Combat and the campus

By Donna Taketa
The Collegian

A group of 15 students wanted to share its perspective with military recruiters during Vintage Days last April. They handed out fliers and during the event banged drums. Campus police were notified, but the police left soon after arriving.

Similar counter-recruiting protests have occurred at college campuses across the country. Protests this year have occurred at UC Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Illinois at Chicago, among others.

The effect of counter-recruiting may be having an impact on enlistment numbers.

For the first time since 1999 the Army didn’t meet its recruiting goal for the 2005 fiscal year. Its goal was 54,935 for active duty enlistments, but it only signed up 47,121, a report from the Department of Defense said. All other branches met or exceeded their quota.

At the Army recruiting station in Clovis, Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Seidel said he has already exceeded his monthly quota and estimates that the overall recruitment total for the station has increased 15 to 20 percent from last year’s numbers.

Fresno State ROTC professor and recruiter Lt. Col. Joel Manning has not noticed a decrease in candidates either. The program has 83 students, and “that’s par,” Manning said. About 30 of the students are enrolled at Fresno City College, which partners with the Fresno State ROTC program.

“Most people have a view of the Army of what you see on the news,” said Manning. “There are many, many positive things, and many, many hazards that come with this career, just as there are with being a police officer, a fireman or any other high risk occupation.”

Congress created the ROTC program in 1916 so the military was guaranteed to receive educated people.

Due to protests during the Vietnam War many ROTC programs were eliminated from college campuses in the 1960s, said a 2001 article in USA Today. There are now 272 campuses nationwide with ROTC programs.

Manning said Fresno State provides him with student information so he can send letters to prospective recruits. Most ROTC cadets are from the Central Valley. A clause in the No Child Left Behind program allows high schools to release student information to the military.

Manning said he is selective of whom he sends recruitment letters to.

“We found that the most successful cadets are those cadets that are above average. It takes a special sort of person,” Manning said. “Not everyone can do what we do and once we identify someone like that we send them a letter.”

Above average students are those with high GPAs, who demonstrate leadership in clubs or participate in athletics.

Manning estimates that three out of 1,000 letters yield a response.

“We will look you square in the eye and tell you nothing but the truth,” Manning said. “To say that becoming an officer will never put you into harm’s way is incorrect.”

Campus Peace disagrees that recruiters are candid with the students they address.

The military offers seemingly plush incentives such as enlistment bonuses to students and unfairly targets poor and less educated people, said Elizabeth Trujillo, president of Campus Peace and Civil Liberties Coalition.

“People take it as a last resort because they don’t have the means,” she said.

Seidel emphasized not all students maintain good grades and some don‘t even want to go to college. Seidel said he has only two years of college but makes $70,000 a year.

“We throw stuff at them to kind of make them think,” Seidel said. “The Army gives the opportunity to change your life.”

Often college graduates who leave college without job offers are uncertain about what to do next, Seidel said. “We step in at that point and offer you a second alternative.”

“It’s not like if you come in to talk we’re going to shave your head or make you do push-ups,” Manning said. “We’re pretty normal people here.”

Glenn Tozier of Campus Peace said there aren’t as many prospective students at state colleges so recruiters are targeting high schools and city colleges.

“It’s good to know there’s something else,” said Trujillo of her group’s counter-recruiting efforts. “It’s good to have both sides exposed. I don’t think it’s fair for people to say, ‘you guys are unpatriotic, you should be ashamed of yourselves,’ because in this country there’s freedom of speech and it should be respected in every way.”

Manning doesn’t view protesters as anti-American.

“I have the utmost respect for everyone’s opinion. I may not agree with their opinion, but everyone has a right to freedom of speech,“ Manning said. “What we do and what’s happening in the world right now, that’s our job to protect those rights.”

Marine recruiter Capt. Vaughn Williams agrees, and would welcome the opportunity to speak with protesters. He said some “have never stepped outside of this umbrella they live under, and speak on stuff they don’t know a thing about.”

“Since we are at war you’re most likely going to be sent to Iraq,” Trujillo said. “There’s nothing against joining the military and serving your county, but when you’re at war, especially this war, I mean it doesn’t make any sense.”

Both Trujillo and Tozier said they would continue counter-recruiting after the war in Iraq because the U.S. military presence is too large. Tozier emphasized, however, not everyone in the group shares the same opinions but “we come together in common areas.

“The idea of counter-recruiting is if you can stop feeding the Army, if they don’t have the ability to wage these imperialistic wars, they’re not going to be able to wage war,” Tozier said.

ROTC cadet Lee Vue said some people don’t appreciate the good that is being done overseas and he’s proud of his decision to join the military. Of the negative comments he receives, “we just ignore them. In the program we learn leadership and respect.”

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