COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Counter-Recruitment: General
The Army Recruiter Is Not In
Sewell Chan, new York Times
Feburary 15, 2008
About 20 antiwar activists gathered outside an Army recruiting office
in East Harlem this afternoon to protest what they described as the
military focus on persuading young blacks and Latinos to fight in
Iraq. But if their aim was to disrupt recruiting, they did not. The
office had already been closed for the day, with a metal gate drawn
down over the plate glass windows.
Capt. Charles V. Jaquillard, the Army Recruiting Command's company
commander for New York City, said the East Harlem office was not
closed because of the protest. "We were conducting a training," he
said. "We had everybody out at Fort Hamilton today."
After a 1 p.m. news conference at City Hall, the demonstrators
gathered at 3 p.m. outside the new Army Career Center, which opened
two years ago, at 126 East 103rd Street. They marched and chanted
outside the closed office, as two New York City police officers looked on.
"The question of military recruitment is important because you can't
carry out this war without fresh troops," said Debra Sweet, the
director of an organization called World Can't Wait! Drive Out the
Bush Regime. "These troops are being trained to carry out war crimes.
We're sending a message that military recruiters are not welcome to
prey on youth. The war will be stopped by the action of the people.
That is the only way it will be stopped."
Ms. Sweet said that Latinos have been disproportionately represented
among service members who have fought and died in Iraq. (The Times
reported last year that the Army has focused much of its local
recruitment efforts on public events popular among Hispanic New Yorkers.)
Stephanie Rugoff, a volunteer with the antiwar group, said that
"military recruiters go to neighborhoods with high unemployment" and
make inflated promises of education and work training.
"What are they recruiting for?" the protesters chanted, replying,
"Murder, rape, torture, war!"
They held aloft signs with the messages "Say No to the Military
Recruitment Center" and "Shut Down The Military Recruiters! No Iraq
War! Drive Out Bush Regime!"
One protester, Elaine Bower, whose 26-year-old son recently returned
from Iraq, asked, "Instead of putting a recruiting center, why don't
they put a place where kids could work?"
Captain Jaquillard disputed the protesters' assertions that the Army
disproportionately targets minorities. "The Army provides opportunity
for everybody," he said. "We're looking for qualified applicants.
Some may live on the Upper West Side, some may live in the financial
district, some may live in Harlem. We put in individuals who have
chosen to serve their country, of various backgrounds. There's
something that the Army offers for everybody. I don't believe we
target one demographic over another."
The Army's New York City recruiting battalion is based at Fort
Hamilton in Brooklyn.
"An Army is a reflection of its people," said Emily Gockley, the
chief of advertising and public affairs for the battalion. "America's
Army is a reflection of who and what Americans are. We have the
largest recruitment mission, because we need the most people." She
said that the Army's demographic makeup largely reflects that of the
population.
Ms. Gockley acknowledged that the Army uses marketing and advertising
agencies to specifically reach out to potential black and Hispanic
recruits. "Just like McDonald's markets to the African-American
community differently than it does to the Hispanic or Caucasian
community, we do the same thing. We apply the same marketing
strategies, market segmentation. We look at various groups white,
blacks with the propensity to enlist. It's very complex. When they
put a recruiting station in a particular area, it's not because it's
a minority area. In fact, we had a grand opening today for a new
recruiting station in Massapequa, Long Island."
Even though there were no military officers to greet them, the
protesters today were undeterred. Around 4 p.m. they left the
shuttered East Harlem recruiting office and made their way toward a
joint armed forces recruiting station at 76 West 125th Street, in
Harlem, where they planned another demonstration.
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