Assignment 16- Katie Taylor

Military Recruitment In High Schools

Annotated Bibliography

Katie Taylor

Corcione, Adryan. “Why Poor Youth Are Targeted for Military Recruitment.” Teen Vogue, Teen Vogue, 29 Jan. 2019, www.teenvogue.com/story/the-military-targets-youth-for-recruitment. 

This source, published by Teen Vogue, entails yet another look into the process of high school military recruitment. Corcione includes statistics that highlight that students from poorer communities are more likely to be targeted and recruited by the military. Of course, the military does provide many less fortunate people with a college education. The issue is, however, how recruiters make the military seem like the only option to have a bright future. Perhaps the issue is the lack of other opportunities to access higher education. 

Again, this source has very little bias. It states facts and statistics, and points out faults in the way recruiters target teenagers. The purpose was to raise awareness of this issue to the general public, as it was published in Teen Vogue, a non-academic magazine. Corcione is a journalist who has been published in various magazines. They do not have a particular focus, but because Teen Vogue is not an academic magazine and Corcione was citing proven statistics from other sources, this article is still reliable.

Corcione’s article can be best used to bring up another downside to teenage military recruitment. The military (and the government, really, but that’s for another paper) trap poor students into joining the military by making it one of the only ways to pay for higher education. They therefore can instill a lot of psychological damage into these less fortunate students by deploying them to fight a war they have no involvement in.

Gehring, John. “Recruiting in Schools, A Priority for Military, Is Targeted by Critics.” Education Week, vol. 24, no. 41, June 2005, p. 6. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid,cpid,url&custid=s1176192&db=a9h&AN=17658001.

In Gehring’s article, many faults in the high school military recruitment system are highlighted. It is argued that because the recruiters give the young students such a false, rosy expectation of what the military will be like, they unfairly prey on teens, especially those from low-income houses who otherwise couldn’t pay for their college education. In an expose cited in the article, it was found that recruiters would even go as far as participating in recruitment fraud to gain an extra body in the military. 

Gehring does not display much bias against the high school military recruiters. He doesn’t focus much on the positives to this program, such as being able to fund many teens’ college educations, or how the military develops solid social skills and discipline. Instead, he is simply reporting on issues many schools are facing with this system. Gehring himself is a Huffington Post contributor who, in the time the article was published, worked for Education Week. He holds degrees in sociology and journalism, which provides him plenty of merit to report on this topic. 

The article itself doesn’t show many statistics, but rather informs the audience of the general gist of the issue presented. It serves, in a sense, to provide background information to the reader. I will use this as such, to form a foundation for my writing on this issue. 

Hagopian, Amy, and Kathy Barker. “Should we end military recruiting in high schools as a matter of child protection and public health?.” American journal of public health vol. 101,1 (2011): 19-23. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2009.183418

This study into high school military recruitment focuses more on future physical and mental health risks of joining the military right out of high school. This provides reason for possible elimination of high school recruitment all together. Through statistics like stating how “younger soldiers had 30% to 60% more substance abuse disorders than did older soldiers.” 

Hagopian and Barker do not show much bias in this piece. Rather, they report on the current situation in schools across the country. They state facts and statistics, rather than asserting their own opinions. Hagopian and Barker themselves hold PhDs in public health. Hagopian is a public health professor at the University of Washington, and Barker is a science writer and is on the PTA at the school examined in the article. Therefore, they both are very knowledgeable in this field and can be trusted. 

This article can be used in my writing by showing just how detrimental the effects of being preyed on by recruiters can have on a young adult. I will use this to show that this is a serious problem, and will use the stats to substantiate my claims. 

Merrow, John. “Army Recruiters: ‘Counseling’ High Schoolers to DEATH.” Education Digest, vol. 70, no. 6, Feb. 2005, pp. 4–7. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid,cpid,url&custid=s1176192&db=a9h&AN=16094954.

John Merrow’s opinion piece blatantly calls out military recruiters in high schools. Merrow provides student testimony of how it makes them uncomfortable. He also includes quotes from the recruiters themselves, who market shooting guns and setting off explosions as a fun perk of joining the military. In this article is also the various misinformation the recruiters spread about life in the military, such as how enjoyable it is to everyone. Merrow also notes how no one truly knows how effective the military’s recruitment campaign is, as they don’t collect data on how many recruits actually follow through and enlist. Perhaps the enlistee saw it as a last resort rather than a career opportunity like the recruiters promised. 

Merrow himself is very biased against high school recruitment. Merrow is an American broadcast journalist who dedicated his career towards reporting educational issues, as well as hosting a program called The Merrow Report on PBS. He sees military recruitment on young teens as an evil practice. He uses various interviews from recruiters and students at one school to show the both points of view on recruitment. He also utilizes statistics from the government to study the funding of recruitment programs. 

This source will help me form an argument that there are solid reasons as to why recruitment of teens is a problem. With this opinion piece, I can know what many people are feeling on this topic.

Wright, Eli. “Poverty Draft.” Justseeds.org, Mar. 2018, justseeds.org/graphic/poverty-draft/. 

Eli Wright’s work, “Poverty Draft” shows a black and white drawing of a skeleton in military uniform, holding a sign that reads, “I just wanted to go to college,” and under that, a line of text states, “End the poverty draft- stop the war economy.” This piece of art symbolizes the struggles and trauma (and even death) poor enlistees go through as part of the military just to pay for college. It begs the viewer to act against the poverty draft, or essentially preying on poor young students who want to go to college. 

This source is obviously not academic, as it is one’s expression of their feelings on the poverty draft through art. However, this work can serve the purpose of detailing one’s experience with being a victim of the poverty draft and can show the viewer just how serious it is. Wright himself bases his artwork off of his experiences in the US Army. Justseeds, the site his artwork is available on, is a co-op of artists dedicated to spreading awareness of social, political, and environmental issues through art. 

This piece can be used to provide testimony of one’s own experience of being in the poverty draft. I will use this to highlight the experiences of veterans themselves, those who felt like joining the military was necessary to access the future they wanted. This can be used as a solid backup as to why the military’s preying on young and/or poor students can have serious detrimental effects.