Better Paths To Glory-Vietnam Vet Suggests Alternatives to Military Serv

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http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/2005/21-30/29news01.htm
CRAWFORD — When the Pentagon announced last week that the Army National Guard and Army Reserve missed another month of its new soldier recruitment quota, one Vietnam veteran living in Austin wasn’t very surprised.
“People don’t want to go to war. Wars aren’t real popular things,” said Thomas Heikkala, co-director of Nonmilitary Options for Youth and member of Veterans for Peace. “Parents don’t want their kids to go to war. It’s a horrible stress and strain on parents to think about their kids in the military, so they tell them not to do it. So they’re not getting their quotas because people don’t want to do it.”
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HEIKKALA: We have worked with the school districts. During the school year, we bring to students more of a picture of what’s going on than what they have learned so far. These are additional pieces of their education. We get invited by school teachers to do presentations in their classes or college classrooms or with groups to tell what our message is about.
We’re trying to tell people that there are better options than joining the military, for finding money for school, discipline, and ways to travel and things to do that are of a nature of community service. We have studied these issues and found options and ways for folks to do other things. We work a little bit with school counselors. We have information packets near the military recruiters’ packets in schools.