David Michael Miller
In a rare bipartisan policy victory, President Trump signed a bill into law raising the nationwide age to buy e-cigarettes and cigarettes to 21. While the bill could have been better, it reflects a continuing acceptance of what the science has been telling us for a long time —teenagers, including 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds, are in a stage of late adolescence. Their brains are still developing and they are making choices without considering the long-term consequences of their actions.
The vast majority of Americans now agree that 18-year-olds are too young to make hasty decisions that will have long-term impacts on their health and well-being. But if we agree about this when it comes to the tobacco industry, why don’t we have similar concerns when 18-year-olds are recruited by another behemoth: the military. I was thinking about this as Washington whiplashed from raising the age for tobacco sales to ratcheting up tensions with Iran. The president was signing a bill to protect youth, while at the same time sending out tweets putting young soldiers in the line of fire.
“There is plenty of evidence that 18 is too young of an age to make an accurate risk assessment,” says professor Amy Hagopian of the University of Washington School of Public Health during a phone interview. “The tobacco industry knows this. So do military recruiters. That’s why they go after young people. Their older peers are much less likely to engage in risky behaviors, they don’t start smoking, they don’t enlist.”
Hagopian has spent years studying the health outcomes of military recruits, particularly those who enlist at a young age. The results are striking. According to Hagopian’s research, Department of Defense medical data shows that service members aged 18-21 have significantly higher rates of hospitalization for mental illness than older service members. They have higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse. These younger recruits were four times more likely to commit suicide than the oldest recruits.
We also know that 18-year-olds aren’t even the target market of the tobacco industry or military recruiters. The tobacco industry has spent decades marketing to young children by offering candy-flavored products. They sell e-cigarettes that look just like USB drives so they are easier to sneak past teachers and parents. These minors become addicted customers years before they can legally buy the product.
Military recruiters use similar tactics. Just like the tobacco industry, the goal is to get students committed to the military long before they turn 18. Junior ROTC programs are offered within high schools in places like Beloit, Racine, Kenosha and Milwaukee, pushing students as young as freshmen towards the military through life-skills courses. What a coincidence that there are so many Junior ROTC programs in districts with lots of students of color, huh? This mirrors national trends, as nearly 60 percent of JROTC participants are students of color. Outside of these programs, recruiters visit schools across Wisconsin. In fact, federal law says public schools have to give recruiters some level of access to the school. These recruiters craft a vision of whatever high school students want to hear. Do you want to live out a Call of Duty game? Yes, the military offers adventure! Are you a music nerd? Play in the Army band! It’s basically summer camp with guns!
Raising the tobacco age was a great victory but we are unlikely to see the enlistment age bumped up in the short term. However, there are still actions we can take now.
“There’s good evidence that policies that inform students of the risks help dissuade them from taking risks,” says Hagopian. “School districts can help students make informed decisions by limiting recruiter access and providing equal access to counter recruiters.”
The Madison chapter of Veterans for Peace provides counter recruiting in schools across southern Wisconsin, offering rebuttals and clarifications to the easy, glossy answers of recruiters. They travel to some of the rural towns like Dodgeville and Boscobel where recruiters hit hard and hit often.
Even with good information, however, there can be intense financial pressure to join the military. Recruiters make the GI Bill sound like an easy way to pay for college. The military offers decent and stable pay, free housing, health insurance. All things a student may not have had at home.
This is why policies like free college, universal health care and raising the minimum wage are important. Beyond the boost to our country’s economic bottom line, these policies would deprive the military of its economic leverage over vulnerable Americans. Only when all young people have access to these basic needs will we truly have a volunteer military. We need policies that give young people, regardless of income level, a chance to define their own lives.
The tobacco industry defines freedom as the ability to inhale some nicotine juice. The military defines freedom as something that must be won, somehow, in some country in the Middle East. But, for me, freedom is about choice. To truly make free choices, young people need accurate information, a social safety net, and the time to have their minds fully develop and mature. That’s the bedrock of real freedom.
Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons.
