Unfortunately, military recruiters are everywhere. They are in our schools, in our communities, and in the media marketed to us–at least until we organize to kick them out of those places. Because of their omnipresence, it is easy to organize actions against them and one of the easiest–and perhaps most necessary–is distributing flyers where they are trying to recruit us. This recipe will help you cook up a healthy leafleting action.
Ingredients:
- Flyers
- Recruiters
First, you will need some general flyers about military recruiting to distribute. We have a number of them available on our website:
- Recruiting and Jobs (quarter-size leaflet)
- Recruiters Lie, You Die (quarter-size leaflet)
- Recruiters Lie, You Die (2) (quarter-size leaflet)
- US Out of Iraq, Recruiters Out of Our City
- Why not Enlist? (half-size leaflet)
- End the Occupation of Iraq (half-size leaflet)
If you don’t like any of those, we have additional facts on our website that you can use to make your own flyer. We generally find that quarter-sized flyers work well as they are easy to hand out.
After printing the flyers–preferably in a school computer lab or at work so that you don’t have to pay for the copies–you are ready to distribute them. In most cases, the best way to do this is to stand right in front of the recruiters. Typically, recruiters setup tables full of information and have one or two people staffing their table. We tend to just go and stand right in front of the tables, handing the flyers to both people interested in the military and those passing by. Of course, depending on the situation–whether it is a job fair, a high school, a college, or some type of community event–you will likely be asked to leave by someone (security, administrator, etc). However, the recruiters must generally go find someone to do that, which can take a while. In the ten minutes it may take to find someone who is authorized to ask you to leave, you can easily get rid of a substantial number of flyers
We have also found that recruiters tend to insult you when they realize that you are passing out leaflets critical of their lies. However, don’t be dissuaded–you are right and they are wrong.
ADVANCED TIP: If there is a loan recruiter operating the table who then goes to report your leafleting activities, you have additional options. You can take their materials (or at least some of them) or you can put your leaflets inside their materials.