COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Counter-Recruitment: General
Residents demonstrate outside recruiting office
Cerena Johnson, Eureka Reporter
Nov 29, 2007
Residents lined the sidewalk outside of the United States military
recruiting office in Eureka Wednesday to speak out against
recruitment practices and the Iraq War.
Many of those present said they would like to see all military
recruiters remain off of high school campuses.
Jon Reisdorf, a Veterans for Peace counselor on the national GI
rights hotline and a member of the Veterans Educational Outreach
Project, likened recruiters to sales people attempting to meet a quota.
"They basically look at high school kids like a captive audience," he said.
Catherine Benko, a resident who participated in the demonstration,
said recruitment efforts primarily target low-income people.
"This is the opportunity they are getting," she said.
Benko said many young people aren't aware of their rights.
"They're young they're vulnerable," she said.
Dave Meserve said he has a problem with the age at which youths are recruited.
"Mainly what I oppose is the recruitment of kids under 18," he said.
"I think that's unconscionable, " he added.
A proposed draft ordinance for the November 2008 ballot was
circulated through the crowd, which intends to prohibit recruitment
of children younger than 18 by the United States Armed Forces within
Humboldt County.
Anyone interested in assisting with the draft ordinance text can
phone 707-834-3612.
Others present at the event said they were also there to voice their
opposition to the war in Iraq.
"The whole thing is like a house of cards. We've got to stop this or
it's going to continue," said Jack Nounnan, a Korean War veteran who
worked to organize the event.
Rob Hepburn, a Vietnam ex-Marine and combat veteran, said the Iraq
War is an "immoral distraction from the war we need to wage against hatred."
No weapons of mass destruction were found, and the lives of men and
women serving the country are being destroyed, he said.
Bill Thompson, a founding member of Veterans for Peace chapter 56 who
also served in the Korean War, said he went to Korea without qualms.
Thompson, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, said those who went
to war would commit the atrocities necessary to survive and would
have to live with it.
"It's only as an older person I see that not only this war but many
of our past wars have been created on false premises," he said,
adding it is for the benefit of those who profit from war and don't
experience the reality of its inhumanity.
Upon the demonstrators moving from their position along Broadway to
the front of the recruitment office, Army recruiting staff left the
building, saying it is policy to leave while a demonstration is
taking place and not to comment to the press.
Reached by phone following the demonstration, U.S. Army Sgt. Derrick
Watt said the protesters left while the office was empty.
Watt said there was no dialogue intended to occur and said that he
didn't have a comment on the demonstration.
As far as recruiting in high schools goes, Watt said recruiters set
up information tables or booths.
"If the kids want to come up and talk to us, it's on them," he said.
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