come from a very liberal, left-wing background – I was an actor and a teacher before this, and I’m an arts student now. But I have never had any trouble with that at all. I have my views, but I don’t have any trouble marrying up my political views with what goes on here. People might well disagree with me, but I’ve never had a problem with it.”
None of the students I meet at the training camp seems unaware of the bloodier side of warfare, and none displays any concern that they are being pressured to join the army. Students are free to leave the OTC at any time they choose, and in fact during the weekend of my visit two students realise that they have outstanding coursework to complete back in Glasgow. They are both provided with transport home without any fuss being made.
Surprising as it may sound, I am repeatedly told that the training corps places as much of an emphasis on academic success as it does on physical drills and discipline. Captain Simpson points out that even if a student does want to join the army on graduating, to get into an officer training programme will require a strong degree as well as the relevant military experience. Only around half of the army's officers have gone through an OTC, and many enter the Sandhurst Academy (the leading institution for training British military officers) with only academic qualifications.
Given that just one in ten of the students in the OTC goes on to join the army, it is not immediately clear what return the Ministry of Defence gets for its lavish expenditure on the training corps. Captain Simpson, though, sees the corps as representing money well spent.
“The Army does see a benefit because it’s increasing what we call the footprint [or public profile], which is quite small now, because you don’t see much of the Army in public – especially after situations like Northern Ireland, where curfews were imposed. This way, thousands of students will have had a bit of experience, and will go on to be managers and so on in civilian life, but will have an understanding of what we’re about.”
One could also add to this the more obvious benefit that, even with just a tenth of students progressing from the OTC to the regular or territorial army, the military gains a sizeable pool of well-educated, intelligent officers each year. A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust found that most army recruits have markedly lower than average educational attainment, with just 17% passing an English GCSE at A-C level (as compared to around 45% of young people as a whole). Similarly, the report highlights the fact that most new recruits come from poor backgrounds, with more than 20% having been unemployed for a significant period before joining. A survey in Cardiff in 2004 found that 40% of army recruits joined “as a last resort”, a situation which, however much students may read about arts degrees losing their value, is unlikely to apply to the majority of graduates.
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In righting the unfair set-up that sees the poorest and most vulnerable joining the army through a lack of other options, and given that the military has a set level of personnel which it requires to maintain, the anti-war movement must face up to the reality that students are an invaluable pool of potential recruits. It’s easy for students to banish the military from our campuses, but to do so is not only denying people the benefits that membership of organisations such as the OTC can bring; it is also overlooking the real victims of military recruitment. Those ten percent of student officer cadets who go on to join the army do so because they like the taste of military life that the OTC provides, and because they want a career that they will enjoy. The thousands of disadvantaged teenagers who join with little or no foreknowledge do not have the same satisfaction. Figures this month revealed that teenage male recruits are 50% more likely to commit suicide than civillians of the same age, an appalling state of affairs that looks unlikely to change so long as the more privelleged in society insist that the military should have nothing to do with us.
So long as this “not in my back yard” attitude to recruitment is allowed to continue, we will be failing the most vulnerable youngsters in society.
By Chris Watt
Photo: James Porteous