Peace Groups Help Close Army Experience Center in Philly: New Jersey Progressive Organizers Network

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Peace Groups Help Close Army Experience Center in Philly

Posted on Jun 10, 2010 by Coalition for Peace Action

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Message*	[b]Peace Groups Claim Role in Permanently Shutting Down Army Experience Center in Philadelphia[/b] [i]according to an Army announcement made shortly before June 19 protest. Sustained demonstrations, vigils, and boycott contributed to its demise.[/i] A coalition of thirty peace groups, coordinated by the Coalition for Peace Action and the Brandywine Peace Community, are celebrating the contribution of their campaign to the just-announced decision that a high tech recruiting center called the Army Experience Center, located in the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, will be shut down. The [i]Philadelphia Inquirer[/i] reported today that the Army plans to permanently close the facility by July 31, 2010. [url]http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/96031939.html[/url] The $13 Million, 14,500 square foot Army Experience Center at Franklin Mills Mall boasts dozens of computers and X-Box video game consoles with various interactive, military-style shooting games. The facility has sophisticated Apache helicopter and Humvee simulators that allow teens to simulate the killing of Arabs and Afghans. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Rob Watson compared the Army Experience Center to "a heavy dose of candy cigarettes." When the center opened in August of 2008, the Army announced it was designed as a pilot program and would decide whether to launch them nationally. As recently as August, 2009, Jared Auchey, Company Commander at Franklin Mills, boasted of the center's success and claimed others were being planned. Starting in February, 2009, several major demonstrations that drew up to 300 protesters from throughout the region, as well as nonviolent civil disobedience, regular vigils and a boycott of the mall, were organized by the coalition of groups. A typical message, expressed in banners and chants at these protests, was "Close the AEC, War Is Not a Game!" The Army is planning an official announcement on June 10 and a press conference on June 11. Another demonstration was already planned for Saturday, June 19. That event will now be changed into a celebration of the closing of the AEC. Demonstrators typically cited moral rather than political reasons for their opposition to the AEC. Bill Deckhart, Coordinator of BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, described the AEC as "a monument to dishonesty." He continued, "The AEC teaches children killing without consequence. Real warfare does not have reset buttons or multiple lives. To give this impression to our youth is immoral and must be stopped." Following a demonstration on September 12, 2009 the Army announced it no longer intended to export the AEC pilot project to malls in other parts of the U.S. On November 27, 2009, on so-called Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, the heaviest shopping day of the year) the campaign stepped up its pressure by launching a consumer pledge to not shop at the Mall until the AEC closes. The peace activists have communicated with managers of the mall stores, seeking support for their goal. "The AEC has been an obscenity, by glamorizing war and militarism to children as young as 13, by enticing them to get in Humvees, hold weapons of war, and play violent video games. We have raised our voices against this immoral activity for a year and a half, and now we are seeing success from our sustained, democratic organizing. It was militarism that led to the US starting the unjust, illegal, and immoral war in Iraq, and we must continue to speak out against manifestations of that militaristic indoctrination, wherever they occur," said the Rev. Robert Moore, executive director of the Coalition for Peace Action. "The protest vigils and marches, the civil disobedience and arrests, and the refusing to shop the Mall, to demand the closing of the AEC all made a difference - as did every young person who refused to be recruited into the Army by the AEC and get sucked into war and the violence of militarism," said Bob Smith of the Brandywine Peace Community. Contact: The Rev. Robert Moore (609) 924-5022 Work; (609) 924-1206 Home; (609) 937-6931 Cell Bill Deckhart (215) 380-6804; Robert M. Smith (610) 544-1818 work; (484) 574-1148 cell
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Peace Groups Claim Role in Permanently Shutting Down Army Experience Center in Philadelphia according to an Army announcement made shortly before June 19 protest. Sustained demonstrations, vigils, and boycott contributed to its demise.

A coalition of thirty peace groups, coordinated by the Coalition for Peace Action and the Brandywine Peace Community, are celebrating the contribution of their campaign to the just-announced decision that a high tech recruiting center called the Army Experience Center, located in the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, will be shut down. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today that the Army plans to permanently close the facility by July 31, 2010. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/96031939.html

The $13 Million, 14,500 square foot Army Experience Center at Franklin Mills Mall boasts dozens of computers and X-Box video game consoles with various interactive, military-style shooting games. The facility has sophisticated Apache helicopter and Humvee simulators that allow teens to simulate the killing of Arabs and Afghans. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Rob Watson compared the Army Experience Center to "a heavy dose of candy cigarettes."

When the center opened in August of 2008, the Army announced it was designed as a pilot program and would decide whether to launch them nationally. As recently as August, 2009, Jared Auchey, Company Commander at Franklin Mills, boasted of the center's success and claimed others were being planned.

Starting in February, 2009, several major demonstrations that drew up to 300 protesters from throughout the region, as well as nonviolent civil disobedience, regular vigils and a boycott of the mall, were organized by the coalition of groups. A typical message, expressed in banners and chants at these protests, was "Close the AEC, War Is Not a Game!"

The Army is planning an official announcement on June 10 and a press conference on June 11. Another demonstration was already planned for Saturday, June 19. That event will now be changed into a celebration of the closing of the AEC.

Demonstrators typically cited moral rather than political reasons for their opposition to the AEC. Bill Deckhart, Coordinator of BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, described the AEC as "a monument to dishonesty." He continued, "The AEC teaches children killing without consequence. Real warfare does not have reset buttons or multiple lives. To give this impression to our youth is immoral and must be stopped."

Following a demonstration on September 12, 2009 the Army announced it no longer intended to export the AEC pilot project to malls in other parts of the U.S. On November 27, 2009, on so-called Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving, the heaviest shopping day of the year) the campaign stepped up its pressure by launching a consumer pledge to not shop at the Mall until the AEC closes. The peace activists have communicated with managers of the mall stores, seeking support for their goal.

"The AEC has been an obscenity, by glamorizing war and militarism to children as young as 13, by enticing them to get in Humvees, hold weapons of war, and play violent video games. We have raised our voices against this immoral activity for a year and a half, and now we are seeing success from our sustained, democratic organizing. It was militarism that led to the US starting the unjust, illegal, and immoral war in Iraq, and we must continue to speak out against manifestations of that militaristic indoctrination, wherever they occur," said the Rev. Robert Moore, executive director of the Coalition for Peace Action.

"The protest vigils and marches, the civil disobedience and arrests, and the refusing to shop the Mall, to demand the closing of the AEC all made a difference - as did every young person who refused to be recruited into the Army by the AEC and get sucked into war and the violence of militarism," said Bob Smith of the Brandywine Peace Community.

Contact: The Rev. Robert Moore (609) 924-5022 Work; (609) 924-1206 Home; (609) 937-6931 Cell
Bill Deckhart (215) 380-6804; Robert M. Smith (610) 544-1818 work; (484) 574-1148 cell