New Haven Independent

The Wilbur Cross senior is the daughter of peace activists (including dad Stephen, with her in the photo) and one in her own right. In fact she has written (here) about her experiences traveling to Georgia for an anti-military protest.

On top of that, she put her name on a “no-call” list for military recruiters.

So she was surprised to get two calls at home last spring and summer from the Connecticut National Guard.

The call reflects that the military’s recruiting targets in this area may be shifting — but not necessarily toward more likely soldiers.

Rachel’s mom, Anne Somsel, took the first call. She said Rachel was not interested in signing up. In the summer, a recruiter called again and her dad answered. He passed the phone to Rachel.

“The recruiter said he wanted to talk to me about the benefits but I didn’t really give him a chance to get there. I said, ‘I’m not interested in anything you have to say, so good-bye.’”

Another call, believe it or not, went to Keely Colville. Keely (pictured at right) traveled with Rachel (pictured at left) last year to a protest calling for shutting down a U.S. military training school that its opponents accuse of teaching torture. Keely, too, comes from an active pro-peace family. Her parents, Luz and Mark, run the Amistad Catholic Worker House in the Hill. She, too, got called at home. Luz answered, and is still angry weeks later when she recounts the story.

“He acted like he was Keeley’s friend: ‘Hi, may I speak to Keeley?’ He said he wanted to get in touch with her to let her know the opportunities the military had to offer. Caller ID said it was from the Army or Navy Recruiting Service. I told them it was all a façade and I never wanted them to call my daughter again, and he hung up.”

The Colvilles actually helped organize a forum last year through ECCO (Elm City Congregations Organized) to reach out to parents of high school students to let them know they can opt their children out of a portion of the No Child Left Behind Act that allows military recruiters access to students’ personal contact information.

Easy Access

The New Haven school district makes that easier than many other districts. The district sends home with students at the start of school a separate piece of paper telling parents of their right, rather than burying that information amid all the other paperwork parents receive. Charles Warner, the system’s director of special programs, said it’s been part of the orientation package since around 2000. “Over the past two years I’d guesstimate out of 2,500 11th and 12th graders, about 20 percent of parents opt out,” he said.

“Between summer and Oct. 1, each school will give me opt-out forms that didn’t come right to me. In those cases it’s easier for recruiters to go to the schools and ask for a list of juniors and seniors. We don’t have the option of saying, ‘You can’t come.’ We do insist that they contact the principal and come up with a viable time, which is usually during lunch. They set up a table outside the cafeteria. Students approach recruiters, not the other way around… Before the opt-out forms, they would get students’ names and addresses, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to call kids at home, on weekends — put undue pressure on kids in order to reach their goals, tell them they’d get college paid for and the other hype.”

“Those who are anti-war also have equal access to the buildings. That’s a New Haven policy,” Warner added. “We try not to schedule them on the same day.”

Sgt. Major William Bernard is in charge of recruiting for the state of Connecticut for the National Guard. He said the Guard currently has three recruiters in greater New Haven reaching out to high school and college students. “Their job is to find quality future soldiers for the Army National Guard,” he said. He added that recruiters spend more time in schools in which students are more likely to pass the AFVAB (the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery) and in schools that are receptive to having military recruiters come in.

He said his recruiters don’t harass potential recruits. “We will call until we make contact with a person and they give us a definitive yes or no. But there’s too many other people to move on to than wasting your time with someone who’s not interested. That’s not how we do business in the National Guard.”

Bernard said about a third of New Haven high schools offer the test, 10 percent of students in those schools take it and half of that number pass it. Asked which schools are most receptive, he names Hillhouse (which has a Junior ROTC program) and Hyde Leadership. Asked about Wilbur Cross, which both Kobasa and Colville attend, he added, “Cross is very receptive. But we’re more in the suburban schools.”

How and why would recruiters call students who are on the no-call list? Bernard said, “We get a list right from the school. They screen it before they give it to us.” He added that recruiters also get names from students who fill out a promo on a military website and through friends who refer them.

Counter-recruiters, organized through the Greater New Haven Peace Council, were active in Hillhouse and Wilbur Cross last year. A report on the group’s efforts indicates perhaps a different definition of “receptive” from the one Bernard uses. An excerpt reads, “Wilbur Cross had minimal contacts: four visits by recruiters in a corner of the cafeteria… They were not permitted to talk with students unless the students came to their tables. A few recruiter-student interviews took place in the Wilbur Cross guidance offices with guidance counselor oversight. Only six Wilbur Cross students enlisted in the military in the last two years and only six students took the ASVAB last year. This management of military recruiters is considered preferred and is encouraging news. Wilbur Cross did invite us to come to the school in order to help students with the opt-out forms.”

Bernard acknowledged that pickings are rather slim in New Haven schools. “We haven’t done very well in New Haven in the past couple of years,” he said.

That was borne out by the fact that this reporter could find almost no students in New Haven schools who had initiated contact with a recruiter, or been approached by recruiters, except the two girls who were not supposed to be contacted in the first place. High School in the Community teacher Steve Kass said he asked about 50 students before he found three. Only one could be reached, and he said he wasn’t interested in joining the military.

If Rachel Kobasa had let the recruiter talk, she would have heard some of the opportunities that Sgt. Major Bernard mentions: a program that enables recruits without a high school diploma to earn their G.E.D. or a diploma before reporting for basic training, and college tuition waived for all state schools. He says money for college is at the top of the list of reasons young people sign up, though “patriotism” and “job skills” are big incentives too.

Joanne Sheehan lives in Norwich, Connecticut, and is a regional staffer for the War Resisters League, which has done counter-recruitment work in the state’s high schools. “There is no data base that says what schools military recruiters go into,” she said. “It’s up to the local recruiting office where they go and how often; I’ve found no consistency,” although she adds the recruiters seem to go more often to upper income schools than lower income ones, which is consistent with what Sgt. Major Bernard told the Independent (although it’s at odds with what some other groups doing counter-recruitment, like the American Friends Service Committee, say appear to be the military’s priority students).

Sheehan said that besides accessing the contact information for students whose parents don’t opt them out, recruiters can get the information if students take the standardized PSAT and SAT tests, “because that information is available to colleges and universities and the military uses that as an access point.”

Bernard categorically denied ever getting contact information through standardized tests.

“We find most of the kids want to opt out,” Sheehan continued. “We’ve even had kids who want to go into the military say, ‘I think we should call them; they shouldn’t call us,’ because they feel it often becomes harassment. A lot of schools are recognizing students’ rights to opt out themselves, not just the parents. I think some schools were at first timid about having kids do it for fear of losing their federal funding, but now it’s becoming more common. I still find an extraordinary number of kids who have no idea how to opt out — they don’t know their names are provided to the military, and they don’t know how to get off the list.”