Mennonite Central Committee

Quiet Actions from Around the Country

by Melanie Zercher

Reprinted by permission of PeaceSigns, the on-line magazine of the Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA.

 

(Excerpt)

Students for Peace began on the Reedley High School campus two years ago. It is a small club with between 15 and 30 student members that meets every week to look at peace and justice issues or to study regions of the world where conflict exists. Its most visible action to date was the counter-recruitment campaign, in which club members conducted a week-long effort to expose students to information about serving in the military that they would not be likely to hear from a military recruiter, and to present alternatives to military service.

Each spring, Don Friesen reports, recruiters hold a Military Day at Reedley High School, including a variety of competitions and activities for the students. Members of Students for Peace were concerned that the recruiters seemed to have a continuous presence on campus throughout the year, and that recruiters targeted the lower-income Latino students (more than 70% of the Reedley student body is Latino)-students whom society declares to have few options. Students for Peace contacts with other "whiter" schools seemed to indicate that recruiters seldom visited those campuses.

Shortly after Christmas 2004, when Students for Peace members learned that Military Day 2005 was scheduled for May 20, club members began planning their counter action. Club president Francisco Ayala looked for information on the Internet, and found articles about the lies and half-truths told by recruiters and about some of the intimidation tactics and heavy-handed measures used to get signatures and/or force an enlistee to show up for boot camp. Francisco and Albert Silva, a Reedley Peace Center member, located several sources for brochures and pamphlets, and at Students for Peace meetings, members brainstormed ways to get this information to the wider student body.

Over the next months, Students for Peace planned their counter-recruitment strategy. They studied the brochures. They did role-plays of unpleasant encounters that might occur during a counter recruitment action. They had a Peace Corps representative give a program about alternative ways to serve, and they arranged for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps representatives to be present during the "action week" surrounding May 20 (a Friday). There was an article in a Fresno alternative newspaper, that also appeared on the IndyMedia website. Galiana Fajardo, Reedley High School student body president and Students for Peace officer, and Victoria Benavides, another club officer, did an interview on the local Pacifica radio station, KFCF.

Reedley Peace Center helped by buying brochures from the American Friends Service Committee for the students to give out, and by preparing other brochures and pamphlets. A group of Peace Center members also met with the students to help them anticipate what they might face during the week, and scheduled a nonviolence training to be held the weekend before the student action took place.

The Friday evening before the action week, one of the students discovered that Military Day had been cancelled. However, club members decided to get their message out anyway. The following Monday morning, Students for Peace members were out on campus, politely engaging other students verbally and giving brochures to those who would accept them. This continued Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday, AmeriCorps had a table set up at lunchtime presenting alternative service options.

However, Friesen says, "there was an uncustomary absence of recruiters on campus during the first three days, which seemed to dull the enthusiasm of the students. Suddenly on Thursday, half a dozen recruiters showed up and circulated at break and at lunch.

"That seemed to energize the Students for Peace. It seemed that all 20 or 25 club members were on campus at once. Some followed the recruiters around, handing out brochures to groups of students who had just been visited by recruiters. Some gave pamphlets to recruiters and engaged them in dialogue."

On Friday, the day targeted for their major effort, Students for Peace set up three tables with numerous posters, the AmeriCorps recruiter and many students behind and in front of the table, to talk to people and hand out brochures that detailed alternate ways to serve country and humankind or to finance college without the GI Bill, and how to get out of a contract if a student had already been signed by a recruiter.

"The information tables seemed very effective," Friesen says. "One recruiter came to the table and studied some of the posters for a long while and was engaged in conversation with the students."

That evening, 10 of the students came to the Reedley Peace Center meeting and presented a program about how the week had gone, complete with video. "The relationship between Students for Peace and the Reedley Peace Center had by this time become deep and inspiring to Peace Center members," Friesen says. "The students' success may be difficult to measure, but the week was certainly memorable for each participant."

 

For more information about the Reedley Peace Center, Pearl for Peace awards or the Students for Peace counter-recruitment effort, email Don Friesen, .