Peace Crusade

By Susan Tifft

The nation's high schools have long been a favorite hunting ground for the military. Caught between adolescence and adulthood, at an age when possibilities seem boundless but money often is not, graduating seniors are ideal candidates for recruitment into the armed services. With federally sponsored job-training and financial-aid programs virtually dismembered by the Reagan Administration, the military has sought to fill the void by stressing its willingness to outfit men and women for high-tech careers and provide aid for higher education. Says Captain George Karpinski, an Army recruiter in the Atlanta area: "Seventeen- and 18-year-olds are our primary market."

In recent years, however, the military's lock on that market has been challenged by groups as diverse as the Red Cross, Viet Nam veterans, CARE and the Quakers. These so-called peace recruiters now turn up regularly in school classrooms and at job fairs and career days across the country. Some seek to interest students in working for such organizations as the Peace Corps and VISTA, or help them find nonmilitary assistance for college. Others try to show those intent on military careers exactly what they are getting into. Many do all three. Says Lou Ann Merkle of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors in Philadelphia: "We who understand the implications of enlisting in the armed forces have a responsibility to help young people understand them also."

Peace recruiters contend that students are easily seduced by rosy portrayals of military life -- such as the slick television commercials enticing young men and women with "Be all that you can be in the Army." They remind youngsters that the military's primary purpose is to prepare for war, not train people for civilian jobs, and they advise them to be skeptical about recruiters' promises. Peace groups are especially outraged at the military's targeted appeal to racial minorities, who make up 18% of the armed services. In New York City peace activists have fought proposals to introduce Junior ROTC into predominantly nonwhite schools. "The message we are giving kids is there is no place for you in mainstream society," says Linda Farrell, a teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Manhattan. "The only place is the military, where you can be cannon fodder."

The military, which spends $199 million a year on recruitment, says it is not threatened by the peace groups. "They offer theories and rhetoric, but we offer $25,200 for college," says Lieut. Colonel John Cullen, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Still, the Department of Defense next month plans to argue in favor of overturning a 1988 federal-court decision that would allow antiwar activists equal access to career days in Atlanta high schools. In a landmark case five years ago, an interfaith peace and justice group called Clergy and Laity Concerned won the right to promote its cause among Chicago high school students. Yet in San Diego, the site of a large naval installation, the Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities has found little resistance to its counselors, who regularly present slide shows and distribute pamphlets in local schools.

Some critics consider peace recruiters unpatriotic or blind to the opportunities the military offers disadvantaged youngsters. Others charge that they spout ideology, not information. But many students seem to appreciate peace promoters' efforts at consumer education, even if they do not always follow the advice. After listening to a member of the War Resisters League, Philip Jee, 17, a senior at John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx, remained unshaken in his determination to become a Navy pilot. "It made me think," he said of the presentation. "But it didn't make me change my mind."

With reporting by Michael Mason/Atlanta and Naushad S. Mehta/New York