I Am Not Your Soldier Tour 2008-2009

  To
socially conscious educators and students:

 Bring the

“I Am Not Your Soldier” Tour

to
your school!

   Contact tour manager for dates beginning January 2009   Emma Kaplan  347 385 2195 

What?

A
nationwide effort, beginning November 2008, to reach high school students with
the truth about military recruiters and the wars that they are recruiting for,
and give them the arguments and tools to talk to their peers.  We are looking for teachers and students to
help arrange classroom presentations and school assemblies which would include:

• a short presentation by a
  World Can’t Wait youth organizer and either an Iraq/Afghanistan war veteran
  or a military family member;
• an open discussion;
• a 10-minute video clip of
  testimony by Iraq
  veterans from the March 2008 Winter Soldier hearings about what they
  witnessed and perpetrated –

• footage of high school
  students protesting military recruiters. 
• a short survey that students
  would take to give us all a sense of what they think.

Why? 

Over 1 million
Iraqis have been killed, according to John Hopkins
University, 2006 and over
4 million have been forced to flee their homes.  Almost 5,000 US military have been killed in
combat; with tens of thousands of grave injuries.  Both presidential candidates are promising to
escalate the war in Afghanistan,
and US Special Forces have recently killed civilians in Pakistan and Syria.  Iran and other countries are
projected targets of the global War on Terror begun by the Bush administration.  The war crime of torture is being carried out
by U.S.
forces under the direction of the highest levels of government.

Both Senators
McCain and Obama promised to increase active duty US military by around 90,000
troops. Where are they going to get these troops to fight all this?  They
are in high school now.

Parents
and students tell us that in high schools across the U.S. military recruiters are given
free reign to prey on the youth.  They
pull up in their hummers, walk right into classrooms and give presentations
that make war seem like a video game. 
They stalk students at school and at home, making false promises and
even (as has been documented recently on Democracy
Now!) threatening students with jail time if they decide not to
enlist.  In particular they target poor and
rural youth, inner city youth of color and immigrant youth (with promises of
citizenship).  In fact, all this is
mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act which requires high schools to give
students” personal information over to the military.

People recruited into the U.S. military know
about the lies recruiters told them about the job skills training and education
benefits that enlistees will never receive. 
Recruiters don’t tell  youth about
the one third of female GI’s that report being raped while in the service, or
the post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide rates of the returning
veterans.  The U.S. armed services will spend over
$5 billion dollars in 2008 for recruiting. 
According to the ACLU, “The U.S. military’s recruitment
policies, practices, and strategies explicitly target students under 17 for
recruitment activities on high school campuses.”

But what
this tour aims to expose is even bigger. 
What are youth being
recruiting to do?  Is the U.S. military
of 2008 spreading freedom and democracy? 
What does it mean to be “patriotic” and “support the troops”?  How can you prioritize the lives of people in
one country, or the world?  Is the
military the place to be if you”re looking to “have an experience,” “get some
discipline and structure,” “give your life a purpose,”?  Or is joining the military harmful to oneself
and to people throughout the world?

These are
the questions the tour will explore with high school students.  We want to learn from the students and we
know we will have many different points of view in the audience.  We look forward to stirring up some debate
which all too often gets doesn’t happen, in the name of being “balanced” and
avoiding controversy.

If you
find this situation unacceptable and think that schools should be places of
learning and not cheap labor depots for the U.S. military, then help bring this
tour to your school!  Help bring this
tour to your campus and be part of awakening the consciousness and activism of
a new generation struggling to figure out what to do with their lives.

For more
info or to set up a classroom presentation, school assembly, or debate at your
school, contact us at: 

youth_students@worldcantwait.org or call Emma
Kaplan at 347 385 2195