eric Gonzalez and Eric Martinez, two high school friends in Texas who signed a Delayed Entry contract, were told they'd go to jail if they didn't join the Army, they realized something wasn't right. They came up with a plan to tape record the recruiter's illegal and dishonest claims, then leak it to the press.

Here's an excerpt of what Irving was told after repeatedly explaining he wanted to go to college instead of joining the army:

"You want to go to school? You will not get no loans, because all college loans are federal and government loans--so you'll be black barred from that. As soon as you get pulled over for a speeding ticket, they're gonna see you're a deserter, they're going to apprehend you, take you to jail.

"So guess what? All that lovey-dovey 'I wanna go to college' and all that? Guess what? You just threw it out the window, because you just screwed your life."

So how would you know if a military recruiter was lying to you? And even if you did know they were lying, whom would you go to? Who could you tell?

Worse yet, how many teenagers are in Iraq and Afghanistan right now because they were told they didn't have a choice?

To take action on this issue visit: http://www.notevenone.org/takeaction.html

Jeremy Bearer-Friend currently serves on the editorial board of the Street Sheet newspaper in San Francisco, a homeless advocacy paper that provides a hard earned income to over 230 low income and homeless vendors. Over the past four years, he has helped organize against prisons through the SF Coalition on Homelessness and Direct Action for Rights and Equality. His writing has been blogged by raceandmedia.com and feministing.com