A group of high school students in Georgia stood up to military recruiters by alerting their classmates via MySpace bulletins not to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test that the school was administering under the guise of being both mandatory and a career placement aide. The test is actually used to assist the military in preying on the most vulnerable and economically challenged young people.

Recruiters countered the uprising with a simple blackmail tactic: all the tests would be thrown out if anyone decided to rip theirs up, thus ruining it for the small percentage of students who actually did want to take the test. Many still found ways to resist. Some refused to attend the test, while others filled in faulty information–at the risk of being caught and having it go on “their permanent record.” In the end, the two student organizers estimated that less than a third of their classmates actually took the test.

This story is a microcosm of the lies and deceptions used by the military and their accomplices in the school administration. No wonder so many parents and antiwar activists are clamoring for an end to schools being used as military recruiting grounds.

On the positive side, this story shows that young people are not complacent and ignorant–despite society’s best efforts to make them so. And with the growing social networking community at their fingertips, they now have the means to keep each other informed and organized against those who seek to send them into harms way.