Forty Percent (40%) of JROTC Graduates Join Military

Mother Jones Magazine - David Goodman - January/February 2002 Issue

Whatever its track record in the classroom, JROTC certainly has no problem turning students into soldiers. Defense Department figures show that approximately 40 percent of those who graduate from JROTC eventually join the military.

          At a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee in February 2000, then-Defense Secretary William Cohen told represen-tatives that JROTC is "one of the best recruiting devices that we could have." The committee was impressed. "If that's the case," suggested then-Chairman Norman Sisisky (D-Va.), why not have jrotc programs in "as many places as you can?"

Pentagon Recruiters Target African-American And Latino Kids 

November 30, 2008 - by Sherwood Ross  opednews.com

Nationally, JROTC programs are offered in 18% of high schools. They have enrolled  273,000 “cadets,” of whom 45% typically enlist. According to the National Priorities Project, of the top 50 high schools ranked by the number of Black recruits, 94% have a JROTC program; similarly, for the top 50 high schools ranked by number of Hispanic recruits, 86% have JROTC.   

          The Army’s “School Recruiting Program Handbook,” ACLU says, advises recruiters to  participate in Hispanic Heritage and Black History Month activities. And through its Joint Advertising Market Research & Studies database(JAMRS), the Pentagon collects information on 16-year-olds in the eleventh grade, in violation of the U.S. agreement, ratified by the Senate,  not to recruit those under age 17. That agreement is Article 3 of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

November 26, 2008 - KPFK Arlene Inouye on JROTC

Latino Youth and the Poverty Draft - Jorge Mariscal

November 2004 - Jorge Mariscal - politicalaffairs.net

Military recruiters are well aware that the economic situation for Latino youth is relatively bleak and have targeted Latino communities as one of the primary objectives for their efforts in coming decades. In the document "Strategic Partnership Plan for 2002-2007" written by the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, the architects of what we might call "niche recruiting" state: "The Hispanic population is the fastest growing demographic in the United States and is projected to become 25% of the U.S. population by the year 2025." The Plan goes on to explain: "Priority areas [for recruitment] are designated primarily as the cross section of weak labor opportunities and college-age population as determined by both [the] general and Hispanic population." Not surprisingly, the top two recruiting batallion areas according to the Plan are Los Angeles and San Antonio.