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LEAD-IN BY HOST: Local communities are once again taking alook at local high school JROTC programs. KPFT's Valerie Torres has more. STORY: Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp programs are offered at 25 high schools in the Houston Independent School District. The program is advertised as teaching young people leadership skills, citizenship and teamwork. Instructors are not certified teachers, but retired military officers. The program is optional and offered at some public high schools as an elective. The federal government pays for equipment and uniforms for students, but the school must provide the classroom and pay a portion of instructor's salaries. Director of JROTC programs for the district, Colonel Holland Bynum, says his programs are the most distinguished and include about 5,000 students. "The instructors are all from all services. All of them have the same mission, to motivate young people to be better citizens." A teacher at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts, who is a member of Houston Non-Violent Action, Bob Henschen, disagrees. "The military and JROTC sounds very good which is why it's very attractive to school districts, especially in poorer neighborhoods and urban school districts like Houston. But there are a lot of problems with the idea of having the military solve our problems, whether it's discipline, whether it's money for college, and to allow them to have a control over a part of the education of our young people is something we should take very seriously and be very critical of. Because what we're talking about is allowing the military to take over a good part of the education of a lot of the young people in the Houston area." JROTC instructor, First Sergeant Pete Carrion, says the program's curriculum provides life skills and college opportunities in addition to a unifying experience among peers at school. "All young people, they want to be part of an organization they all want to be a part so they look at ROTC which is designed for anybody and everybody. Our business is not to say learn how to fire a weapon and let's go visit some country and overthrow their government." Bynum and Carrion say the program is not about military recruitment, but Air Force recruiter for [the] Friendswood area, Kenneth Caldwell, says it is. "That program is designed to help train and or prepare an individual who is wanting to go into the armed forces from high school and the way that happens is that person receives advance training in leadership laboratory. They'll be afforded the opportunity to have advance rank and income enlisting with the armed forces and when it comes to the selection process for the Air Force academy or any of our major armed forces colleges, that will help, yes." Third World Outreach coordinator for the group Conscientious Objector, Mario Hardy-Ramirez says JROTC manipulates kids at an early age into believing military propaganda for recruitment purposes. "It's not an officer training program, what it is, it's a way to recruit young people into the lowest levels of the military." Christopher White is a high school student and corps commander of the armed drill team at Jack Yates high school. White says he enjoys the program. "I think after I get out of JROTC, I'm going to go to college and do senior ROTC and I want to study because I want to be a communications engineer. Because I didn't think the army had much of anything to offer to people until I was enlightened by my instructors, I am interested in joining; I don't know what branch yet." Henschen, who also created Houston Committee for Youth and Non-Military Opportunities says there is a need for programs similar to JROTC. However, he argues, it shouldn't be influenced by the military. "Parents need to work on programs that give people vocational activities outside of school where they can pursue career possibilities, so that they won't be dependent on people who are going to get them to sign up, possibly to go to war, in order to have a good high school education." Meanwhile, Colonel Bynam says two new schools in HISD have added JROTC programs to their curricula.
Valarie Torres, KPFT News, Houston
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