(photo: Rose Mattrey)

Last fall, on a gray, pouring-rain morning, Bruce Beyer (pictured) drove his daughter, Elizabeth, and her friend Jennifer Brown to Hutchinson-Central Technical School. When he picked up Brown, she was decked out in military dress, part of her uniform for the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) class she was enrolled in at school. Glancing in his rearview mirror, Beyer casually asked her how she liked the JROTC program, one his daughter had opted out of at summer orientation. “I hate it,” Brown said. “So why do you do it?” Beyer asked. “Every freshman was forced to enroll,” she answered, and once you were in you couldn’t withdraw from the class.

Her response shocked Beyer, who immediately enlisted the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) to determine the legality of the school’s opt-out arrangement.

As it turned out, every freshman hadn’t been forced to enroll, but they had been automatically enrolled, barring letters from their parents. Jennifer Brown’s mother, upon learning of her participation, had been unsuccessfully trying to remove her from the program for weeks, even talking to the assistant principal. But according to the school’s principal, David Greco, parents were given ample notice of the program and the opt-out policy. “These people were given four opportunities,” Greco said in a phone interview, citing three orientation sessions and a summer-time round of mailings that included students’ completed schedules. “The people who registered the complaint, they had the opportunity...they had letters on file,” Greco continues. “They’re just complaining to complain.”

The NYCLU, however, found that Hutch-Tech’s “opt-out” policy was illegal, according to New York State education law.

“The education law—Section 100, Number 2—says, first and foremost, it’s voluntary on the part of the child, and the child must be 14 years of age,” says John Curr, acting director for the NYCLU’s Western Region, “and then parental permission has to be given.” What Curr is saying is that the school can’t automatically enroll children, it can only enroll those children whose parents specifically ask for them to be enrolled. “We don’t draft freshmen,” Curr continues. “One of the other problems Hutch Tech had was there were plenty of 13-year-olds involved, and that’s not what the law provides. We don’t draft adults, we shouldn’t draft children.”

Hutch Tech has since changed its policy, and sent home letters with all students enrolled in JROTC, which their parents have signed, confirming that they want their child in the program. Bruce Beyer isn’t satisfied with that, though. He and others, including the War Resisters League and the NYCLU, are currently raising some important questions regarding the JROTC program, its motives and its value in our cash-strapped school system.

Though you probably wouldn’t guess it by his appearance, Beyer is the perfect man to lead a charge against militarism in our schools. He is a large man with blunt, rounded features and receding, whitish gray hair. His powerful, calloused hands suggest his woodworking profession. These rough-hewn looks reflect a rebellious, individualistic nature, but at the same time veil a colorful history of clashing with, and eventually running from, the government in the name of peace and pacifism (see sidebar). It’s a strange coincidence that it was Beyer who stumbled across Hutch Tech JROTC’s illegal opt-out policy.

JROTC is by no means a new program. Congress created it in 1916, as part of the National Defense Act, to promote citizenship and responsibility in young people. The program has expanded over the years, though, and currently enrolls more than half a million high school students nationwide. In Buffalo, there are JROTC programs at five schools, providing “leadership training” for approximately 800 students. Hutch Tech, McKinley and South Park all have programs through the Army, while Grover Cleveland has a Marine Corps program and the Navy operates a JROTC program at Seneca Vocational. According to the military, students in JROTC classes learn about leadership, citizenship and life skills, such as financial management, personal hygiene, completing job applications, public speaking, survival and map reading, from retired military personnel. They also wear military uniforms, perform physical training and learn about the armed forces and military history.

“Kids today need something to belong to,” says Lieutenant Colonel James McNicholas, who oversees Buffalo’s JROTC programs, “and we find that kids who participate in Junior ROTC form a bond—you know, the camaraderie, the esprit de corps is unbelievable.” McNicholas’ argues that JROTC can “straighten out” troubled youths, teach them self-discipline and help them set priorities. According to McNicholas, “There’s no recruiting involved, no military training involved, as people have alleged.” He cites higher daily attendance (five or six percentage points) and higher graduation rates (no numbers were given) among JROTC students.

Several Hutch Tech teachers, some of them self-described cynical liberals, have confirmed that children there seem to be better behaved and more attentive than those at city schools without a JROTC influence. But Beyer believes that the JROTC program is a wolf in sheep’s skin. “To me, it’s a Trojan horse in the high schools, and really its sole function there is to get access to young people and recruit them into the military.” Beyer argues that to believe that the Department of Defense simply wants better behaved high school students across the country is naïve and short-sighted. In fact, in a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in 2000, then-Defense Secretary William Cohen called JROTC “one of the best recruiting devices that we could have.” He’s right, too. Approximately 40 percent of all JROTC graduates go on to military service; the percent who go on to college is less than half that. That helps to explain why the Department of Defense shelled out nearly $300 million for JROTC programs in 2004 alone. An Army memorandum from 1999 (Cadet Command Policy memorandum 50, dated March 30, 1999) stated that JROTC’s main objective is “to do everything possible to influence young, impressionable people under [JROTC] control to enlist in the Army.”

The military isn’t necessarily a bad career choice. If there were not a war in Iraq right now, few people would probably even be contesting JROTC’s presence in the schools. But the grim realities of war—a mounting death toll and an increasing incidence of post-traumatic stress—have put a human face on the less glamorous aspects of military service. In times like these, the military’s job is to train warriors to fight wars, not to show them the world or pay their college tuition.

The most important question regarding the JROTC programs in our public schools may be whether or not we can afford them. Our school system is as broke as the city. Buffalo Public Schools has laid off 93 teachers, administrators, librarians (several of whom were restored when the district realized their positions were mandated) and guidance counselors this year amidst a health care dispute. Meanwhile, the district’s JROTC program cost a total of $850,000 this school year, $266,000 of which was reimbursed by the Department of Defense. That means that, this year alone, Buffalo taxpayers spent $584,000 on the JROTC program, an elective course. That money could be used to re-hire eight or nine teachers, with benefits.

At one school board meeting last August, dozens of people were laid off at the same time that several JROTC instructors were hired. That move outraged many people, including school board member Betty Jean Grant. “Those attendance officers and guidance counselors help a lot of children apply for college, a lot of them intervene when there are situations at home, and can help refer families to the appropriate outside agency that can help them in cases of domestic violence, abuse, and similar situations,” Grant says. “So I see them as being a critical component of a child’s overall education, and I took exception when I saw that at the same time we were laying them off, we were bringing in JROTC.”

While other board members made statements agreeing with Grant, when it came down to a vote on the issue, Grant registered the only nay.

If there’s any doubt about the importance of those people who were laid off due to budget shortages, consider the case of Leslie Potempa. She was a guidance counselor at Bennett, until she was laid off in mid-September. Last school year alone, Potempa helped bring in over $1 million in scholarships to that school. Now she’s working temporarily at Futures Academy, leaving only one guidance counselor at Bennett to handle 700-750 students.

Meanwhile, Bruce Beyer and John Curr are continuing their efforts to educate students and parents about JROTC and their rights regarding military recruitment. They spend about one morning a week standing in the winter cold outside of a city high school, distributing opt-out forms and a pamphlet called “No Child Left Unrecruited,” which details student rights with regard to recruiting practices, to students and parents. According to Beyer, the school administrators usually “get pretty upset about it, but since we’re not soliciting anybody to do anything, there’s really not much they can do.” He says that the police usually show up and hassle them a bit, but they really don’t have power to stop them from informing students of their rights.

Curr points out that the people handing out pamphlets aren’t your typical anti-war set, either. “I’m no dyed-in-the-wool peacenik by a long shot,” he says. “I’m a disabled combat veteran, I did 14 years [of military service], including the first Gulf War.” Several pamphleteers are also from Veterans for Peace Chapter 128, part of a nationwide anti-war group. So far they’ve managed to pass out about 5,200 pamphlets at several city schools, including Hutch Tech, McKinley, Bennett, South Park, Emerson, Grover Cleveland and City Honors, as well as Amherst High School. Beyer says that they’ve received some calls from concerned parents, and that most responses to their work have been positive. Overall, though, Beyer says that, “Quite honestly, it seems as if Buffalo parents aren’t particularly upset about the issue, and that’s really sad.”

For now, though, they continue their solitary work, trying to start a public dialogue about the pros and cons of JROTC.

To respond to this article, send e-mail to editorial@artvoice.com.