How to say No

The Nation has put together a resource list to counter the military's recruitment efforts. I saw this and it reminded me of an email I got from my cohort Tigerwolf:

You may not know it, but under a little known provision of No Child Left Behind, public high schools must hand over personal information about students -- including minors -- to local military recruiters, or risk losing federal education funding. I think it's a real invasion of family privacy and local school control. The good news is that I just found some great
information and a useful online tool that makes it easy to "opt out" our children from these lists. Just go to Leave my child alone.org...

Sincerely,

Tigerwolf

P.S.

Regardless of how you may feel about our current war, or military service, I thought it was important to share this information. Most of us think of "No child left behind" as just an educational improvement policy. Very few people know that there are provisions at the federal level that automatically list every child in high school as possible recruits for the military. That information is then forwarded to recruiters - without parent knowledge or consent. Recruiters don't just set up tables at the lunch room and talk to students who display an interest as they did when I signed up. No, now they have your child's name, number, and address. The only way to keep your child off the list is to "opt out". Not all school systems make this clear. I received an "opt out" notice from my daughter's school. The first day of High School with about 16 other forms for me to sign. There was no assembly so that parent's could ask questions. There was nothing on the paper to draw attention to the importance of this subject. It was handed to my child by a teacher, so IF SHE HAD LOST IT I WOULD HAVE NEVER SEEN IT. Please pass this on to other parents/guardians, and concerned family members. As a veteran and a parent I strongly believe that military service is a choice that each person must come to for themselves. Every child knows that the military is an option. Let them have the choice to persue it , as opposed to being heavily recruited with half truths and occasional outright lies.

Thank you,
Tigerwolf