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Saturday, June 10, 2006

Campus recruiters draw criticism
Students planning protest today say military targets the poor and has no business coming to schools.

By MARLA JO FISHER
The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA – Some students and anti-war groups say military recruiters don't belong on high school campuses and are targeting minorities and the poor.

Recruiters counter that they reach out to everybody and military service is a personal decision.

Today, UC Irvine students are among organizers of a protest in Santa Ana opposing military recruiting that they say "bombards areas such as Santa Ana."

The march, slated to begin at 10 a.m. at the flag plaza at the civic center, will also call for the immediate removal of U.S. soldiers from Iraq.

Army spokesmen said they seek to enlist soldiers who will represent the ethnic makeup of the nation's population.

"We do not target the poor," said public affairs officer S. Douglas Smith of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. "Our goal is to reach as many potential candidates as possible. We could not possibly meet our mission by targeting limited communities."

But some students take exception to the practice

"They should not have military recruiting in high schools," said UCI student Carla Osorio, 20, one of the organizers. "High schools should be for education. Most of the time these recruiters are going after poor people. We feel that's not fair."

Target groups

Smith said the Army has marketing campaigns for blacks and Hispanics "to ensure we communicate effectively to all potentially qualified young men and women."

Recruiters do target graduating high school seniors who are not planning to go to college because they are the most likely to enlist. The military's offer of free training, college classes while enlisted and the opportunity to earn money for college later are also big enlistment draws for students who might otherwise find higher education difficult to afford.

"We are not against the troops; it's your decision if you want to go," said Osorio, a member of UCI's Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or MEChA, a Mexican-American student group that is sponsoring the rally along with OC Mujeres, a women's group. "But we want young people to know there are other options for college."

According to Department of Defense statistics for 2004, 15.5 percent of people who applied to join the military in 2004 without prior military service were Hispanic, compared with 17.7 percent Hispanics in the general 18-to-24-year-old population.

Because not all applicants ultimately qualify and enlist, Hispanics made up 13.2 percent of new enlistees in 2004, for all services, according to the department.

Phone numbers provided

A report by the federal General Accounting Office in September 2005 reported that Hispanics made up 9 percent of total active-duty military personnel in 2004, compared with 11 percent in the civilian workforce. Only 5 percent of military officers were Hispanic.

The Marine Corps had the highest percentage of Hispanics, 14 percent, while the Air Force had the lowest at 6 percent.

Blacks represented 17 percent of active-duty military, compared with 11 percent of the general population. Their highest representation in the active military was in the Army, where they made up 23 percent of the ranks.

Susan Brandt, spokeswoman for the Santa Ana Unified High School District, said the district is required to give military recruiters students' phone numbers and other personal information under the No Child Left Behind Act, unless a parent asks to opt out.

"We do have parents who ask that information on their child not be provided to recruiters," Brandt said.

The district has two junior reserve officer training programs affiliated with the Navy, she said. Military recruiters are also allowed to come on the district's four high school campuses routinely, after calling for permission.

Brandt said one principal told her, "It's not a big deal; they come on campus all the time, set up a table near the lunch area and not that many students approach them."