COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Youth of Color
Groups Unite to Defy Military Recruiting Efforts
PETER BAILEY, Miami Herald
January 16, 2006
Starting at the break of dawn, Luis Cerros and his team take positions outside high schools around Miami-Dade County.Inside the schools, military recruiters later station themselves at lunchroom tables, looking for a few good men -- and women -- to join in America's war on terrorism.
And so a battle line of sorts is drawn in an escalating struggle between groups opposed to the war in Iraq -- and the tactics they say recruiters use to enlist students -- and military recruiters who say they are informing students of how they can serve their country and benefit from that service.
Cerros and company are members of Mi Familia Vota (Spanish for My Family Votes), a Miami-Dade group that seeks to empower Hispanics. In mid-August, they launched a campaign to inform parents and students about their right to keep teenagers' names off military-recruitment lists.
They say the school districts need to do a better job of publicizing a federally mandated opt-out form that keeps students' personal information, including home address and phone number, from recruiters.
''We found out a lot of the kids were just signing up [for military service] because they needed the money. They felt they didn't have other choices,'' Cerros said. ``Recruiters were taking advantage of that.''
In less than two months, his group said more than 5,000 students in Miami-Dade had signed up to remove their names from the list.
''We weren't allowed on campus, so we had to catch students on their way in,'' Cerros said.
``Sometimes we would canvass corner stores where parents hung out.''
Several Broward County groups that also oppose recruitment in high schools plan similar campaigns.
Marc Silverstein, who heads the Alternatives to Militarism Project, said his group will reach out to students at Coral Springs and Deerfield Beach high schools. He said at least two other groups, Coral Springs for Peace and the Broward Anti-War Coalition, will also be involved.
AGGRESSIVE RECRUITERS
Franco Caliz, a junior at Coral Park Senior High in Westchester, said he thinks the recruiters are too aggressive.
''They run up to you after school and harass you to enlist,'' he said.
Caliz, a former member of the Junior ROTC program, said the recruiters' pitch is misleading. Students are usually shown a video on the benefits of military life -- traveling overseas and getting money for college, he said. But they aren't told of the dangers, he added.
''They pretty much avoid mentioning that you could get killed,'' Caliz said.
He drafted a petition asking school officials to distribute opt-out forms to parents and students. He said about 200 classmates signed it.
''Students should have the right to privacy,'' Caliz said.
The anti-recruitment fight started with a San Francisco-based group called Leave My Child Alone, which has helped more than 37,000 students remove their names from military lists.
''The highest recruiting is often in lower-income areas, large urban areas such as Miami,'' said Felicity Crush, the group's spokeswoman. ``The people in those communities may not have many options [after high school], but they're being given a fairly unrealistic option by recruiters.''
Not everyone agrees. Recruitment supporters say the military offers many opportunities, especially for students who have few after graduating.
''The military offers a good future for a lot of our kids,'' said Maj. Henry Avellaneda, head of the JROTC program at Southridge. ``It's the best option for many of them.''
''Some students may not want to go to college after graduation,'' said Harvey Spigler, spokesman for the Army Recruiting Battalion in Miami-Dade. ``The military offers an alternative to gain values in life so they can continue at whatever they want to pursue.''
And, he added, ``We don't target schools. We accept all people who are physically and morally qualified, no matter what school they go to.''
But according to district records, recruiters seem to go more often to schools where large numbers of students qualify for free or reduced lunches because of family income. For example, Felix Varela Senior High had 176 visits and Southridge had 123 from recruiters in 2004-05, according to the latest district records.
Yet at Coral Reef, an all-magnet senior high located between those schools, recruiters made 20 visits that year.
DIFFERENT TREND
District records also show another trend. Over the last five years, schools such as Central, which is in a lower-income area, saw twice as many military recruiters as college recruiters.
At Barbara Goleman Senior High in Northwest Miami-Dade, officials say they try to keep a close eye on military recruiters, who usually flock to the campus in the fall.
''They were here about four out of the five school days each week in September and October,'' said John Failoni, activities director at Goleman. ``There's been an increase in military recruitment, and we've taken steps to make sure it's done orderly.''
In 2004, Goleman, with a mostly Hispanic student body, had one of the highest numbers of Army recruits among district high schools -- 20. Other senior highs with a lot of enlistees included Central, Hialeah-Miami Lakes, Southridge, Jackson and Homestead -- schools where the number of students who qualify for federally funded lunches range from 57 to 77 percent.
Overall, Pentagon figures for 2004 show that 627 Miami-Dade students enlisted in the Army. Of that group, 65 percent were Hispanic and 27 percent black.
The Broward district does not keep overall numbers on recruiter visits, said spokesman Keith Bromery. Pentagon statistics show that 362 students were recruited from Broward high schools in 2004.
Some private school officials said they don't see military recruiters on campus too often. ''We don't discourage recruiters from coming, but we don't really see them here,'' said Peter Sanders, upper-school director at the University School at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. Sanders said most private-school students are focused on going to college, not the Army.
One of the provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act grants the military access to public high-school students and their personal information. But the 2002 law also requires school officials to notify parents or students that they can sign a form that blocks the release of personal information.
Cerros said many parents he has spoken with were unaware of their right to opt out.
''We just wanted to educate the community,'' said Carlos Pereira, an organizer with Mi Familia Vota. ``They needed to know they had options and the military shouldn't make decisions for them.''
The group's campaign is not always popular, and some volunteers have had their patriotism questioned.
''People would ask why we don't love our country and why are we opposing the war,'' Pereira said. ``We love this country. We just want people to be informed so they can make the right decisions.''
The activists are urging school districts to implement stricter regulations on military access to students.
Neither the Miami-Dade nor the Broward district has a formal policy regulating military recruiters on school grounds. While the No Child law grants access for recruiters, principals can decide where and how long they can be on campus.
Failoni, the Goleman activities director, says there are other factors that draw high schoolers to the military.
''A lot of it is a family thing,'' he said. ``They have siblings who've been in the military, and they kind of follow the leader.''
Cerros agreed that enlisting should be a family decision -- as long as it's an informed one.
''Parents should be given the full picture of the military so they can make the right decision,'' he said. ``That was not happening.''
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