Out of Step

Abuse and harassment by school military recruiters is rampant
by Michael Dedrick, Free Press contributor

Under the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) the Pentagon pre-enlists high school students into the military while delaying their actual entrance for up to a year. Yet the military recruiters who sign up the students sometimes "threaten them, intimidate them and tell outright lies." These were among the findings of a five-month long investigation titled GI Lies led by reporter Dale Russell of FOX 5 TV News, Atlanta GA.

Under the DEP military policy clearly states that recruits are allowed to change their minds and not enlist. However recruiters, faced by a change of plans by a student, often bully recruits into enlistment by threats of dishonorable discharge and banishment from federal loans and jobs.

Two enlistees were interviewed on camera for the program and told Russell they were ordered into active duty under threat of arrest. One of the people had actually received a band scholarship to Florida A&M, but was told by the recruiter that "the military police would pick him up" if he did not report for duty. According to Phil Esmond, of Quaker House, a GI Rights advocacy counseling program in Fayetteville, NC, these kids"only source of information is the recruiters...and the recruiters aren't telling the truth." Esmond said recruiters tell teenagers they can go to jail if they don't enlist. "It's a form of abuse."

The Department of Defense (DOD) sets recruiting quotas and passes on the numbers to the recruiting commands. But with the economy strong, enlistments are down. There is tremendous pressure to fill the quotas and careers are on the line. Although the number of recruits who opt out of the DEP is not large (up to 20 percent in some services), the overall number is significant because the military relies on nearly 3/4 of its recruit base from the DEP.

In the second part of the Atlanta news report, Russell talked to several ex-recruiters and interviewed two, a Navy lieutenant and a Master Chief on camera. While recruiting commands state that threats and intimidation are "against policy" ex-recruiters Holland and Nyberg said that "outright lies, threats nd intimidation are commonplace and have been going on for years."

In the Seattle area, counselors affiliated with the GI Rights Hotline, a GI advocacy and information program, tell much of the same story. One of the counselors, from the Seattle Draft and Military Counseling Center, said "these recruiters BS these kids into enlistment with inaccurate promises of training and education benefits, threaten them when they change their minds, and then they are in the service with a dead end job, with a 25 percent chance of getting a less-than-honorable discharge."

Recruiters have been involved in incidents more serious than simply lying to students. In the north Seattle Shoreline Public School District, recruiters were charged in at least three separate incidents of sexual harassment/abuse involving three female students ( see May/June issue of the Free Press). In the most serious case a recruiter was accused by a 16 year-old student of touching her buttocks, placing her hand on his crotch and pulling her shirt up.

Although the recruiter was arrested by King County authorities, the county released the sergeant to the Army, where he was court marshaled, acquitted and released on a medical discharge. This incident and the others, prompted the district, in August 1999, to ban Army recruiters from the district. In a related story, in October 1999 a 20-year-old female was assaulted by her fellow Army recruiters while attending a weekend seminar in Olympia. Despite the allegations and evidence of recruiter abuse, a Shoreline District court ruled in February 2000 that it was not illegal per se for recruiters to proposition students for sex. The Shoreline School District then lifted the ban on recruiters for the 2000-2001 school year.

Glen Milner, a parent of a Shoreline student, is concerned by the continuing pattern of recruiter sexual harassment. In a recent letter to Shoreline Superintendent Joan Watt objecting to lifting the ban, Milner said "the decision by the shoreline court puts an added burden on the school district to take responsibility for the safety of our female students." Despite Freedom of Information Act Requests by Milner, Jim Hills of the Lake Forest Enterprise and Keiko Morris of the Seattle Times, the Army has not released any significant information on the court martial or recruiter assault. Milner continued: "the problem is one of honesty and public disclosure.... The Army must show that it is willing to tell the truth about sexual harassment before allowing recruiters back in schools."

Clearly the military is struggling with the problems of enlistment quotas and sexual harassment. But until the services are willing to openly show that it has abandoned its press gang recruiting tactics and sexism, it will continue to be seen as an institution that is out of step with the rest of American society.

GI Rights Information