COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Student Privacy
Parents, veterans protest military recruitment
Audrey Dutton, Gazette
September 19, 2007
The three R's don't include recruiting, read one picketer's signduring a demonstration Tuesday at Winston Churchill High School,
where a couple dozen veterans and parents protested military
recruitment in Montgomery County Public Schools.
Picketers handed pamphlets to bleary-eyed students on their way to
school. Demonstrators argued that military recruiters have gotten too
much access to high schools. At Churchill in Potomac, the event was
mostly symbolic.
''I haven't heard of any military recruitment, " said Sarah Gutkind, a
Churchill senior who plans to attend college. She said the military
was ''not really" an option she was considering.
''The audience at this location is not the kids .... They're going to
Brown and Cornell," said Pat Elder, protest co-organizer and father
of two Montgomery County Public Schools students. Elder said
protesters had three audiences: the U.S. military, the school system
and students.
''It's not like we're going to stop [Churchill students] from going
into the military to go to college," Elder said. ''They're going to
college anyway."
Protestors agreed that Churchill's college-bound demographic may be
less inclined to join the military than at other schools around the
country, where recruiters have been accused of targeting low-income students.
Only one-sixth of a percent of Churchill students planned to enter
the military after graduation in 2006, according to MCPS.
But protesters were against recruiters getting what Elder said was
excessive access to all schools, including Churchill. As Elder
talked, he pulled out a photocopy of a postcard he said an Army
recruiter mailed to at least one Churchill student.
The postcard was addressed to ''A FUTURE SOLDIER," who was invited to
call or e-mail Michael Boyle, a U.S. Army recruiter. According to the
postcard, Boyle planned to be at Churchill at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Calls to Boyle and Churchill administrators were not returned Tuesday
afternoon by The Gazette deadline.
Elder said the postcard was ''an escalation of recruiting tactics."
He argued that although college recruiters are already courting
seniors at Churchill, those recruiters are not looking for soldiers
who could be killed in combat.
One protester in a buzz cut and a beard stood on a corner, greeting
students as they arrived on campus. He had served a tour in Fallujah
and recently left the U.S. Marine Corps.
Adam Kokesh, of Washington, said he became an anti-war activist when
he decided that ''the war is bad for America."
Kokesh said he wasn't actively recruited during high school.
''I had college paid for, so that wasn't an issue for me," Kokesh
said. ''I wanted to serve out of patriotism."
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