Army opens prep school for dropouts to fill ranks

Army opens prep school for dropouts to fill ranks

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=316474

Army opens prep school for dropouts to help fill ranks amid wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan

SUSANNE M. SCHAFER
AP News
Aug 27, 2008

Austin Swarner left high school to care for his mother while she
fought a losing battle with cancer. Tony Brown wanted to begin
supporting himself and left two classes shy of a diploma. Haelee
Holden got tired of trying to make it through school while flipping
burgers until 1 a.m.

But the U.S. Army, eager to fill its ranks amid wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, doesn't see them as dropouts. They are recruits who only
need a GED before they're ready to begin basic training.

And so, the Army formally opens its first prep school Wednesday.

"It's academic immersion," explained Col. Jeffrey Sanderson, chief of
staff at Fort Jackson, home of the Army's largest basic training
school. "Our studies show that with only three out of every 10 people
of military age being capable of joining the Army, we are going to
have to do something different."

That includes turning six World War II-era buildings at the base into
a mini-campus of spartan classrooms and barracks. Under the yearlong
pilot project, classes of about 60 soldiers will enter the monthlong
program every week.

Their day begins in uniform at 5 a.m. with physical training. Then
they attend about eight hours of academic review classes, followed by
homework each evening. An hour of marching drills and military
discipline is thrown in for good measure.

"It's a tough, structured day. Some of them have sat on the couch for
18 years, but I haven't heard any howling yet," said social studies
instructor John Solis, one of 14 certified teachers on hand. "By and
large, they are chomping at the bit; they are ready to go."

The soldiers work in small classrooms outfitted with simple desks,
chairs, and dry-erase boards. In-desk computers are used for
test-taking. Grouped three to four to a class, the students hunch
over special GED preparation books, working on basic math, social
studies and reading selections.

Recruits must score in the top half of the Army's aptitude test to
qualify for the prep school and get two tries at a General
Educational Development certificate. If they still can't pass, the
Army will release them from their contract, Sanderson said.

He said the Army prefers those who graduate from high school on their
own, because it demonstrates "tenacity." But the reality of current
graduation rates has the Army pressed to find an alternative,
Sanderson explained.

Holden, 18, of Medford, Ore., is racing through her first week of
practice tests before taking a formal GED exam soon. She left home at
16, one of nine children of a mill worker, and wants to be a military
police officer.

"There's no jobs out there, nothing. It's just horrible. And it got
hard just trying to support myself and go to school at the same
time," Holden said.

Swarner, a native of Baton Rouge, La., left school in the ninth
grade. Now 20, he dreams of becoming a combat engineer.

With the small classes, hovering teachers and a disciplined schedule,
Swarner said he's learning quickly.

"The teachers here are helping a lot. My best class is English, the
hardest is probably the math," he said.

With the GED behind them, Swarner and his classmates will enter basic
training at Fort Jackson, where more than half of all incoming male
soldiers and more than 80 percent of female recruits go through basic
combat training. Others will go to one of the Army's three other
basic training sites.

Those entering prep school have signed on for a two- to four-year
stint, just like any new recruit.

"We have two missions: get the GED and prepare them physically and
mentally for basic training," said the school's commander, Capt. Brian Gaddis.

Last October, Army officials said they intended to expand the force
by adding 74,000 soldiers by 2010, with the active duty force growing
to a total of 547,000.

But Sanderson said the Army's own studies show that only 3 in 10
people ages 17 to 24 are eligible to enlist, with the remainder
barred by health or legal issues, or the failure to earn a high
school diploma or equivalent.

A study issued by the National Priorities Project released in January
found that while the Army has a goal that 90 percent of recruits be
high school graduates, it hadn't met that percentage since 2004. In
the 2007 budget year, the Project found that only 71 percent of
soldiers entering the service had graduated.

Gaddis said he knows his students might have quit high school, but
believes that shouldn't be held against them. He added that the
school is a move to reach those who have been left behind, not to
attract those who are less qualified or lower than the Army's standards.

"These kids may have quit at some point, but the big thing is, a lot
of people have quit on them," Gaddis said. "We are not going to allow
them to quit."

.

Who Serves in the U.S. Military?

Who Serves in the U.S. Military?
The Demographics of Enlisted Troops and Officers

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda08-05.cfm

August 21, 2008
by Shanea Watkins, Ph.D. and James Sherk

Center for Data Analysis Report #08-05

Interactive U.S. map of troop representation levels
http://www.heritage.org/CDA/CDA_troops_flash_graphic/CDA_troops_2008.html

Who serves in the active-duty ranks of the U.S. all-volunteer
military? Conventional wisdom holds that military service
disproportionately attracts minorities and men and women from
disadvan­taged backgrounds. Many believe that troops enlist because
they have few options, not because they want to serve their country.
Others believe that the war in Iraq has forced the military to lower
its recruiting standards.

Previous Heritage Foundation studies that exam­ined the backgrounds
of enlisted personnel refute this interpretation.[1] This report
expands on those studies by using an improved methodology to study
the demographic characteristics of newly commissioned officers and
personnel who enlisted in 2006 and 2007.

Any discussion of troop quality must take place in context. A
soldier's demographic characteristics are of little importance in the
military, which val­ues honor, leadership, self-sacrifice, courage,
and integrity­qualities that cannot be quantified. Nonetheless, any
assessment of the quality of recruits can take place only on the
basis of objec­tive criteria. Demographic characteristics are a poor
proxy for the quality of those who serve in the armed forces, but
they can help to explain which Americans volunteer for military
service and why.

Based on an understanding of the limitations of any objective
definition of quality, this report com­pares military volunteers to
the civilian population on four demographic characteristics:
household income, education level, racial and ethnic back­ground, and
regional origin. This report finds that:
U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel
and officerswho do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous
Her­itage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of
enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This
report demon­strates that the same is true of the officer corps.

Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely
to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income
neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from
the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 per­cent
came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more
pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC)
pro­gram, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest
neighborhoods­a number that has increased substantially over the past
four years.

American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more
than 1 percent of enlisted per­sonnel lack a high school degree,
compared to 21 percent of men 18–24 years old, and 95 percent of
officer accessions have at least a bachelor's degree.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented
in military service. Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be
white or black than their non-military peers. Whites are
proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are
overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined
each year from 2004 to 2007. New recruits are also disproportionately
likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of
South­ern military tradition.

The facts do not support the belief that many American soldiers
volunteer because society offers them few other opportunities. The
average enlisted person or officer could have had lucrative career
opportunities in the private sector. Those who argue that American
soldiers risk their lives because they have no other opportunities
belittle the personal sacrifices of those who serve out of love for
their country.

This report proceeds in two parts.

First, it examines the demographic characteristics of the enlisted
personnel in 2006 and 2007, using new data from the Defense Manpower
Data Center.

Second, it examines the same demographic char­acteristics for 2007
graduates from the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West
Point[2] and for members of the Army ROTC who were commis­sioned
between 2004 and 2007 or enrolled in the Army ROTC as of March 2007.
Officers who were commissioned in 2004 would have enrolled before the
start of the war on terrorism, while those enrolled in 2007 were well
aware that they were signing up during wartime. This makes it
possible to assess whether the war in Iraq has degraded the officer
corps' standards.
--

Enlisted Personnel

The Defense Manpower Data Center provided The Heritage Foundation
with data on enlisted recruits for all branches of the military in
2006 and 2007.[3] These data included the recruits' racial and
ethnic background, their educational attain­ment when they enlisted,
and information con­necting recruits to their home census tracts.
Using census tracts enables a more precise analysis of the recruits'
family income than previous Heritage Foundation reports, which had
data available only at the three-digit and five-digit Zip code
tabula­tion area level.

Household Income. Enlisted recruits in 2006 and 2007 came primarily
from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Low-income
neighbor­hoods were underrepresented among enlisted troops, while
middle-class and high-income neighborhoods were overrepresented.

Individual or family income data on enlistees do not exist. The
Defense Department does not main­tain records on the household income
of recruits or officers. Examining the earnings of most recruits
before they joined the military is not possible because, for most of
them, their first full-time job is in the military.

Instead, we approximated the recruits' house­hold incomes by
assigning each recruit the median household income of the census
tract in which they lived. This approximates their parents' economic
status. For example, 10 recruits in 2006 came from census tract
013306 in San Diego. Accordingly, we assigned to each of these 10
recruits a median household income of $57,380 per year (in 2008
dollars), the median income of that tract in the 2000 Census.

Census tracts are far smaller and more homogenous than five-digit Zip
code tabulation areas. While the average five-digit Zip code
tabula­tion area contains almost 10,000 residents, census tracts
average approximately 4,000 residents.[4] Using census tract data
consequently allows for a more precise imputation of household income
than was possible in previous reports and, correspondingly, a more
accurate analysis of how the recruits differ from the civilian population.

Using the median household incomes in their census tracts, the
average household income for all 2006 recruits was $54,834 per year
(in 2008 dollars).[5] The average enlisted recruit in 2007 had a
house­hold income of $54,768. This is mod­estly above the national
average of $50,428. Chart 1 shows the distribu­tion among enlisted
recruits and the population as a whole by household income quintile.

As Chart 1 shows, low-income families are underrepresented in the
military, and high-income families are overrepresented. Individuals
from the bottom household income quintile make up 20.0 percent of the
popula­tion of those who are 18–24 years old but only 10.6 percent of
the 2006 recruits and 10.7 percent of the 2007 recruits. Individuals
in the top two quintiles make up 40.0 percent of the population, but
49.3 percent of the recruits in both years.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_chart1.gif

Chart 2 shows the household in­come distribution of enlisted recruits
for 2006 and 2007 in more detail. It also shows the difference in
income distribution between enlisted forces and the overall civilian
population.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_chart2.gif

Every income category above $40,000 per year is overrepresented in
the active-duty enlisted force, while every income category below
$40,000 a year is underrepresented. Low-income families are
sig­nificantly underrepresented in the military. U.S. military
enlistees disproportionately come from upper-middle-class families.

Members of America's volunteer army are not enlisting because they
have no other economic opportunities. Most recruits come from
relatively affluent families and would likely earn above-aver­age
wages if they did not join the military.

Education. Contrary to popular perceptions, America's enlisted troops
are not poorly educated. Previous Heritage Foundation studies found
that enlisted troops were significantly more likely to have a high
school education than their peers. This is still the case. Only 1.4
percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 had not graduated from high
school or completed a high school equivalency degree, com­pared to
20.8 percent of men ages 18 to 24. Amer­ica's soldiers are less
likely than civilians to be high school dropouts.

The military requires at least 90 percent of enlisted recruits to
have high school diplomas.[6] Most enlisted recruits do not have a
college degree because they enlist before they would attend col­lege.
However, many recruits use the educational benefits offered by the
military to attend college after they leave the armed forces.

More evidence of the quality of America's enlisted forces comes from
the standardized Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) that the
military administers to all recruits. Over two-thirds of enlisted
recruits scored above the 50th percentile on the AFQT. The military
tightly restricts how many recruits it accepts with scores below the
30th percentile, and only 2.3 percent of recruits in 2007 scored
between the 21st and 30th percentiles (Category IVA; see Chart 3).
The mili­tary does not accept any recruits in the bottom 20 percent.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_chart3.gif

Race.The all-volunteer force was instituted in 1973 amid concerns
over whether the military could maintain race representation
proportional to the overall population. In a time of war, people and
policymakers would be even more concerned if the burden of war fell
disproportionately on certain sec­tions of the population.[7]

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_table1sm.gif

As reported in Table 2, the percentage of white active-duty recruits
with no prior military service was 65.3 percent in 2006 and 65.5
percent in 2007. Based on calculations from the Integrated Public Use
Microdata Series (IPUMS), almost 62 percent of the U.S. male
population ages 18 to 24 classified themselves as white in
2006.[8] The troop-to-popula­tion ratio in these years was 1.05,
indicating that the representation of whites in the military is
similar to, although slightly above, their representation in the
overall population.[9]

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_table2.gif

The representation of blacks in the military is also above their
population representation, with recruit-to-population ratios of 1.03
in 2006 and 1.08 in 2007. The percentage of Asian and Pacific
Islander recruits is smaller than their population representation,
with recruit-to-population ratios of 0.94 in 2006 and 0.93 in 2007.

American Indian and Alaskan natives are largely overrepresented in
the military compared to their representation in the overall
popula­tion. In 2006, the IPUMS reported that less than 1 percent of
males ages 18 to 24 characterized them­selves as American Indian or
Alas­kan. Yet this group accounted for 2.16 percent of new enlisted
recruits in 2006 and 1.96 percent in 2007. This group is the most
overrepre­sented among new recruits, with troop-to-population ratios
of 2.96 in 2006 and 2.68 in 2007.

The population percentages and ratios for Hispanics are presented in
Table 3. Hispanics are largely under­represented among new recruits,
with troop-to-population ratios of 0.64 in 2006 and 0.65 in 2007.
Compared to the previous versions of this paper,[10] the Hispanic
indicator variable had more complete responses, with many fewer
recruits declining to indicate Hispanic ethnicity. However, the
non­response rates for the Hispanic eth­nicity indicator variable
were still large enough that they may confound the results of the
Hispanic analysis. If only recruits who responded to the Hispanic
ethnicity question are con­sidered, we still find that this group is
underrepresented in the military.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_table3.gif

Region.Representation by census region and division for recent
active-duty military enlistees is found in Map 1. Similar to previous
Heritage Foundation reports on the regional representation of troops,
we find that the strong Southern military tradi­tion continues with
the 2006 and 2007 enlisted recruits. The South accounts for more than
40 percent of new enlistees­a proportional over­representation.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_map1.gif

The Northeast is underrepresented in the enlisted population, while
the Midwest and West are roughly proportionally represented. Map 2
shows the enlisted representation ratios for each state for 2007
enlistees with no prior military ser­vice. The figures for 2006 are
in Table A1 in the Appendix.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_map2.gif

The Officer Corps

The conventional wisdom, which mistakenly holds that Americans
soldiers enlist because they are disadvantaged and have limited
opportunities, does not extend to the officer corps. The
stereotypical military officer is highly educated and comes from an
affluent family. This stereotype is largely correct.

The Defense Manpower Data Center provided The Heritage Foundation
with data on officers who were commissioned in the Army Reserve
Officer Training Corps between 2004 and 2007 and cadets who were
enrolled in the Army ROTC as of March 27, 2007. The military also
provided information on the 2007 graduates of the U.S. Military
Acad­emy at West Point. Although these data do not represent all
officers, they provide significant insight into the demographic
characteristics of the officer corps: 39 percent of active-duty
officers were commissioned through the ROTC,[11] and 25 percent of
new army lieutenants graduated from West Point.[12]

Household Income.America's officers come from relatively well-off
neighborhoods. The same meth­odology used to assess the income of the
enlisted personnel shows that the average candidate enrolled in the
Army ROTC in March 2007 came from a neighborhood with a median
household income of $64,083 (in 2008 dollars)­well above the national
figure of $50,428. The discrepancy is even greater for West Point
graduates, for whom the average graduate came from a neighborhood
with a median income of $75,367.

Only 7.8 percent of ROTC candidates in 2007 came from neighborhoods
in the bottom household income quintile, while 40.0 percent come from
neighborhoods in the top income quintile. Chart 5 shows the
difference between the income distribu­tions of civilians and
officers who were commissioned in the ROTC or graduated from West
Point. Unsur­prisingly, both groups of officers come from
higher-income neighborhoods.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_chart4.gif

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_chart5.gif

The greatest discrepancy between officer and civilian backgrounds
occurs in neighborhoods with median earnings above $100,000. While
3.4 percent of neighborhoods nation­wide have median earnings above
$100,000, 9.5 percent of ROTC com­missions and 21.1 percent of USMA
graduates come from these high-income neighborhoods. Most of the men
and women who risk their lives serving as U.S. military officers
proba­bly could have earned high salaries if they had chosen civilian careers.

The vast majority of officers com­missioned in 2004 entered the ROTC
four years earlier in 2000, before the September 11 terrorist
attacks. Those who were commissioned or who were enrolled in the ROTC
in 2007 became officer candidates in wartime conditions knowing that
they could be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. If the strain of the
global war on ter­rorism has forced the military to lower its
standards in the officer corps, then the quality of officers
commissioned in the ROTC would have fallen since 2004.

The opposite has occurred. Chart 4 shows the income distribution of
ROTC officers commissioned in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and those who
enrolled or were commissioned in 2007. The median neighborhood income
of candidates entering the ROTC has increased by an average of 4.9
percent since 9/11 and the start of the Iraq war.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_chart6.gif

Education. The military's rank structure ensures that the officer
corps is highly educated. By defini­tion, every West Point graduate
or officer with an Army ROTC commission has earned a bachelor's
degree. Overall, 94.9 percent of all officer corps accessions have at
least a four-year bachelor's degree.[13] In contrast, 25.0 percent
of Americans between the ages of 22 and 27 had at least a four-year
bachelor's degree in 2006.[14]

Race. The officer corps' pattern of racial repre­sentation differs
from the pattern in the enlisted force. The analysis of the Army ROTC
data com­pared newly commissioned officers to the college-educated
population 18–27 years old for 2004 to 2006. ROTC race representation
and officer-to-population ratios can be found in Table 4.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_table4.gif

When compared to the relevant population group, whites are roughly
proportionally repre­sented in the ROTC in all four years, similar to
what was observed in the enlisted military popula­tion. Blacks are
overrepresented in all four years, but this overrepresentation
decreases in each suc­cessive year.

The percentage of Hispanics completing col­lege is roughly equal to
the proportion partici­pating in the ROTC, indicating proportional
representation of this demographic group. This is true of all years,
except 2007 when Hispanics are largely underrepresented in ROTC
programs, with a cadet-to-population ratio of just 0.68. However, the
2007 ROTC numbers should be interpreted cautiously because they
include all current ROTC participants and ROTC cadets who were
commissioned in 2007. These figures may be misleading because they do
not account for attrition among current cadets, and future analysis
may find that Hispanic representation in the ROTC in 2007 was
proportional when com­pared to Hispanics in the general population
with college degrees. This caveat should be applied to all 2007 ROTC findings.

The proportion of Asians in the ROTC popula­tion is smaller than in
the comparison group, indi­cating that fewer Asians are participating
in the ROTC than are attending and completing college. The percentage
of American Indian and Alaskan natives who participate in the ROTC is
small, but it more than doubled between 2004 and 2005, mov­ing from
being proportionally represented in 2004 to being overrepresented since 2005.

The data on cadets attending West Point do not include information on
race, so race was imputed using census tract demographic information
for each cadet's home of record. The race representation at the
census tract level was computed using Census 2000 data for the
population 18 and older. Chart 7 reports the race results for the
census tracts with at least one USMA cadet along with the overall
observed percentage of adults ages 18 and older by race category.
Based on census tract information from the decennial census, white
and Asian demo­graphic groups are overrepresented in the military
academy population, and all other race groups are underrepresented.

Region.The regional distribution of newly com­missioned officers is
similar to the distribution of enlisted recruits. As among enlisted
recruits, the South accounts for 42.5 percent of new Army ROTC
commissioned officers in 2006­almost 10 percent above the South's
proportional share. West Point cadets from the South account for 36.7
per­cent of all 2007 graduates, which is also dispropor­tionally
high. (See Table 5.)

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_chart7.gif

Similar to the enlisted troops, ROTC cadets are underrepresented in
the Northeast. However, the representation of USMA graduates in this
region is proportional. The West is underrepresented in the ROTC and
USMA. The regional representa­tion of the ROTC is smaller than the
comparable population in 2004, but it grows through 2006, when the
West is proportionally represented. The 2007 data suggest an
underrepresentation, but this should be interpreted cautiously for
the rea­sons mentioned previously. The Midwest is also proportionally
underrepresented among West Point graduates.

Maps 3 and 4 show the representation ratios for each state for 2007
ROTC cadets and USMA gradu­ates. Table A1 in the Appendix shows the
represen­tation figures for ROTC cadets in 2004–2006 for each state.

Conclusion

The men and women who serve in America's all-volunteer military do
not come disproportionately from disadvantaged backgrounds. Instead,
the opposite is true. Both active-duty enlisted troops and officers
come disproportionately from high-income neighborhoods­a trend that
has increased since 9/11.

America's troops are highly educated. Enlisted recruits have
above-average intelligence and are far more likely than their
civilian peers to have a high school degree. Nearly all of the
officer corps has at least a four-year college education­far greater
than the rate in the civilian population. The racial composition of
the military is similar to that of the civilian population, although
whites and blacks are slightly overrepresented among enlisted recruits.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_table5.gif

The popular impression that many soldiers join the military because
they lack better opportunities is wrong. In all likelihood, our
soldiers would have had many lucrative career opportunities in the
pri­vate sector. The officers and enlisted men and women of the armed
forces have made sacrifices to serve in the U.S. military.
--

Shanea J. Watkins, Ph.D., is Policy Analyst in Empirical Studies and
James Sherk is Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy in the Center for Data
Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.
--

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_map3.gif

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_map4.gif

http://www.heritage.org/CDA/CDA_troops_flash_graphic/CDA_troops_2008.html

--

Technical Appendix

This paper uses data on enlisted personnel and officers and cadets in
the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) and United States
Military Academy (USMA) at West Point. The data were pro­vided by the
Defense Manpower Data Center at the request of The Heritage
Foundation. The troop data included the full home-of-record address
for each recruit, which was used to merge the data with demographic
data at the census tract level from the Census Bureau. Analysis of
the data on enlisted per­sonnel focuses on the demographic
characteristics of troops who reported no previous military service
(non–prior service accessions).

The analysis presented here updates a previous Heritage Foundation
paper with data on U.S. enlisted recruits during 2006 and
2007.[15] In addi­tion, it presents some new analysis on military
offic­ers based on data from 2004–2007 Army ROTC programs and 2007
data on officer commissions from the USMA (West Point).

Populations were compared using data from Census 2000; the 2006
American Community Sur­vey (ACS); and the Integrated Public Use
Microdata Series (IPUMS).[16] All analyses at the census tract level
used data from the 2000 Census because these are the most recent
census tract data available. Sta­tistics reported at the national or
state level used 2006 ACS data or IPUMS data. Since the majority of
new enlisted recruits are between the ages of 18 and
24,[17] comparisons to the general population using Census, ACS, or
IPUMS data were made using this age group when possible.

Recruit Data

The recruitment data from the U.S. Department of Defense consist of
three sets of data: recent enlisted accessions, commissioned officers
from and current participants in the Army ROTC, and recent graduates
from West Point. The enlisted data cover two years of recruits:
non–prior service enlisted accessions from October 2005–September
2006 (2006 data) and from October 2006–September 2007 (2007 data).
The 2006 data cover 166,299 recruits, and the 2007 data cover 158,069
recruits. Each recruit record includes full address informa­tion,
race, Hispanic ethnicity, and educational codes. The data include
accessions for the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force.

The analysis presented in this paper considers only the demographic
characteristics of the active-duty component of the military. Data on
the Reserve and National Guard recruits were not included.

The Army ROTC data cover four years of ROTC cadets, including
officers commissioned in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and those commissioned
as of March 27, 2007. The data also include information on all cadets
participating in the ROTC in 2007. The data on 2007 commissioned
officers and cur­rent ROTC participants were combined into one group
for purposes of analysis. There were 4,408 officer accessions in
2004, 4,178 in 2005, and 4,050 in 2006. As of March 2007, there were
675 officer accessions, and 25,789 cadets were partici­pating in the
ROTC, bringing the ROTC population size for 2007 data to 26,464
cadets. Similar to the enlisted data, the ROTC data included each
cadet's full address, race, and Hispanic ethnicity.

The USMA data cover officer commissions from West Point in 2007. In
2007, 1,011 officers were commissioned from West Point, and the data
include each cadet's home-of-record address.

Race Data

Census race categories allow for any combination of six races
(American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific
Islander, black or African–American, white, and other). The data on
enlisted personnel include race categories that reflected census
coding. The ROTC data included one category for Asian. The census
categories for Asian and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander were com­bined
in order to compare the ROTC Asian category to the general population.

The enlisted, ROTC, and census data also include Hispanic ethnicity
indicators, and the race catego­ries analyzed in this paper identify
Hispanics as a distinct race group. Therefore, in this
categoriza­tion, all other races (e.g., white, black, and Asian) are
represented as non-Hispanic race.

Invalid Recruit Addresses

Address information in each file was used to match each recruit to
his or her census tract using ArcGIS spatial match procedures. In
some cases, the provided address could not be matched to a specific
census tract because it could not be located in the address locator
database supplied by Environmen­tal Systems Research Institute
(ESRI). This occurred most often when the address was a post office
box or general delivery location.

These unmatched records were rematched by Zip code and randomly
assigned to a census tract based on the five-digit Zip. Any remaining
unmatched records were excluded from the analy­sis. Troops with home
addresses outside of the 50 states and the District of Columbia were
excluded from the analysis.

Census Data

The census data methodology used in this paper is similar to the
methodology used in previous Her­itage Foundation reports on troop
demographics.[18] Data were taken from the United States Census
2000, Summary File 1 and Summary File 3, and the United States Census
2004, 2005, and 2006 ACS. The data from Summary File 1 are collected
for the whole population, and Summary File 3 and the 2004 ACS contain
estimates from sample data.

Income analysis for all recruit years used data from Census 2000,
Summary File 3, Table P53 (Median Household Income). More recent data
by census tract are not publicly available.

Educational analysis for the recruit cohorts used data for the
population ages 18–24 from the 2006 ACS Summary File 3, Table PCT25
(Sex by Age by Educational Attainment for the Population 18 Years and
Over), and used the age breakdown in this table to focus on the
population ages 18–24.

Race analysis for the 2004 and 2005 recruit cohorts used data based
on the authors' calculations based on data from the 2004 through 2006
IPUMS data to assess proportionality on a national level, not by census tract.

The regional analysis used data based on the authors' calculations
from the 2004 through 2006 IPUMS data to assess proportionality at
the state and region levels.

The population count for ages 18–24 refers to the estimate of
27,067,510 for Census 2000. The more recent sample data in 2006 ACS
give a sample-based estimate of 29,700,518 for the population ages
18–24. Summary File 1, which is representa­tive of the whole
population for Census 2000, reports the total population 18 years and
over as 209,128,094. The 2006 ACS race reports a sample-based
population estimate of 225,633,342.

Income Analysis

The recruit data did not include any information on recruits'
incomes. The average household income calculations performed in this
paper were done by assigning each recruit the median house­hold
income value in 1999 for his or her census tract. These dollar values
were adjusted for inflation and expressed in 2008 dollars. The income
analysis was weighted by the total population ages 18–24 in each
census tract to adjust for uneven population distribution among census tracts.

Educational Analysis

The educational analysis compared educational attainment of non–prior
service enlisted recruits to educational attainment data of the U.S.
male popu­lation ages 18–24 from the 2006 ACS, Table B15001. Due to
inconsistencies in the coding of the education data supplied by the
Defense Manpower Data Center, and in order to match more closely the
official Department of Defense education statistics on the non–prior
service enlisted recruit popula­tion, some educational categories
were removed from consideration in the educational analysis.

Race Analysis

The race analysis for the enlisted troops com­pared the race
distribution of these troops to the race distribution of males 18–24
years old in the general population, calculated using the 2006 IPUMS
data. Similarly, the ROTC race distribu­tions were compared to race
distributions of males 18–27 years old with at least a college
edu­cation in the general population, using the 2004, 2005, and 2006
IPUMS data. The 2007 ROTC data included information on currently
enrolled cadets as well as recent accessions and was com­pared to
males 18–27 years old with at least some college education using the
2006 IPUMS data. The 2006 data are the most recent available and were
used as the point of comparison for both the 2007 enlisted and ROTC data.

Race information for the USMA officer commis­sions was not available.
Race analysis for this group was conducted by using the race
characteristics of the census tracts where the cadets lived. Once
race was established using census tract information, this group was
compared to the total population 18 and older using Table P6 from
Census 2000 Summary File 1.

Regional Analysis

The census region, census division, and state comparisons in this
paper used the authors' calcula­tions of state population data from
the 2004 through 2006 IPUMS. The IPUMS population var­ied depending
on the military population being considered.

The population comparison for the 2006 and 2007 enlisted active-duty
military was done using calculations from the 2006 IPUMS data for the
male population ages 18 to 24.

The 2004–2006 IPUMS data for males ages 18 to 27 with at least a
bachelor's degree were used for the comparisons of ROTC
proportionality for 2004 through 2006. The 2006 IPUMS data for males
ages 18–27 with at least some college education were used as the
relevant comparison population for the 2007 ROTC data because these
data included grad­uates and currently enrolled ROTC participants.

The 2007 USMA population was compared to calculated population
numbers from the 2006 IPUMS for males 18–27 years old with at least a
college education.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/images/CDA08-05_tableA1.gif

--

Notes:

[1] Tim Kane, "Who Bears the Burden? Demographic Characteristics of
U.S. Military Recruits Before and After 9/11," Heritage Foundation
Center for Data Analysis Report No. CDA05–08, November 7, 2005, at
http://www.heritage.org/research/nationalsecurity/cda05-08.cfm, and
"Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S.
Military Enlistment, 2003–2005," Heritage Foundation Center for Data
Analysis Report No. CDA06–09, October 26, 2006, at
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda06-09.cfm.

[2] This report does not cover the demographic characteristics of the
graduates from other military academies or senior mili­tary colleges.
The Heritage Foundation was given data only on recent West Point graduates.

[3] The data used in this analysis may be requested from The Heritage
Foundation, but due to privacy concerns, any release of the data must
be approved by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for
Personnel and Readiness.

[4] U.S. Census Bureau, American Factfinder Glossary, s.v. "Census
tract," at http://factfinder.census.gov/home/en/epss/glossary_c.html
(July 25, 2008).

[5] For details of these calculations, see the Technical Appendix.
All figures are adjusted for inflation using the personal
con­sumption expenditure (PCE) deflator and expressed in 2008 dollars.

[6] A General Education Development (GED) credential does not count
toward this requirement.

[7] See David J. Armor and Curtis L. Gilroy, "Changing Minority
Representation in the U.S. Military," paper presented at Biennial
Conference of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and
Society, Chicago, October 26, 2007.

[8] This does not include people who classify themselves as white in
combination with any other race. All race categories in both military
and census data are reported in this manner.

[9] A troop-to-population ratio of 1.00 would be exact proportional
representation.

[10] Kane, "Who Bears the Burden?" and "Who Are the Recruits?"

[11] U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Undersecretary of
Defense, Personnel, and Readiness, 2005 Population Representation in
the Military Services, Table B-40, at
http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/poprep2005/download/download.html
(July 25, 2008).

[12] U.S. Military Academy at West Point, "About the Academy," at
http://www.usma.edu/about.asp (July 25, 2008).

[13] U.S. Department of Defense, 2005 Population Representation in
the Military Services, Table B-34.

[14] Heritage Foundation calculations using American Community Survey
data for 2006.

[15] Kane, "Who are the Recruits?"

[16] With the exception of the ROTC race analyses, which use data
from the 2004, 2005, and 2006 American Community Surveys.

[17] The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and
Readiness reports that 87 percent of new recruits are between these
ages. U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense, Personnel and Readiness, 2006 Popula­tion Representation in
the Military Services, at
http://www.defenselink.mil/prhome/PopRep_FY06/download.html (June 10, 2008).

[18] Kane, "Who Bears the Burden?" and "Who Are the Recruits?"

.

Armed forces flex standards to meet recruiting goals

Armed forces flex standards to meet recruiting goals

http://www.timesonline.com/articles/2008/08/24/news/doc48b22b9cb05b2671555570.txt

By Cory Nealon, Times Staff
Published: Sunday, August 24, 2008

MEETING GOALS

The Pentagon last year approved a plan to increase the size of the
Army from 519,000 troops to 547,000 by 2010.

Army officials did not return calls seeking comment, but an Aug. 11
Department of Defense press release says the Army is on track to meet
its 2008 goal, which was not stated.

Month-to-month Army recruitment goals within the past year have
varied from 750 in December to 10,000 in July. The Army, which has
suffered the most casualties and has endured longest deployments in
Iraq and Afghanistan, has met its stated goal each month.

The Army exceeded its 2007 recruiting goal, 80,000, by 407 recruits.

LACK OF INFORMATION

It's difficult to gauge the recruiting environment in Beaver County.

Local Army recruiters, who declined to comment for this article,
forwarded a reporter's query to an Army office in Cleveland.
Officials there did not return a phone call.

Local Marine Corps and Navy recruiting officials also didn't return
phone calls seeking comment.

Sgt. Jeff Pring has been the Air Force's recruiter in Beaver County
since 2005. Despite not offering signup bonuses or other incentives,
he has been able to meet the Air Force's goal of enlisting two
recruits a month.

"We're actually doing pretty good," he said. "We don't have a problem
meeting our numbers."

RATCHETING UP RECRUITING

How the Army is boosting its numbers:

Accepting less-educated recruits. The percentage of recruits with
high school diplomas has dropped significantly in the past five years.

Year, Percentage

2003, 94 percent

2005, 84 percent

2007, 71 percent

Accepting older recruits. The maximum age for recruits has jumped
seven years since 2005.

Year, Maximum age

2005, 35

2006, 40

Present:42

Source: The National Priorities Project

Sean Dennerlein is a senior and National Honor Society member at
Ambridge Area High School.

He has never been in trouble with the law, and he plans to attend
college before joining the Air Force as a chaplain.

Dennerlein's the type of recruit the military salivates over. But
he's also the type of recruit the military is struggling to enlist.

The nation's armed services, under orders to increase their numbers,
expect to meet year-end recruiting goals. But they're doing so only
by accepting less-educated, older recruits who are more likely to
have criminal backgrounds.

The trouble began in 2005 when the Army missed its annual recruitment
goal for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The reason: waning support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
according to Donald Goldstein, a professor of international relations
at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Army and other military braches responded by lowering their
recruiting standards.

For example, the amount of Army recruits with high school degrees
decreased by 23 percent from 2003 to last year, according to Defense
Department data obtained by the Boston-based National Priorities Project.

The Army disputes the number, saying it's actually a 15 percent drop.
Whatever the case, Goldstein said the drop doesn't bode well.

"The Army's in trouble," Goldstein said. "They're taking what they can get."

Studies show high school dropouts are less likely to complete basic
training than recruits with diplomas, he said.

Unlike the Army, the Marine Corps has consistently met its
recruitment goals. But like the Army, it is allowing more felons into
its active-duty ranks, according to a House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform report released in April.

The Marine Corps enlisted 350 recruits with felony convictions in
fiscal year 2007. That's up from 208 the year before. Felon recruits
in the Army jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 last year.

The armed services have long accepted high school dropouts and former
criminals into their ranks, Goldstein said. But today's warfare is
much more technical than that of previous wars, he said.

Army studies have shown the higher level of education that recruits
have the better they score on aptitude tests. And there's a
correlation between high aptitude test scores and performance, such
as target practice, according to the National Priorities Project.

The Army in 2006 increased its age limit to from 35 to 42. The
result: It enlisted 1,667 recruits ages 35 to 42 in fiscal 2007,
according to the National Priorities Project. The figure represents
around 2.5 percent of its active-duty recruits that year.

"They've lowered their standards," said Goldstein. "They don't like
to admit it, but they have."

Recruiting expenses are also on the rise.

For example, the Army in 2007 announced a $20,000 quick-ship bonus,
in which recruits report to basic training within 30 days of
enlisting. Also, seniors in high school can receive up to $1,000 a
month from the time they sign up until they graduate, plus $1,000
upon graduating, for joining the Army.

The bonuses aren't as widespread in the Marine Corps, which has a
more selective recruitment process. But they do exist.

Steven Makepeace is a member of the Marine Corps junior ROTC program
at Ambridge Area. Makepeace, who will enter Marine Corps boot camp
next June after graduating, said he may receive a $5,000 sign-on bonus.
--

Cory Nealon can be reached online at cnealon@timesonline.com.

.

No JROTC Left Behind

No JROTC Left Behind

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3855/no_jrotc_left_behind/

Are military schools recruitment pools?

August 20, 2008
By Allen McDuffee

Matthew Hartman had every intention of enlisting in the Army directly
after his graduation in two years. But it was Col. Sterling Stokes
and his military staff who convinced Hartman that college, not the
battlefield, was a better option. At least for now.

"They persuaded me that there is always time to serve my country and
that maybe I would be able to serve even better if I went to college
first," Hartman, 16, says.

The Richmond, Va., native is a junior at the Franklin Military
Academy in Richmond, where Stokes is principal. He earned the highest
score on the 2008 National Chemistry Olympiad in his school, and is
the type of student college admissions counselors would like to see
among their applicants.

But for Cadet Hartman, the military seemed like a natural progression.

Academies like Franklin Military are part of the country's rapidly
expanding Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) program. The
academies are exclusively JROTC and the Department of Defense helps
fund them ­ part of a growing trend to introduce military schools
into the public school system in primarily poor urban areas where
many school systems are struggling, if not failing.

These academies aren't boot camps for delinquents. There is no
compulsory military service upon graduation. And they're not the
realization of the Bush administration's machinations. In fact,
administrators insist the academies are college prep schools.

But for many, the evidence isn't so clear. Critics like Darlene
Graminga, of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker
pacifist organization, suggest that cases like Hartman's are few and
far between, and that the military academies are a veiled attempt to
recruit American youth.

Graminga, program director of the group's Truth in Recruiting
Program, says, "I hardly doubt that it's a coincidence that these
schools are prospering at a time of war."

Despite such concerns, public military academies are wildly popular
among many parents and students.

Chicago ­ with more academies than any other city ­ can't build them
fast enough. Chicago's sixth academy will open this fall. In all, the
city has one-third of the country's academies.

Each year, the Chicago Public Schools accepts only about 10 percent
of academy applicants. For the 2007-2008 school year, approximately
7,500 students applied for 700 openings in the freshman class.

Extending JROTC

Military academies are part of the JROTC program that began in 1916.
Former Secretary of State and retired Gen. Colin Powell is credited
with advancing JROTC in its current form, in part by influencing
then-President George H.W. Bush in 1992 to more than double the size
of the program, from 1,500 JROTC programs to 3,500.

In his book My American Journey, Powell wrote: "Inner-city kids, many
from broken homes, found stability and role models in Junior ROTC.
They got a taste of discipline, the work ethic, and they experienced
pride of membership in something healthier than a gang. … Junior ROTC
is a social bargain."

In Virginia, the Richmond School Board and its Superintendent Richard
Hunter conceptualized Franklin Military Academy ­ the country's first
secondary military academy ­ on the heels of the Vietnam War in the
late '70s. It opened its doors to 130 freshmen in the fall of 1980.

The following year, academies opened in St. Louis and Sandy Hook,
N.J. After a 16-year gap, the Kenosha Military Academy in Wisconsin
was built in 1998. Since then, the academies have grown at a rate of
one to two a year.

"Students have to make the choice on their own to be here," says
Stokes, Franklin's principal.

Once a student makes that first step, the application process is
rigorous, including an interview and a written commitment from the
parents, as well as the student.

Motivated

"We're aiming at kids who aren't in trouble but who aren't fully
realizing their potential, either," says Ozzie Wright, principal of
the Philadelphia Military Academy. "We often see kids who have all
the makings of being good students, but have very unstable home lives
because of economics and family structures. We can make a difference
in these students' lives."

Elaine Macon-Johnson, who is in her fourth year at Franklin, teaches
technology and business. She had arrived at the academy unwillingly,
as part of a job reassignment, doubting whether public military
academies should even exist. After a few years at Franklin, she says
she became a convert.

"All I have to do is teach now," Macon-Johnson says. "Before, I would
have to spend so much time as disciplinarian." These days, she says,
"I don't have behavior problems. And on the rare occasion that
something does happen, it's somebody else's job to take care of, not mine."

Many academy teachers, most of whom don't have military backgrounds,
say they feel the same way. Walking down the hallway in between
classes, military instructor Sgt. Gary McCray says, "Look at this.
When you were in school, did you ever see it so calm?" referring to
the students quietly moving from one class to another, conversing.
"Everybody is so relaxed," McCray says.

Roberto Rodriguez, a first-year Marine Military Academy cadet, says,
"I like that we could become leaders and we know every student. No
bullies, none of that, so it's real cool."

Students attending the military academies are required to take one
four-year military-related course. The JROTC curriculum includes
military history, military protocol, civics and physical fitness.
Students often participate in drill team, color guard and
extracurricular activities, such as rock climbing and traveling. Some
schools arrange an international trip each year for a limited number
of students, and nearly all the academies send a large number of
students to the Army-Navy football game each year. For the many
students who have never been out of state ­ even out of their city ­
this is an appealing perk.

Recruitment factories?

As part of the 1916 National Defense Act, JROTC was created to
prepare American youth to fight in World War I, if needed. And JROTC
falls under the recruitment section of the Pentagon's budget.

Principals are quick to say that they are not asked to boost the
numbers of graduating students who enlist. Stokes says, "It's not
like we have been given [an enlistment] quota here."

But in February 2000, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen told
the House Armed Services Committee that JROTC is "one of the best
recruiting devices we could have." And Powell wrote in My American
Journey, "Liberal school administrators and teachers claimed that we
were trying to 'militarize' education. Yes, I'll admit, the armed
forces might get a youngster more inclined to enlist as a result of
Junior ROTC. But society got a far greater payoff."

In a difficult period for military recruiters, the Pentagon is
expected to spend $20.5 billion in 2009 on recruiting, some of which
will be distributed to JROTC. Pauline Lipman, a professor of
education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told PBS in
December 2007, "It would be really naive to think that the military
would, in fact, be expanding these schools and these programs and
pouring millions of dollars into the schools at a time when they
actually are having a recruitment crisis, if the schools were not
about recruiting students."

The Army has tried to accommodate its recruitment woes by reducing
its annual recruitment goal, raising the maximum enlistment age from
35 to 42, lowering mental aptitude standards, and welcoming in the
overweight, the physically injured and formerly convicted.

Military statistics over the last two decades indicate that 30
percent to 55 percent of JROTC students eventually enlist. The
military academies, however, maintain that their enlistment rates
after graduation ranges between 4 percent and 10 percent.

"If the Defense Department is looking to us for recruitment, then
they are making a bad investment," says Wright, the principal at
Philadelphia Military Academy.

But the numbers are inconclusive, if not misleading. The academies
collect their data through exit interviews with graduating students.
If a student goes directly into the military upon graduation ­ and
the student has made that decision at the time of filling out the
questionnaire ­ he or she would be part of that 4 percent-to-10
percent pool. However, if he or she doesn't directly enlist and
instead, for example, goes to college on a ROTC scholarship, then the
academies, like other public high schools, don't have the mechanisms
in place to track the student after graduation.

Ambiguities

Hugh Price, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, once
advocated using the military's discipline to help at-risk youth. As
vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1988 until 1994, he
helped conceive and launch the quasi-military program for school
dropouts that came to be known as the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program.

Price says he now thinks that schools have better options than a
military presence. He wants to demilitarize public education and
wonders whether the government can "find a way to make the attributes
of the military model generic? Can it be done without the military?
We need to find a way to help the struggling youth of America without
funding from the military."

Under the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act, any school
that receives federal funding must allow access to military
recruiters. One of the military instructors at Franklin boasts that
the school had a good relationship with the area recruiters. "Oh
yeah," he says, "We see them all the time."

The academies often bill themselves as college prep schools. And
looking at the schools and the learning environments, it appears they
are making a difference in the students' lives. Arne Duncan, CEO of
the Chicago Public Schools system, boasts that the city's military
academies have a 94 percent graduation rate versus the district
average of 84 percent.

But Oskar Castro, national coordinator of the AFSC's Youth &
Militarism program, isn't convinced.

"Where is the evidence?" he asks. "So many of these schools are so
new, and they claim that it's too early to tell [whether a school is
successful], so why are we still building them if we don't know?"

And the AFSC's Graminga argues that the academies don't produce
better results than other schools that are part of the small charter
school programs, currently en vogue among public school leaders in
large, urban environments.

"We have seen small schools projects be successful and the successes
that are related to the military academies are in line with that,"
she says. "But there doesn't seem to be anything inherent to the
military academies that leads us to say, 'Now, they've got the answer!' "

If Graminga is right, that might explain the success at Franklin
Military, which has less than 500 students and an exceptionally low
15 to 1, student-teacher ratio.

Opportunity knocks

Powell and others argue that the military has historically given
opportunities to those who have limited options. But making that
argument also acknowledges that the military uses the academies as a
recruiting tool. And given the academies' demographics and the
destruction of the GI Bill, which once provided funding for a college
education, one can reasonably ask whether the Department of Defense
is truly concerned with sending poor black and Latino kids to college.

In Richmond, Franklin Military consistently accommodates a 95 percent
African-American student body in a city that, according to the 2006
census, has a population of which 20 percent exist below the poverty
line and 54 percent are African-American.

Academy administrators maintain that these are the realities of urban
America. Philadelphia Military's Wright says, "The wealthier families
in cities have the advantage of sending their children to private
schools and a certain portion will go to the better public schools.
But in cities, we know we are facing a particular demographic."

The military, he adds, has a "history of providing opportunities" to
underprivileged sectors of society.

If interest by school districts in military-sponsored education is
any indication, we can expect to see a tremendous growth in the
number of academies. What is less clear is whether the military
academies would be considered successful if the public school systems
in these urban areas were doing an adequate job.

"If the military branches are formally involved as sponsors,
operators and funders," says Price, "it is naive to expect them to
resist the temptation to [use] these programs as a recruitment
pipeline. If anything, given global conditions, the pressure on them
to do so probably will intensify instead of subside."

[Editor's note: Research support for this story was provided by the
Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.]

Allen McDuffee writes about politics and Middle East affairs. He
blogs at governmentalityblog.com and is currently working on a book
project, No Child Left Unrecruited. He lives in Brooklyn.

.

Iraq War veteran says Army shortchanged him on combat bonus

A local Iraq War veteran fights for a combat bonus that he says he was promised

http://sentinelsource.com/articles/2008/08/20/news/local/free/id_319805.txt

Says the Army shortchanged him

By Casey Farrar
Sentinel Staff
Published: Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Congressman Paul W. Hodes, D-N.H., has asked the U.S. Department of
Defense to investigate why a Keene soldier who recently returned from
15 months in Iraq didn't receive the bonus pay he was promised.

Army Specialist Kevin S. Clark 2nd, who returned last month from his
deployment and is serving the remaining four months of his enlistment
in Fort Stewart, Ga., says an Army recruiter promised him a $14,000
bonus for joining a combat unit, but several months into the payments
he was informed a mistake was made.

He said Army officials told him shortly before he left for Iraq last
year he'd have to pay back $3,000 of the bonus that he had already been paid.

In recent years, the Army has increasingly leaned on incentive
bonuses to help ramp up recruitment of soldiers to fight in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

With Army recruitment numbers falling 7 percent short of goals in May
­ the first time that's happened in almost two years ­ the military
recently sweetened the deal for recruits even more.

Earlier this summer, the Army increased to 45 the number of specialty
jobs eligible for $15,000 cash payments when recruits sign for a
two-year stint.

The military also raised to $25,000 the maximum combined bonus for
all recruits who sign for three-year commitments. That's an increase
from the $10,000 to $20,000 bonuses previously available only for a
limited number of specialty jobs.

The Clarks say their son's case illustrates a concern raised by some
of his fellow soldiers about the link between recruitment promises
and military follow-through.

A 2003 Keene High School graduate, Clark spent a year in college
before joining the Army three years ago.

Though his parents, Jane and Kevin S. Clark Sr., say they worried
about his safety, they supported his decision to visit the Keene Army
recruiting station.

When his son signed up, he was told by an Army recruiter that he
would be eligible for a $400-a-month bonus for combat-unit
assignment, Clark's father said.

"The recruiter said he didn't qualify for the $20,000 bonus for
troops deploying to Iraq, but he did qualify for the $14,000
incentive pay (bonus) if he joined a combat unit," Clark's father
said in an interview Tuesday. "So he signed up and that was that."

Shortly after arriving at his base in Fort Stewart, Clark started to
get the runaround from officials, his father said.

"They came and said he wouldn't get (the bonus) because he wasn't
eligible, then they said he would get it, then they said there had
been a mistake and he wouldn't get it," Clark's father said. "When it
just started showing up in his monthly pay, he thought it had been
straightened out."

Then last spring, while Clark and his unit were preparing for a
deployment to Iraq, he got more bad news when he learned he would
have to pay back the $3,000 he'd been paid.

Julia Bobick, public affairs specialist for the U.S. Army Recruiting
Command, said she hadn't seen the specifics of Clark's enlistment,
but any promised bonuses should have appeared in his contract.

"A recruiter at the (recruiting) station could tell them about
bonuses that they are eligible for, up to $40,000, but they wouldn't
be guaranteed those until they sign the paperwork," Bobick said.
"It's based on the individual circumstances of each recruit."

Bobick said she isn't aware of any circumstances where a soldier
would lose a bonus written into his or her contract, unless it was
conditional ­ for example, a recruit offered bonus pay for joining an
Army Ranger unit who later did not qualify for Ranger training.

Clark's father said his major concern is how his son would deal with
the news while he was getting ready to go to war.

"That's why I started bringing it up," Clark's father said. "Here
they were, sending my son to war, and he should have his mind on what
was ahead of him, not feeling like he was cheated out of the money he
was promised."

During the 15 months he spent in Iraq, Clark was being paid the
standard $225 a month deployment bonus, but $248 a month was being
taken out of his paycheck to repay the Army's mistake, his father said.

After hearing Hodes discussing veterans and military issues on a
local talk-radio program, Kevin Clark contacted the congressman about
his son's problem.

"This could be an Army-wide problem," Clark's father said. "I know my
son has talked to guys that have had the same thing happen to them.
The Army seemed to do a bait-and-switch and I think that getting it
out there, maybe it'll help out the next guy when they go in to know
that they should be very careful about what they are told by recruiters."

Hodes met with Clark's parents last year and then with Clark after he
returned from his deployment last month.

Mark Bergman, a spokesman for Hodes, said Clark's circumstance is the
only one like it the congressman is aware of.

Bergman said after Hodes contacted the Department of Defense about
the matter earlier this year, he received an inadequate response,
sparking his decision to send a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense
Robert M. Gates.

Kevin Clark Sr. said that while his son has been discouraged by
what's happened, he has handled it with maturity.

"The day I realized I had the most respect for my son was in
November, when he came home for 18 days for break," he said. "When he
got back on that plane and went back to Iraq, knowing what was laying
ahead of him and knowing about the money thing that was going on back
here ­ I don't know if I would have done the same."

Clark has decided not to re-enlist when his contract ends late this
year, according to his father.

He hopes instead to return to college and take advantage of his
military educational benefits, his mother said.

.

In Mass., military must fight to recruit

In Mass., military must fight to recruit

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1114373&srvc=home&position=rated

By Michael Graham
Friday, August 22, 2008

Imagine for a moment you're the principal of a Massachusetts high
school - say, in Milton or Cohasset - and you get a call from PETA.

"We understand," the caller from People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals says, "that you're having a Career Day for the kids and that
KFC will be there taking job applications and, well, we just don't
think that's right. So we want to set up a PETA table telling the
kids that meat is murder, that chickens are people too and that
working at KFC is morally unacceptable."

What would you do?

If you're like me, your reply would be "Harry, is that you? Stop
pulling my leg, I've got work to do!" Then you'd laugh, hang up and
go on about your business.

Because the idea of having a protest group at a job fair is simply
ludicrous, whether they're anti-capitalists protesting Wal-Mart or
anti-communists protesting the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
The point of Career Day is to bring organizations to high schools
that can help students pick a career, not pick a political fight.

Unless you're the principal of Milton or Cohasset high school, and
the employer being protested is the U.S. Armed Services.

Three times a year, according to The Boston Globe-Democrat, Milton
High holds a Career Day, and at every one, military recruiters are
greeted by "counter-recruiters" discouraging kids from choosing to
serve. When recruiters go to Cohasset High, they're greeted the same way.

And now the so-called Citizens for An Informed Community is asking
Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School to let them in, too. They
think it's unfair that military recruiters don't tell both sides.

"We just think that when someone enters the military they should have
the full background," says CIC founder Ray Ajemian. "We're talking
about somebody dying or having trauma or killing someone."

What? If I join a combat organization, there might be fighting? Gee,
I wondered why they had all those pictures of Marines holding guns
and soldiers riding tanks. You mean those aren't just old photo-ops
with Michael Dukakis?

If it's true that 18-year-olds in Raynham are, in fact, unaware that
Marines kill people, Ajemian should be protesting the high school
history department, not the military.

Choosing to serve America as a member of our armed services is
serious business. In 2006, about 60 out of every 100,000 members of
the military were killed on the job.

However, more than 100 of every 100,000 employees in the fishing
industry were killed that same year. Where are the anti-fishing
activists? (Other than PETA, that is.)

Loggers, professional pilots and members of some construction trades
all have more dangerous jobs than our military, but if tree huggers
or anti-hardhat activists asked to be part of Career Day, they'd be
laughed off the campus.

So why is the U.S. military the only employer that faces officially
sanctioned propaganda at Massachusetts public schools? Colleges,
unions and schools of over-the-road trucking all send recruiters to
our high schools, but the only ones who face protests are those
wearing our nation's uniform.

CIC members are openly political, but claim their job-fair activities
are not. However, they also admit they have no intention of hiring
anyone, either. So why are they allowed to even participate?

Political protests are fine if you're organizing Debate Day or
Political Week or 9/11 Was An Inside Job-Fest.

But this is Career Day. And young men and women interested in making
a career of defending America should be celebrated, not hassled.
--

Michael Graham hosts a talk show on 96.9 FM WTKK.

.

Mural Aims To Educate Women On Military Recruitment

Mural Aims To Educate Women On Military Recruitment

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/85002/mural-aims-to-educate-women-on-military-recruitment/Default.aspx

By: Jeanine Ramirez
08/22/2008

After being covered in scaffolding for most of the summer, a blank
wall in Brooklyn has been transformed into a work of art – and its
young creators hope it will serve as a source of inspiration and
information. Brooklyn reporter Jeanine Ramirez filed the following
report ahead of the official dedication this weekend.
--

Artist Elizabeth Maroney points to a mural on the side of the
building – a mural she helped create and one she hopes will empower
women to think twice about enlisting in the military. It's an issue
she's had to deal with growing up in the Sheepshead Bay Houses.

"I've received phone calls from the military and they've come to my
school. There are recruiters' offices by my projects where I live,"
says Maroney.

Maroney is one of 13 college-bound women who took part in the summer
art project organized by the non-profit group Groundswell community
mural project. It gave the young women more than just a paid summer
job, but a chance to come up with a vision for the 50-foot wall on
Third Avenue and 23rd Street.

"My job is to help provide them with as many resources and as many
outside speakers to come," said the project's lead artist Katie Yamasaki.

They heard from various veterans' groups and they came up with
vibrant images, many seen from the Gowanus Expressway. Women in
classic combat poses are seen armed with tools of creation and
education; parachutes referring to older wartime propaganda bear
anti-war statistics; and dog tags, more than a hundred of them, bear
the number of women who have died in the Iraq War.

"We wanted the drivers on the highway – even if they only have a
second – we're trying to have them get the message we're sending
out," says muralist Sophia Dang.

It's a message they say recruiters don't give to young people, such
as the salary, the length of enrollment and the possible emotional
and physical affects of military duty.

"A lot of teenagers see it as way of creating guidance and discipline
in their lifestyle, but they can do that outside of the military,"
says Maroney.

Work on the site started last month and in just seven weeks, the
girls were able to complete the mural.

Along the way, they also picked up some new skills, such as mixing
colors, shading and tapping into their creative side.

"Art is really – It just comes from the soul," says muralist Erika Gill.

The group hopes the mural inspires some soul searching in its viewers, too.

.

A push for minorities

A push for minorities

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.fowler23aug23,0,6394966.story

Naval Academy unveils tailored recruiting tools

By Stephen Kiehl | Sun Reporter
August 23, 2008

The U.S. Naval Academy unveiled yesterday new, edgy marketing tools -
including a graphic novel and a fast-paced promotional video
featuring African-American, Asian and Hispanic midshipmen - in a bid
to increase the number of minorities on its Annapolis campus.

Vice Adm. Jeffrey L. Fowler, the academy superintendent, said the
officers in the military should reflect the diversity of the enlisted
force, which is about 47 percent minority. The class of 1,250 plebes
that entered Annapolis this week includes 351 minorities, or 28
percent, a record for the academy but still not good enough for Fowler.

"We're looking for those who can succeed here, from places where they
may not have thought about the Naval Academy," Fowler, who has been
superintendent for just over a year, said in a news conference
yesterday. "We're going to get people who before went off to
Princeton and Stanford and MIT. Some of those young people are going
to come here."

To that end, the academy has produced a slick 60-second video
commercial, which shows minority midshipmen flying planes and sailing
ships, that will be shown during televised Navy football games. It
might also be given to the academy's 2,200 volunteer recruiters
across the country.

A 15-minute version of the film, complete with testimonials from the
midshipmen and their parents, will be shown at the academy's visitor
center. The academy is also sending recruiters into inner-city high
schools with a technical focus in places such as Baltimore, New York
and Philadelphia.

The graphic novel will be released this fall. Fowler said he has seen
a first draft but would not provide details, except to say that it
includes scenes in the tomb of John Paul Jones, the Revolutionary War
naval hero whose crypt is under the Naval Academy Chapel.

The graphic novel - which typically are lengthy comic books with
complex storylines - has some fantasy elements, as well, Fowler said.

"It's a little bit of young people who are able to see what they
might be doing in the future and their part of protecting America," he said.

Cmdr. Jim Jackson, a member of the Naval Academy Class of 1975 and
one of the first 100 African-Americans to graduate from the academy,
supports Fowler's goals but said some of the efforts may be
misplaced. He questioned focusing recruitment efforts on the inner
city because he said those students often have trouble adapting to
the military lifestyle.

He suggested parochial schools would be better targets for recruiting
because of the emphasis on uniforms and discipline, and the children
of enlisted minorities, who are accustomed to the lifestyle.

"I'm not disregarding the inner-city kid," said Jackson, who spent
four years as a minority recruiter at the Naval Academy and now does
minority recruitment for Anne Arundel Community College, "but I think
with ... the amount of advertising that the typical high school kid
sees, the money would be better spent targeting those kids who need
only make a very small transition to go into a very competitive situation."

In developing the new recruiting tools, Fowler said, officials asked
themselves, "How do we reach out and market the Naval Academy to a
young, diverse, achieving group who want to, as the theme says,
fulfill their destiny?"

The academy is not exactly having trouble filling slots. It received
11,000 applications for this year's entering class. And it has
already received 10,000 applications for next year's class, months
before the application deadline.

The video "is to reach out to those who haven't considered the Naval
Academy," Fowler said. "I need more applications from
under-represented geographical areas," such as the Upper Plains and
the West Coast, "and more what I consider under-represented ethnic
and racial minorities."

Traditionally, the academy has used a rather boring, stale video that
shows standard Annapolis images with a mature male voice-over. The
new video, which features the Naval Academy Gospel Choir, morphing
images and quick cuts, is a striking departure.

"I think it's going to take a generation to get an officer corps
[that will] represent America," Fowler said. "My goal is to get
moving down that path at the Naval Academy."

Meanwhile, to help minorities feel more comfortable with the academy,
Fowler is admitting more minorities into the Summer Seminars - a
weeklong program for rising high school seniors that simulates the
plebe experience. This summer, 800 of the 2,250 students who went to
Annapolis for the seminars were minorities, compared with 500 last year.

Such efforts pay off, Fowler said. Half of the 83 African-Americans
in the new plebe class were Summer Seminar students. "It's an
important part of getting over the fear of the unknown and the
uncertainty of military service," he said.

In addition to improving diversity, Fowler said yesterday that a
priority for him is developing midshipmen to serve a nation at war.
He said more midshipmen - 3,400 this summer compared with 2,200 a
year ago - are spending their summers getting "fleet experience,"
meaning they are serving at Navy or Marine Corps camps, bases and on ships.

Fowler has also emphasized a somewhat stricter culture on campus. In
the last academic year, he said, missed classes were down by 21 percent.

Finally, Fowler said, the Naval Academy and the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point are considering allowing sponsorship of the annual
Army-Navy football game. He said any sponsor would have to meet the
"morals and ethics" of the academies and that no decision has been made.
--

stephen.kiehl@baltsun.com

.

Anti-Recruiting Mural Comes Into View

Anti-Recruiting Mural Comes Into View

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/anti-recruiting-mural-comes-into-view/

By David Gonzalez
August 26, 2008

Paratroopers are drifting down to earth ­ well, down the side of a
Brooklyn apartment building ­ and slowly being helped back on their
feet. This scene has finally come into full view in Sunset Park,
where a group of young women this summer painted a mural that was
their response to military recruiters in their schools and neighborhoods.

The official dedication is not until Sept. 6, but its creators are
hoping it will spark the kind of dialog on the military they feel has
been missing from the public square.

"A lot of people are not thinking about the war very much," said
Katie Yamasaki, the lead artist on the mural, which was sponsored by
Groundswell Community Mural Project. "They were more impressed by the
fact it was a group of young women climbing up and down the
scaffolding, than by the message itself."

The mural's lower sections have data on the war, women and the
military. Reaction might be hard to gauge, however, since the mural
is on the neighborhood's fringe, alongside the Gowanus Expressway.
And passengers on the expressway might be halfway to Queens by the
time they react to the mural's message that the young women are "Not
Government Issued."

Ms. Yamasaki knows some people will not like the message. "If
everybody agreed with this mural, there would have been no need to
have painted it in the first place," she said.

And she knows that somebody might try to deface it. Just in case, she
has a box of paints with one of each color used. "When those things
happen, it will be good to see if people decide to support
something," she said. "We'll see what the reaction is then."

.

Army Guard Ad Campaign Features Kid Rock, Earnhardt

Army Guard Ad Campaign Features Kid Rock, Earnhardt

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=50946

By Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke
Special to American Forces Press Service

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 27, 2008 – The National Guard has enlisted two
superstars to attract new members and remind those already serving
what the Guard is all about through a new nationwide theater
advertising campaign that made its debut last week.

The new "Warrior" campaign includes music from Kid Rock and features
Dale Earnhardt Jr., the National Guard-sponsored NASCAR Sprint Cup driver.

Over the next two months, the "Warrior" video will appear in more
than 3,000 theaters and on more than 27,000 screens around the
country. The video and pre-show slides will air before every movie
except those rated G and PG.

Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard, said
during an Aug. 20 screening that the new campaign will make an impact.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we're going to attract a lot of
folks that are interested in serving," he said. "Obviously, we think
we are really, really strong in all the communities around the
country based on the things we did last year. We think we have
irreversible momentum right now."

Kid Rock wrote a song, "Warrior," specifically for the Army National
Guard. He was chosen for this project because of his popularity among
the 17-to-24-year-old market and his demonstrated support of the
military, Col. Mike Jones of the Army National Guard's strength
maintenance office said.

"He is as real as it comes," Jones said. "And he was unapologetic
about supporting the Army National Guard recruiting program."

The new campaign will highlight the Army Guard's relationship with
Kid Rock and Earnhardt. "They did a magnificent job," Vaughn said.
"Folks need to know that they are doing a lot for this country. They
are real patriots."

The campaign is a multi-dimensional marketing approach consisting of
the new two-minute music video, lobby stands, popcorn bag
advertising, pre-show slides, a lobby presence, an interactive
micro-site, a free mp3 download of the "Warrior" song and print
advertising in national magazines.

"Our approach has been really unique," Jones said. "We really tried
to set the bar and set the standard for this type of advertising.

"We really tried in the last few years -- starting with Three Doors
Down -- we wanted to get music that really engages people," he
continued. "Not just a song about the National Guard, but a cool song
that young adults would like to have in their Ipod. I think we have done that."

The two-minute video was created for theaters featuring three
parallel stories, including Kid Rock performing a USO-type show,
Earnhardt overcoming adversity on the racetrack and a National Guard
soldier serving heroically in the face of danger.

In addition to the video, the Army Guard will place ads in Blender
and Spin magazines.

The official "Warrior" microsite will be hosted at
www.NationalGuardWarrior.com and features free downloads of the
"Warrior" commercial for mp3 players and of computer screen wallpaper
as well as behind-the-scenes videos and photos.

"You have to hit them in many, many different outlets," Jones said.

The Army Guard's first music video, "Citizen Soldier" by Three Doors
Down, was very popular in theaters around the country last year. The
song is included in the band's current self-titled album, "Three Doors Down."

.

Antiwar activists want table at school career day

Antiwar activists want table at school career day

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/08/17/antiwar_activists_want_table_at_school_career_day/

By Christine Legere
Globe Correspondent / August 17, 2008

At Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School, back-to-school
preparations include a debate over whether antiwar activists will be
allowed at the school's annual career day, just as military recruiters are.

The effort is led by a Bridgewater-based group called Citizens for an
Informed Community. Spokesman Vernon Domingo, a Bridgewater resident
and Bridgewater State College geography professor, said the group
simply wants to promote thought-provoking discussion.

"We're local, we live here and work here, and we support this
country," said Domingo. "We're patriotic in the sense that we want
this country to be as good as it can be."

Domingo, along with Bridgewater resident and former Massasoit
Community College adjunct professor Raymond Ajemian, helped form
Citizens for an In formed Community shortly before the invasion of
Iraq. Since then, it has enjoyed some local success, for example,
prompting Bridgewater Town Meeting to formally protest the federal
Patriot Act in 2004, and, more recently, to call on Congress to get
out of Iraq.

Citizens for an Informed Community is now looking to make some policy
changes in the School Department that would allow the group to
deliver its message at Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School. At
least two other towns - Cohasset and Milton - have allowed antiwar
representatives to attend career days.

Ajemian said the group has three goals: to secure the right to set up
a table at the high school's career days; and to get school
administrators to better inform students of their right to opt out of
the armed services vocational aptitude tests given at high schools,
and of their right to block the military from getting personal
information for recruitment purposes.

The information that military recruiters hand out at career day
doesn't paint a full picture, said Ajemian.

"The brochures say nothing about dying and nothing about
post-traumatic stress syndrome," said Ajemian, who is a Vietnam era veteran.

He also said that promises of college tuition payments for those who
sign up for duty sometimes don't pan out.

"The issue is, both sides should be allowed in, or neither side
should be," Ajemian said. "What's the fear? That students are going
to get indoctrinated?"

Last spring, Ajemian secured permission from high school principal
Jeffrey Granatino to come for Bridgewater-Raynham's career day.
Superintendent George Guasconi, who has since retired, overruled the
decision, saying it was not within school policy.

Citizens for an Informed Community recently repeated the request to
the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School Committee, and a subcommittee
was formed to study the issue.

Study committee member Joseph Gillis says he agrees with Guasconi's
call, but his group is still researching the issue, and will meet
with Granatino before returning to the full School Committee next
month with a recommendation.

"Career days are to provide our students with steps they can take
after graduation, whether that be Brown University, Bridgewater State
College, New England Tractor-Trailer School or the Army or Navy," Gillis said.

"This group wants to have a debate. That's not what these career days are for."

Gillis said that allowing the citizens group in to career day would
open a "Pandora's box."

"If we open it up to them, others, seeing it as a forum for
discussion, will want to set up tables, too," Gillis continued.
"That's not the purpose of the fair."

Members of Citizens for an Informed Community met with the
subcommittee recently. Gillis said group members talked about
students being harassed by recruiters, even at their homes.

"But most of the horror stories they told were from far off, in other
parts of the country, not in Bridgewater," Gillis said. "Because I'm
not hearing complaints from people here in town, I'm not sure we need
to do anything about this."

In Cohasset, Schools Superintendent Denise Walsh said she left the
decision of whether to allow the counter-recruiters in to the high
school to principal Joel Antolini, "just as we would have if the
Garden Club or any other group wanted to come in." Antolini said the
group was granted permission to come to the school two years ago.

"We allow them to come and display antiwar messages and
antirecruitment materials, at the same time we allow military
recruiters to come," Antolini said. They can set up tables during
lunchtime, but they have to wait for students to approach them,
rather than initiating contact, he said.

Antolini said Cohasset High School's handbook provides students and
parents with information on withholding information used by military
recruiters. "Also when we announce our back-to-school program, we
inform the students they can sign forms that night to opt out," he said.

Milton High School principal John Drottar said he allows the
counter-recruiters to hand out literature at the school's three
career fairs, just as military recruiters are allowed to do.
--

Christine Legere can be reached at christinelegere@yahoo.com

.

Group fights military recruiters on local high school campuses

Group fights military recruiters on local high school campuses

http://www.easyreadernews.com/story.php?StoryID=20033946

by Danny Brown
Published August 14, 2008

Paul Wicker of Manhattan Beach, with the support of local high school
students and civic activists, is protesting the United States
military's recruitment of high school students.

Nearly a year ago, Wicker approached the Manhattan Beach Unified
School District urging it to limit the armed forces recruitment
efforts at Mira Costa High School.

As part of his protest, Wicker urged the Manhattan Beach Unified
School District to make it more difficult for the military to collect
information on students. Previously the school had an opt-in program
where students could chose to send their information to the military,
but after the military complained, it changed to an opt-out form.

Wicker soon discovered there wasn't a strong armed-forces recruitment
presence in the Manhattan Beach school district.

"Recruiters don't come to the campus much on account of the economics
of the area," Wicker said. "They're trying to coerce poorer kids into
fighting a war that has so little popular support that they are
having trouble finding people to sign-up for it."

On a recent afternoon, he stood outside Manuel Arts High School in
Los Angeles with a cardboard sign around his neck that read, "Resist
don't enlist," and handed out pamphlets in both English and Spanish
with a picture of a soldier dancing with a skeleton.

Wicker is a member of the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools
(CAMS – not to be confused with the Cal State Dominguez Hills'
California Academy of Math and Science). His son came home from
fighting in the 1991 Gulf War a changed person, he said.

"It makes you different," Wicker said. "You see carnage and sometimes
have to make decisions like, do you listen to your commanding officer
and not stop driving a vehicle even though a 5-year-old girl is in
the road, or do you swerve and risk the life of all the soldiers
you're transporting? It stays with you."

Wicker began looking for reason's to justify his son's exploits
overseas and learned about the complex history of America's
relationship with Saddam Hussein and Iraq, leading up to Hussein's
invasion of Kuwait. When the second Iraqi invasion by the United
States took place in 2003, he protested against the war and joined CAMS.

"Students should have the right to hear both sides of a recruiter's
proposition before making a decision to commit themselves to the
armed forces and put their lives on the line," Wicker said. "The
schools we go to are letting recruiters in to convince kids that they
should sign up to fight, but not letting us in to convince kids to
stay in school and pursue an education."

The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 gave military
recruiters access to public high schools and student information.
Since then Los Angeles teachers and school officials have seen an
aggressive increase in the armed forces' effort to recruit students.

On July 8, CAMS representatives addressed the Los Angeles Unified
Board of Education about this situation.

"They are on our campus nearly every day," said Jefferson High School
Teacher's Assistant Tanya Selig to the board. "The military
recruiters outnumber the career fair recruiters 5 to 2."

Ulis William, the former president of Compton College and the leader
of last week's information campaign outside of Manuel Arts High
School, said the armed forces recruiters prey on children attending
lower income schools.

"They know these kids feel they have limited options," he said. "You
won't find many [Junior Reserved Officer Training Camp] programs in
the public schools west of Fairfax."

The economic disparity of military enlistment also includes a racial gap.

According to National Priorities Project (a nonprofit research
organization that analyzes federal data) 70 percent of Black
recruits, 64 percent of Hispanic recruits and 57 percent of White
recruits come from neighborhoods at or below the U.S. median household income.

"The military is at our school almost every day, but I thought it was
like this everywhere," said Marisol Melgar, 17, from Manual Arts High
School, who was reading over one of CAMS' brochures last week. "They
stop us between classes and at lunch and tell us we can make
something of ourselves if we join."

To level the playing field CAMS asked the LAUSD to grant them equal
access to schools. Armed with a proposal adopted by the United
Teachers of Los Angeles, the group wants to place self-funded
military counselors, veterans and community volunteers as Military
Alternative Advocates at 10 to 15 high schools to present the
realities of an enlistment contract and present students with alternatives.

"The teachers have been very receptive and some principals have even
begun to give us access on an individual basis," said William's wife
and fellow activist Sandra Williams. "However, many schools seem
afraid that if they restrict recruiters or allow us to come in and
debate them, they might jeopardize their federal funding."

.