Troubled by military recruiting at Los Angeles high schools, activists are seeking equal access to students on campus to provide what they say is unvarnished information about the armed forces and information about nonmilitary careers.
The Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, a Southern California group of educators, volunteers and veterans dedicated to promoting nonviolent alternatives to military service, is taking the proposal to the Los Angeles Board of Education, saying it is vital that students have the truth about military enlistment. That "truth," however, is subjective: Some view the group's literature as controversial itself.
Recruiters "are marketers. They have a quota, and it's their job to get students to sign up. So just like a car salesman, they're going to say everything they can to get students to sign up," said Arlene Inouye, coordinator of the nonprofit South Pasadena-based group funded by grants and donations.
"The most important thing we want to tell students is that the military enlistment decision is probably one of the -- if not the -- most important decision in their life. It's a really serious matter. They need to hear about some of the realities of what veterans have experienced and what the military enlistment contract actually says."
Some military officials questioned the peace group's motives.
"We are not confident that these groups' intentions are to provide students with opportunities, but rather to spend a great deal of time and effort to provide disinformation that advances their organizations' agenda with little regard to the individual student," said Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, a Pentagon spokesman, in an e-mail.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in 2002, requires schools to provide military recruiters with the same access to high schools as colleges and employers, and compels schools to turn over students' names, addresses and phone numbers unless parents opt out.
The U.S. Department of Defense spends $3.5 billion annually on recruitment and enlisted more than 181,000 people for active-duty forces in the 2007 fiscal year and more than 138,000 for the reserves. The Southland is fertile ground: Los Angeles County ranked third in the nation in raw numbers of Army recruits in 2007.
Military recruiters' access varies among schools, with some administrators allowing them to wander the halls chatting with students, work out with the football team, and bring Hummers and sports cars on campus.
