No other viable option..

by Isabel Estrada/PNN youth in the media intern

"Now, number one, look behind you.  Now, without pushing, running, or shoving, walk towards the door." The drill sergeant's voice is oppressively slow and mocking as he says these words to the rows of girls and boys.  They start out with fear in their eyes until they have to close them.  They seem to be choking.  They are drooling on themselves and waving their hands around frantically.  Most of them are crying.  They are being gassed in the so-called "gas chamber" as a part of basic training, otherwise known as boot camp. The drill sergeants are laughing and commenting on how people look as they repeat the phrase for every row of ten kids.  As one girl, who is obviously having a much worse time than the others, jumps up and down to relieve herself of the burning and stinging feeling caused by the gas penetrating her pores, another sergeant's voice chimes in to say, "Get that dance going."  When the girls start to leave before he is done with his little speech, he makes them go back and then starts the whole speech over again, this time talking twice as slow.  If a person does run out the door, they are made to go through the whole process again.  This video is the army's way of congratulating Mari on her completion of boot camp.  I had to stop it there.  

"A better way of life." According to the many recruitment officers that visited her various high schools in Texas, this was what joining the Armed Forces would provide for Mari.  The high school that she attended for the longest period of time was LaMarque, where most of the kids were poor and African-American. "Our school looked like a cemetery," she said.  At first I was surprised to find out that Mari did not even hear about the option of going to college the entire time she was there. At my arts high school it seemed as though most of us were basically ushered by teachers and the college counselor right into college, as if there were no other choice.  But then again, my school is in San Francisco and attended mostly by middle class kids, I think the majority of whom were white.  Mari's counselors, on the other hand, acted as though the army was the only option.  Mari couldn't even choose to get a job. In order to get a job in Texas, she would need a car as everything is very spread out.  But in order to get a car, she would have needed a job.  Where Mari lived, they did not even have public transportation.

So at 17, seeing no other viable option, Mari joined the army.  She also figured that along with having housing and food, she would be able to get money for college.  As it turned out, the requirements for acquiring college money through the Montgomery GI Bill are so stringent that she wasn't even able to get any. Because she was unaccustomed to regular exercise before joining the army, where she was forced to participate in strenuous workouts every day, Mari immediately began to have health problems. Luckily for her, she was discharged after about 6 months.   

As far as I know, Indy Media (sf.indymedia.org) has been the only organization to print an article about the bill H.R. 3598 that proposes to reinstate the draft.  H.R 3598, the Universal Military Training and Service Act of 2001, was introduced on December 20th, 2001 by Republicans Nick Smith of Michigan and Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania.  The bill would require all men between the ages of 18 and 22, whether citizens or residents of the United States, including Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam, to be inducted into the armed services and to receive military training and education for a period of six months to a year.  The basic training is to be "established by the Secretary [of defense]" and "specialty training [is provided] as the Secretary concerned considers appropriate."

The census predicts that this would include about 9 million men.  Exemptions would be granted for those with "extreme hardship" (undefined, but sons of the rich and powerful probably fit in here somewhere) and mental or physical disabilities at the discretion of local draft boards.  Conscientious objectors would still be inducted, only their training would not include instruction in combat. High school dropouts would get an additional 6 months and help to receive their diploma.  Women would be authorized to volunteer.

This would be a bunch of sexually frustrated boys trying to discover their manhood, thrown together to learn how to maintain the United States' oppressive world order.  It sounds like Lord of the Flies, right wing reactionary style.  I don't envy the sweet boys from my San Francisco art school.  However, maybe they would be the lucky ones, at least they would know that this is just another annoying semi-imprisonment to deal with, not "a better way of life."

When my friend Aaron Perlstein, a student at Humboldt University, heard about this new proposal, he said that if he knew he wouldn't have to fight in a war, he could probably deal with six months to a year of military training.  However, as far as the prospect of having to fight, this was his response: "No one consulted me in the decision to kill thousands and thousands of Afghani people. Why should they expect me to fight their war? The politicians started the war; they can go over there and fight it.  Damn it, I'm just trying to get an education, and I really don't need to be programmed into a fighting machine."