Combatting Military Recruitment During the Iran War

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FEATURING OREN ROBINSON - More than a dozen US Armed Forces have died in the course of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran. A man who campaigned against endless wars, has rebranded the Defense Department as the Department of War, and has embroiled the nation in a conflict that seems to have had little cause for provocation, and no end date in sight. What does this mean for young people who, each year are lured to join the military at recruitment events and centers on and near school campuses? 

Oren Robinson is Program Coordinator with Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (Project YANO), and as a steering committee member of National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY). They are also a teaching artist studying militarism, technology, gender and economic justice. Oren spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about efforts to counter recruitment efforts in light of the Iran war.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: So, let's first get your reflection on the fact that we have a president who campaigned to end wars, because it turns out that wars are sort of uniformly not popular on both sides of the spectrum, and changed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Does that framing, or did that framing, and the fact that we are in this new war, worry you as somebody who combats military recruitment of young people? 

Oren Robinson: Well, again, thanks for having us. We work in public schools and unfortunately, many of our volunteer veterans who come into classrooms with us to speak with students and talk about their real experiences to balance the recruiter's sales pitch will often mention the joke that regardless of the president, we're going to war. 

So really, even though the name has changed, the real risk of hyper-militarization of our schools has always been there, and we do see these new threats as a very startling new advent. And that's why there's a lot of action actually that's happening just this past year, that we haven't seen this type of anti-militarism in maybe a generation or more.