Brian Willson

MILITARY RECRUITERS SHOULD BE BANNED FROM CAMPUSES, PROSECUTED FOR ASSAULT AND BATTERY, AND SUED FOR VIOLATING CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS by S. Brian Willson, October 31, 2005

Recent police assaults on students exercising their first amendment rights protesting activities of military recruiters on a number of U.S. campuses are outrageous. Now at Kent State recruiters have assaulted students exercising those same Constitutional rights.

There are substantial reports of military recruiters, including those in Ohio, breaking enlistment rules; falsifying documents; using deception, threats and coercion; making false promises; concealing police records; etc. In their efforts to seek enlistees to participate in grotesquely unlawful and increasingly unpopular wars, recruiters have admitted “that no one wants to join,” requiring them to “play fast and loose with the rules,” and that if they “produce, …all is good.” Recruiters acknowledge that punishment for their unethical and unlawful behaviors is “unlikely” even though the number investigated last year rose to nearly one in five Army recruiters. (New York Times, May 3, 2005, “Army Recruiters Say They Feel Pressure to Bend Rules”). Now recruiters are assaulting students as well!

Therefore, not only the assaulting police must be prosecuted for violating prohibitions on assault and battery, and sued for violating citizen’s Constitutional rights, but now the recruiters must be prosecuted and sued as well.

In fact the recruiters are accessories to commission of war crimes and participate in a conspiracy with superiors to meet enlistment quotas (1) without regard to telling the truth, (2) through uttering numerous misrepresentations, and (3) perpetuating unwanted harassment.

Military recruiter’s behavior has become so egregious that here in Arcata, CA we are contemplating an ordinance that prohibits military recruitment activities within the city. Recruiters who violate their own rules, and seek young people who likely will be ordered to participate in illegal (and therefore unconstitutional) wars and occupations, do not deserve, nor should they be allowed, to continue such unlawful behavior.

S. Brian Willson, J.D., LL.D.
Member, coordinating Committee, Humboldt Bay Veterans For Peace, Arcata, CA;
Commissioner, Arcata City Nuclear Free Zone and Peace Commission