by: Peter Lehu
Dear Mr. Ash:
As a teenage musician growing up in Brooklyn, I enjoyed going to the Sam Ash store in Kings Plaza to play guitars and spend money. Today, I have a small request to make of Sam Ash. I live in Philadelphia now and was a recent visitor to the Franklin Mills Mall where there is a Sam Ash store. The store is in the north end of the mall along with other venues that attract teenagers: a Dave & Buster’s video arcade, an indoor skateboarding park, and a U.S. Army Experience Center. It is this last venue that I am writing to you about. The Army Experience is a new type of recruiting center–the only one in the nation–that is filled with video game stations, army vehicle simulators, a lounge, a snack bar, and, of course, recruiters. To use the facilities teens must register and divulge contact information. They are befriended by Army staff as they play the popular shoot’em up games and they are encouraged to enlist or, if they are too young, to “pre-enlist.”
The Army Experience was opened in September 2008 in response to low recruitment rates due to the increasingly unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It cost $12 million of taxpayer money to build and millions more to operate each year. The Army is hoping that this new type of recruitment/entertainment center will attract more enlistees. If it does, they will build more of these centers around the country. A group of concerned Philadelphians have banded together to make sure that does not happen. We want to alert the Philadelphia community that the Army Experience is preying on its youth. And we want to show people who come to the center that war is not like the video games they play or the lies told by the recruiters. Our problem is that the Center is in the Franklin Mills Mall, which is private. When we have tried to peacefully and quietly demonstrate or set up a table outside the Center we have been kicked out of the mall. Among our group are veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who would like to be able to reach the visitors of the Army Experience and tell them about the real experience of war. But as a small group of concerned activists it is hard to compete with a $12 million dollar multimedia center in a private mall.
Maybe Sam Ash could help. The Franklin Mills Sam Ash store is located next door to the Army Experience. We are asking for any amount of help you are willing to give that would counter the Experience (but at the same time not hurt your business). Could we have a small portion of your storefront to set up an information table where people could talk with Iraq vets? Or if that would be too intrusive, maybe just a sign with a phone number or e-mail that teens could call to talk with a vet or activist. Or be creative and think of your own way of resisting. Remember, the Army deliberately chose to be next to your store because many of your customers are young people. As a tenant of the mall do you have a responsibility of protecting your young clientele?
Please read the enclosed articles to learn more about the Army Experience and what we are doing to resist it. We thank you for your support and look forward to hearing from you on this matter.