Does Citizen Activism Work? I Must Wait and See

The phone rang about three weeks ago. The high school nurse was calling me to say that my son had been injured in a physical education class. He was in a lot of pain and his ankle was swelling badly. She asked that I pick him up right away.

Not an unusual occurrence for a family. As the high school principal would tell me later, “Kids get injured in P.E. class all the time.” Hmmm. But let that go for now.

What made this call unusual was the nurse’s casual admission that the class had been run by the National Guard, which had brought in an inflatable obstacle course for the kids to attempt that day.

“Just a minute,” I said. “Are you saying that the military was teaching my son’s P.E. class today?”

“Well,” the nurse said. And then there was a hesitation. I couldn’t really call it a pause. Just time enough for her to take in that my tone revealed I was less than happy to hear this information. Then she continued, “ They were all there.” By that I guessed she meant that both high school teachers and the National Guard were in the gym, but I didn’t pursue it at that point. I thanked her for calling and said I would be right over to pick up my son.

When I got to the nurse’s office, my son’s ankle and foot were indeed badly swollen. His pain was so severe that we had to get him to my car in a wheelchair.

Finally, my son and I were in the car and he could describe to me what happened. He owed his injury to an exercise designed by the National Guard.

The Guard arrived the day before to set up a chin-up bar and an inflatable obstacle course. Each day for three days the Guard was given the opportunity to put all P.E. students through the experience. My son’s understanding was that students were given the choice to sit out the exercise but would lose class points for doing so. I learned later that only some P.E. teachers docked points, but at the time my son was in the class he believed that his grade would suffer if he didn’t attempt the course.

In order to participate, the Guard said the students were supposed to be 16 and they were required to sign a waiver before they were allowed on the course. My curious young man wisely asked for a copy of the document he had been asked to sign. In spite of a tall stack of forms at his elbow, the Guard representative said he didn’t have enough forms to provide my son with a copy. Then my son, who had quickly read the waiver, asked if he should sign it. He is only thirteen. The Guard replied, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Just sign it.” And he signed.

Then he learned that in order to attempt the obstacle course, students were required to demonstrate some degree of fitness by accomplishing three chin-ups. Now, admittedly, our family is not sports-minded, but my son gave it a go. His injury resulted almost immediately.

The Guard’s chin-up bar, a portable exercise station, had a metal contraption serving as its stand. The long metal boxes on the floor at either side of the unit were not padded. And the students, who were about to attempt an inflatable obstacle course, had been required to remove their athletic shoes. My son was in stocking feet when he dropped from the chin-up bar and landed his full weight through his right foot on the metal edge of the supporting frame. Severe pain commenced within about fifteen minutes at which time he hobbled to the nurse.

I also learned that the Guard members were freely sharing with students that they couldn’t recruit this freshman class, but would return in their junior and senior years to sign up interested students. In other words, the Guard was being permitted to recruit new members while supposedly teaching a P.E. class at the local public high school.

The military already has a mostly omnipresent recruiting table in the high school cafeteria where interested students can talk with recruiters about how to enlist.

But this P.E. experience was very different than a recruiting table where students choose to approach—or not. In the P.E. class, the Guard had access to all high school students enrolled in P.E. this semester. And while the experience was described as a fun activity for the students, I immediately wondered why this was happening during a regular class period.

I have written a letter to the school principal, his teachers, the school district superintendent, and the school board describing his day in P.E. and my unhappiness that the Guard would be running such a class in the middle of the school day.

Initially, and based on the quick response from the high school principal, I believed my questions and objections were being taken pretty seriously. The principal claimed he did not know about the waiver and that if any waiver was to be signed the parents should have been signing it. In a second call, he claimed that the plan had been to send waivers to parents but that the Guard had run out of time. This back-peddling was my first red flag that the issues I’d raised were going to be down-played.

In the principal’s first call to me, he also insisted that the Guard was not recruiting during the class, and that what my son heard was just one guard’s choice to communicate such information. This explanation seemed like red flag number two.

The principal seemed persuaded by Guard personnel that the obstacle course was not a recruiting tool. I remained unconvinced of that and went on line to see what I could find.

On the web I found countless newspaper articles from across the country dutifully written by local reporters who describe in highly favorable language how much fun the obstacle course is. If they provide quotes from anyone, they are the words of National Guard personnel, students who choose to participate, or P.E. teachers clearly in favor of the event. None of these articles interview the students who choose to sit out the exercise.

The articles also often mention that the obstacle course is a recruiting tool for the National Guard. One such article from the Decatur Herald Review was headlined, “National Guard Visit to Eisenhower Presents Option, Not Pressure.” http://herald-review.com/news/local/national-guard-visit-to-eisenhower-presents-option-not-pressure/article_95bb8e5a-579a-11e1-bef3-001871e3ce6c.html. 

One article from the Vermont Guardian bore the title, “Prop or Propaganda? Guard Recruitment Effort Irks Parents.”  http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/122006/Recruit.shtml. Apparently, some parents in Vermont are insisting that the military keep recruitment out of the classroom.

I also found an example of a waiver used by the Montana National Guard. That form requires a parent’s signature if the student is under 18 years of age. http://senior.billings.k12.mt.us/senior/forms/National_Guard_Obstacle_Permission_form.pdf.

What I found on line clearly indicated that the word is out across the country that the obstacle course is a recruiting tool.

This information I shared with the principal and my son’s teachers the day after a second visit to an orthopedic specialist determined that his foot was broken.

The school nurse and one of my son's teachers answered my second letter. There has been no call from the principal this time. I will have to wait, I guess, to see if the National Guard is invited to the high school next year.

The New York Times reported on September 5, 2012 that our country’s poor economic situation continues to motivate young people to enlist. The U.S. Census reports that in 2010 406 active duty personnel were killed due to accidents, while 455 died as a result of hostile action. http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/12statab/defense.pdf. Interesting, isn’t it, that the military’s approach to safety (or the lack of it) is as likely to kill an enlisted man or woman as is an enemy attack? A National Public Radio report on January 14, 2013 notes that while the number of military deaths in Afghanistan in 2012 totaled 295, “the number of suicide deaths in the U.S. military surged to a record 349 last year.” http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/14/169364733/u-s-militarys-suicide-rate-surpassed-combat-deaths-in-2012. The statistic seems to suggest enlisted personnel in growing numbers find their situations so desperate that they take their lives. Finally, the National Institute of Health reports the Department of Veterans Affairs own statistics: that post-traumatic stress disorder (what was once called ‘shell-shocked’ in WWI) affects 31% of Vietnam veterans, 10% of Gulf War (Desert Storm) veterans, 11% of veterans of the conflict in Afghanistan, and 20% of Iraqi war veterans. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml.

Perhaps, the National Guard or other branches of the military should be allowed to recruit during the lunch hour. But at the next table should be an informational sheet detailing the risks the students will incur if they choose to sign up. I also hope responsible school administrators will bring in other ‘recruiters’ who will offer students an alternative to military service, the Job Corp, the Peace Corp., and an aggressive search for scholarship and financial aid opportunities so students can go to trade school or college.

My opinion on the current U.S. military is shared by a growing number of veterans. Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW) opens its web page with the following: IVAW Members are speaking out about their experiences in the military. They are shedding light on the stigma around mental health care, the economic factors that motivated their enlistment and the questionable methods of waging war in our current era.” http://www.ivaw.org/.  Impressionable young people should not be approached by the military during high school classes. And if recruiters are allowed into high schools, messages like those provided by IVAW should stand shoulder to shoulder with military recruiters and their literature or obstacle courses.

My son is one young man who was mildly injured thanks to a National Guard obstacle course, but he is perhaps emblematic of what can happen when the military, focused more on recruiting than on safety, designs an approach to training and/or service. Students beware.