Adana Austin
Canarsie, Brooklyn
Lafayette High School
Age: 17

I just started my senior year, and I've still never spoken to a college recruiter in my school. But I do see military recruiters all the time; they're the ones talking to us about our futures. Counselors are so overwhelmed that they just hand out CUNY and SUNY applications, and they are not very equipped to provide us with financial aid information or vocational training. And it's not like I already know everything I need to about college--there are a lot of things I still don't know how to do.

A lot of times, kids who graduated from our school will come to our school all dressed up in their uniforms. I didn't realize until recently that they were recruiters; I just thought they were former students who had gone into the army. They'd just be eating lunch with people, talking with people, and I thought they were just there to visit old friends and teachers. But they'd also come to classes and spend the entire time talking about the military.

Often I'm in a classroom when military recruiters come in and bother people. Sometimes they'll meet students in the train station and then walk them all the way to school. Often they'll be right outside school when you exit. I complained to a recruiter once, but he just said, “Well, I have a quota to fill.”

A lot of times people don’t even know when or how to file a complaint if the recruiters do something wrong. I’ve seen the harassment and verbal abuse with my own eyes. Since it happens all the time, people think it’s normal and don’t even try to report it.

At one point last year, I went into our principal’s office and asked her about opt-out forms, because it was going into October and no one had received one yet. The principal told me that they didn't need to have opt-out forms because they didn't allow recruiting. But all these former students were coming to our school dressed up in their uniforms!

I finally got an opt-out form this year, for the first time. I’d never seen one before, didn’t know what it was and never got an explanation from my teacher about it. Also, a lot of my classmates weren't fluent in English and couldn’t understand what the card said.

It just gets annoying. Actually, I realized at some point: this is not just annoying, this is wrong. They even lie to you and say you won't have to go to war if you sign up.

Now I’m a member of the Ya-Ya Network (Youth Activists-Youth Allies). We do mostly counter military work. We’ve gone to a lot of meetings with the New York City Department of Education; I’ve helped run workshops and hand out leaflets to inform other people about alternatives to the military. We’re not against the military; we just want people to know the truth before they decide whether to sign up.