Recruiting Wars

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Santa Cruz High students propose measures to reign in military recruiting on school campuses

by Laurel Chesky
03/13/03

On Monday at 1 p.m., Santa Cruz High School students flood the school courtyard, enjoying the sunny afternoon and a temporary break from the classroom grind. Some of the teenagers pull out sandwiches, chips and sodas and visit with friends. Some others flock around a military recruiting table set up in the center of the yard, where a pair of uniformed military personnel chat with students and answer questions about military service.
Before 9/11, the U.S military recruited at high schools, but these days, the stakes of service seem higher. There’s a good chance that teenagers signing up for military service today will see action in Iraq or elsewhere as the war on terrorism proliferates. Death and killing are obvious and inherent risks of military service. But critics of military recruitment tactics say recruits take on other risks without being given the proper information. For instance, critics say, recruits aren’t told that the money they’re promised for college might never materialize, or that the assignment they sign up for could suddenly change without notice.
That’s why a group of Santa Cruz High School students forming the group Youth Alliance are asking the Santa Cruz City Schools board of trustees to reign in military recruiters. On Wednesday evening, after Good Times’ deadline, the students were scheduled to present the board with a resolution that would set restraints on military recruitment. A similar proposal was passed by the San Francisco Unified School District on Jan. 14.
Malcolm Terrence, the faculty advisor to Youth Alliance, says the students were looking for a way to oppose war and impact the lives of their fellow students. “There’s no shortage of people against the war,” Terrence says. “[Military recruiting] is an area where the students are particularly vulnerable.”
The proposal offers a two-fold plan. First, it asks trustees to implement an “opt-in” approach to releasing students’ information to recruiters. Under the federal 2001 Leave No Child Behind Act, schools are required to divulge students’ names, addresses and telephone numbers to military recruiters unless permission is denied by a student’s parents. Currently, most school districts take an “opt-out” approach,” in which recruiters are granted information unless a parent specifically denies permission. By taking the “opt-in” approach, the situation would be reversed - information would be restricted unless a parent offers permission. According to the proposal, parents or guardians who want their child’s name released to the military would sign a card, which would be kept in the student’s school file.
According to Terrence, that approach would still satisfy the law. The “opt-in” approach is generally used in the form of permission slips for field trips and sex education. “Nobody would allow us to take kids to the courthouse without permission, much less Tajikistan,” Terrence says.
Secondly, Youth Alliance’s proposal would require high schools to offer alternatives to military service, such as information from conscientious objectors and the Resource Center for Nonviolence.
“We aren’t anti-military,” says Santa Cruz High student Josh Sonnenfeld, 17, a member of Youth Alliance. “We just want to tell students the options, and tell everything involved in being in the military and not just the positive aspects. We want them to get the opportunity to be informed consumers.”
Sonnenfeld says Youth Alliance students have been working with school board member Cece Pinheiro, and that they expect the resolution to be well received by the board. Students expect the board to take up the resolution as an agenda item on March 26.
“[The resolution] seems like a direct way to get involved in the anti-war effort as well as protecting students’ privacy,” Sonnenfeld says.

The Other Side

Across the Santa Cruz High courtyard, another table, set up by the Resource Center for Nonviolence, offers information about what military recruiters may not be pointing out to potential recruits.
Flyers displayed on the table include the text of an actual enlistment document to be signed by recruits. In one section, the document reads: “Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay, allowances, benefits, and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Force REGARDLESS of the provisions of this enlistment/reenlistment document.” In the corner of the document, a message added by the Resource Center warns: “Obey. Kill, be killed. Change without notice; no promises! Eight years!”
Students Larissa Addison, 17, and Caterina Spang, 18, peruse the information at the Resource Center’s table. “I think it’s a big issue,” Addison says of the recruitment going on in her school. “I’ve already gotten things about the military in the mail, and that’s kind of scary.”
Resource center staffer Bob Fitch talks with students about the reality of enlisting. He’s careful not to offer advice. “I don’t try to talk them out of it,” he says. “I explain the law and the consequences, and I stick with whatever decision they make.”
Fitch is here to offer an alternative view to the military recruiters in schools, whom he says are picking on the most vulnerable kids, and particularly poor kids. “They’re like vultures on road kill at Watsonville High,” says Bob Fitch. “There’s not a draft, but there’s a draft on the poor.”
Fitch spent three days last week at Watsonville High in classrooms offering students an alternative view of military service. He says students there flocked to him, hungry for the flyers he held in his hand.
While recruiters romance students with offers of money for college, Fitch says they rarely point out the downsides. Recruits, he says, will often enlist without a full understanding of military life, such as the harsh criminal justice system or the fact that the Armed Forces can, in the case of war, extend enlistment time without warning. Recruits are also not fed up front information on how to go about filing to be a conscientious objector once they’re in the military
“My main beef is not that recruiters come to the schools,” Fitch says. “It’s that the school does not educate the students about the law. … It’s an honorable, lawful option to be a conscientious objector. It’s a lawful, honorable option to be a noncombatant. It’s a lawful, honorable option to enlist. We want schools to teach the law.”

Ready to Fight

School board proposals and alternate views aside, military recruiters continue, and probably will continue to have a presence on high school campuses. While critics have complained that military recruiters have stepped up their efforts since 9-11, Staff Sgt. Walter Tinay, who manned the Santa Cruz High table, says recruitment and enlistment has remained steady. “You figure there would be more individuals signing up,” he says, “but it’s been about the same.”
Some high school students still see military service as the road to a better life, war or no war. Within minutes, Santa Cruz High students had snatched up a stack of slick brochures about college money offered to service men and women.
Santa Cruz high senior Chris Higgins, 18, stands near the table proudly donning a Marines sweatshirt. He enlisted in November, and he’ll start boot camp in August. He signed up to be a military police officer, and he hopes to be a civilian police officer when he gets out.
He says he’s not too concerned about war in Iraq. “It’s in the back of my mind, but I’m not worried about it. I’m willing to fight,” he says.
Higgins says he feels well informed about his decision. Family members who served in the military have told him what to expect. “I knew what I was doing,” he says.
Juan Marquez, 16, is considering signing up for military service. “I would [enlist], even if it meant going to war,” he says.
Nonetheless, he thinks it’s a good thing that the Resource Center for Nonviolence is there to offer alternatives. “You’ve got both views,” he says.