COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Student Privacy
Worried about war, LI parents restrict access to recruiters
Denise M. Bonilla, Newsday
January 15th, 2007
At Lindenhurst High School, a military recruiter showed up at a faculty meeting with refreshments in hand and an offer to help teachers in their classrooms.At Bellport High School, during homecoming, the Army tossed tiny footballs emblazoned with the words "Go Army" into the crowd.
At Hauppauge High School, a Marine recruiter set up a table in the cafeteria and chatted with students during lunch.
A high school is a military recruiter's dream, a centralized location of hundreds of potential enlistees eager to find their paths in life. But as the war in Iraq nears its fourth anniversary, some Long Island parents have begun voicing concern over recruiter access to their children, and schools have started to tighten their grip.
"A 15- or 16-year-old shouldn't be spoken to regarding their future without their parents there," said Patchogue-Medford High School principal Manuel Sanzone.
Sanzone said recruiters have never had unrestricted access to his school, but that recent parental concern has led to a new, stricter policy this year limiting recruiters to only two evenings on campus a year, during college and career nights.
Marine school visits are not random. On the walls of the Smithtown Marine Corps station hangs a giant map dotted with the locations of high schools and colleges, along with a tally of male seniors. Recruiters look for enlistees at football games and wrestling matches. They stop by pizza parlors, arcades or any other popular student hangouts. Recruiters also attend rock concerts or look for new recruits at the beach, where they hold competitions with free military-inscribed trinkets as prizes.
The Army offers a complete high school recruiting handbook with a month-by-month guideline. Recruiters are encouraged to attend school activities, eat lunch in the cafeteria often, deliver donuts and coffee to faculty and assist coaches and summer school teachers. "Be so helpful and so much a part of the school scene that you are in constant demand," the 2004 handbook advises. "Remember, first to contact, first to contract ... that doesn't just mean seniors or grads. It means having the Army perceived as a positive career choice as soon as young people begin to think about the future. If you wait until they're seniors, it's probably too late."
The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act requires high schools to provide the military with contact information for seniors or risk losing federal funding. A national opt-out form is available, but participation varies among schools, and counter-recruiters have begun asking districts to make the forms more readily available. In a court settlement with the NYCLU last week, the Department of Defense agreed to change some methods of recruiting -- such as collecting student Social Security numbers.
Recruiter access to high schools on Long Island varies widely by district. Some high schools -- such as Bellport and South Side High School in Rockville Centre -- limit their presence to college fairs and career nights and scheduled one-on-one meetings with interested students in the guidance office. Others give more access. At Hauppauge, recruiters are allowed to set up a table in the cafeteria once a month and talk with students during lunch periods.
Limits on recruiting
At Brentwood High School, which has seen four former students killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, recruiters can't eat lunch in the cafeteria, pull students out of class or talk to students in the hallways, according to Principal Thomas O'Brien, citing a longstanding policy.
"Why does it seem to be a more acceptable career option in Brentwood than in Roslyn?" he asked. "In a working-class community like Brentwood, [the salary and college money] is certainly something that sweetens the deal."
Counter-recruiters have asked for equal time in the schools to give presentations about the dangers of war and ways to obtain money for college that doesn't involve the military. "We're not trying to get recruiters out of the schools," said Moriches mom Karen Sackett. "But we feel kids should join the military with knowledge and understanding of what they're getting themselves into."
Sackett began her efforts two years ago, after she opened her front door one day to find two Navy officers in their dress whites asking to speak to her 14-year-old son, Richard. The next day, her 16-year-old daughter, Sara, was at Smith Point Beach when her mother said she was approached by recruiters who told her she could have a singing career in the military.
The group, which includes members of the Long Island chapters of Veterans for Peace and Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace organization, is also trying to form a speakers' bureau. The veterans said they want to talk to students about their experiences in war and warn them they may not get all benefits promised by recruiters.
"We want to come and inform them of what we perceive to be the truth from our experiences, " said Vietnam War veteran Mac Bica, of Smithtown. "Then we say, 'OK, now you have all of this material, you decide what you want to do.'"
New York State Council of School Superintendents chief Bob Lowry said districts are reluctant to let anti-war groups on campus to make presentations out of concerns over politics. For some parents, even a JROTC program is considered a military influence and a tool for recruitment, even though federal guidelines forbid using the program for such goals.
Lindenhurst High School principal Dan Giordano said only a handful of about 600 seniors enlist every year, and only some come from their Marine JROTC program.
The good and the bad
Maj. James Sureau, instructor of the JROTC program, said that when students approach him about enlisting, he tries to show the benefits and dangers of military life. "For some of these kids, it changes their entire life," he said. "But I don't want to go to any funerals of my kids."
Lindenhurst faculty ate the donuts, but didn't accept the Army recruiter's offer to help in the classroom. And Bellport principal Lois Etzel got wind of some complaints over the Army's presence at homecoming. She said they have always taken part, and like other groups in the community, were invited. "There are commercials on TV, too," Etzel said. "It's not like we're making students sit at the table and sign recruitment papers."
Recruiters can only meet with students if the student arranges the meeting, and it must be held in the guidance office, Etzel said. About a dozen students enlist each year out of a senior class of roughly 300.
Many school officials around Long Island said recruiters, while persistent, are respectful of limitations. "They do a really good job in pushing kids to go to class and graduate," said Ben Baglio, interim chairman of guidance at Brentwood High School.
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