#53 How to Block Recruitment in Your Community Skill

Level: 🐾 Intermediate

What’s the Tool?

Blocking military recruitment is a time-tested resistance tactic to starve the war machine of fresh bodies. By educating, intervening, and organizing locally, you can stop recruiters from targeting poor, Black, brown, and marginalized kids as cannon fodder for fascist wars.

Why It’s Important:

The U.S. military is not a neutral “career path”—it’s an engine of empire. When economic collapse hits and war propaganda spikes, recruiters swarm schools, job fairs, and neighborhoods, promising “skills” and “stability” while shipping kids to illegal wars. Blocking recruitment is direct action that saves lives and interrupts the fascist war economy.

Real Example:

In 2023, anti-recruitment activists in Los Angeles organized a “No Military in Our Schools” campaign that forced the school board to limit recruiter access. It was led by students and parents—many of them veterans—who were sick of seeing ROTC gear and Army brochures in the lunchroom.

How To Do It:

Step 1: Know Your Local Targets

Check if your school district allows recruiters on campus. Most do. Start there.
Look for military recruitment tables at job fairs, GED programs, malls, and career expos.
Identify local recruiting stations and ROTC programs.

Step 2: Organize the Locals

Form a coalition of students, parents, veterans, and educators.
Create flyers and social media posts with facts about enlistment, PTSD rates, economic conscription, and the reality of military life.
Host workshops with groups like Counter Recruitment Action or Veterans for Peace.

Step 3: Intervene at the Source

Legally, schools that accept federal funds must also allow access to counter-recruitment groups. Demand your equal time.
Set up a table next to recruiters with anti-war zines, testimonies from vets, and info on college/union/peace careers.
Call out schools for violations. You can FOIA their contracts with the military.

Step 4: Push for Policy Changes

Petition your school board to require parental consent before recruiters contact students.
Demand schools adopt “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” data policies that share student info with the military.
Push for school policies banning military marketing in cafeterias and gymnasiums.

Step 5: Protest Publicly

Hold signs outside recruitment centers: “DON’T DIE FOR A BILLIONAIRE’S WAR.”
Chalk sidewalks with anti-war slogans during school visits.
Organize walkouts when the military shows up.

Pro Tip:

If a recruiter ever calls your home or approaches your kid, document it. Then blast it. Most parents don’t know how aggressively the Pentagon harvests their children’s data. Exposure = power.

TL;DR:

Recruitment isn’t a career fair—it’s a pipeline to trauma and imperial violence. Disrupt it. Defund it. Deny them bodies for their wars.

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