The speaking tour below is a project of March Forward!, an organization of anti-war veterans and active-duty service members. March Forward! is an affiliate organization of the ANSWER Coalition. We urge you to make a donation to March Forward!

March Forward! on high school speaking tour to fight military recruitment

Countering the lies of the Pentagon to save lives and disrupt the war machine

Dear ,

This week, Iraq war veterans and March Forward! members Ethan McCord and myself are on a speaking tour to visit scores of  working-class high schools in southern California to give students the truth about U.S. military service and the criminality of the wars abroad.

Help us carry out this important work by making an urgently-needed donation by clicking here.

Veterans know too-well the clichéd statement we hear from new recruits as soon as we enter the military: “My recruiter lied to me.”

Military recruiters specifically target poor and oppressed communities with promises of a better life to lure youth into the military. With youth unemployment at a staggering rate and the cost of college tuition skyrocketing, recruiters are able to exploit economic hardship to convince those in need of jobs, health care and education to fight and die in Wall Street’s wars for profit and empire.

March Forward! is committed to building a fighting movement of active-duty troops and veterans against the U.S. war machine and for GI rights; but we also recognize the massive number of youth and dispossessed workers being funneled into the military to be killed, maimed, traumatized, and used as tools for the super-rich against our brothers and sisters around the world. We understand our obligation to counter the lies of the Pentagon’s military recruiters to both prevent more young people from being used as cannon fodder, and to make it as difficult as possible for the U.S. military to carry out its mission.

Please consider making a donation to this cause—every dollar counts.

This is why we are spending a week of intensive counter-recruitment. California has by far the most number of U.S. troops killed and wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. We will reach many hundreds of poor and working-class students this week with the truth.   

We have been engaged in counter-recruitment work since our founding. We have also begun holding workshops for high school and college students, forming counter-recruitment groups to confront recruiters and kick them off of their campuses. With your help, we can step-up our efforts in counter-recruitment, as well as our work building resistance to the wars within the ranks of the military and in the streets here at home.

Sincerely,

Michael Prysner
Co-founder, March Forward!