COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: War Protests: General
Disabled Veteran's Tribute Upsets Army Recruiters In Minnesota
MONICA DAVEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
12/27/2005
Duluth, Minn. — As those thinking of becoming soldiers arrive on the slushy doorstep of the Army recruiting station here, they cannot miss the message posted in bold black letters on the storefront next door.“Remember the Fallen Heroes,” the sign reads, and then it ticks off numbers — the number of American troops killed in Iraq, the number wounded, the number of days gone by since this war began.
The sign, put up by a former soldier, has stirred intense debate in this city along the edge of Lake Superior.
The seven recruiters at the station here, six of whom have served in Iraq, want the sign taken away. “It's disheartening,” Staff Sgt. Gary J. Capan, the station's commander, said.
“Everyone knows that people are dying in Iraq, but to walk past this on the way to work every day is too much,” Capan said.
But Scott Cameron, who was wounded in the Vietnam War, says his sign should remain. Cameron volunteers for state Sen. Steve Kelley, a candidate for governor whose campaign opened an office next door to the recruiting station, and he has permission to post the message he describes as “not anti-war, but pro-veteran.”
“We're still taking casualties from Vietnam, years later,” said Cameron, who was shot in Vietnam in 1969 and says he has since undergone 46 operations to repair the damage. “Is the same thing going to happen again?”
Despite the location of the sign, he insists that his purpose is not to prevent new recruits from signing up for the Army, but to honor those who made sacrifices. Still, Cameron, who was shot in Vietnam in 1969 and says he has since undergone 46 operations to repair the damage, also says, “Before they join the military, people better know what they're getting into.”
Next door, Capan, 31, said his recruiters wanted the sign removed. One woman who had just returned from duty in Iraq, he said, found the sign especially disconcerting and impersonal. “It was upsetting to veterans who don't look at their friends and colleagues killed as numbers on a list,” Capan said.
Since news of the sign was reported in local newspapers, response has been mixed. A woman from Missouri had two pizzas delivered to reward Capan's recruiters, while a veteran wrote to say that the sergeant needed “psychological screening” for even suggesting the removal of a disabled veteran's tribute to “his fallen brothers and sisters.”
For now, the neighbors on Superior Street have agreed to disagree. An offering of cookies by Cameron was not accepted, Capan said, but Capan insisted that relations on the street remained polite nonetheless.
“We're going to move on,” he said. “We're soldiers.”
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of