There’s been so much good work conducted, researched, and recorded to provide alternatives to military recruitment. Let’s refer to our friends over at NNOMY, the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth and Before Enlisting. Both NNOMY and Before Enlisting have put together amazing resources, speaker’s bureaus for classroom presentations (via zoom and in person), step-by-step how to materials on preparing to work with your community schools, and more. NNOMY has put together a concise directory of resources for students, activists, teachers, veterans, and active duty personnel.

We don’t want you to have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to working with schools in your communities. There’s no hard and fast rules about doing this work, but these are some tried and observed resources for helping you and like-minded members of your community organize/prepare to challenge military recruiters. You’ll find information about opting out, taking on ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) testing, and tips for successfully engaging students, faculty and school boards. Information is powerful stuff! Start off with this ten minute video about why Gen Z is rejecting the US Military.

Let’s continue to make it difficult to recruit young people by providing informed content about our veteran experiences, alternatives to militarism, and show exactly where defense spending goes.