news story / By Ryan Burns

Arms and the Child

Sitting behind his desk last week, Gunnery Sgt. Dan Sage said he enjoys being a recruiter. He likes seeing the difference in the men and women he sends off to training. When they come back into his office, he can see that they’re on a good path. The simple fact, he says, is that many teens want to go into the military — no arm-twisting required. “They seek us out,” he said. And invariably, he added, they’re happy to have done so. “I have yet to have an individual that I’ve put in the Marines come back and say they regret going in,” Sage said.

They’re out there, Meserve insists. The Humboldt Committee for Conscientious Objectors fields hundreds of phone calls from disgruntled soldiers through its G.I. Rights Hotline, Meserve said — soldiers who say recruiters misled them, promising jobs or benefits that never came through. While gathering signatures for Measures F and J, volunteers heard stories from angry parents and students who said they struggled to fend off pushy recruiters.

The Youth Protection Acts wouldn’t prevent minors from approaching recruiters; it would just prevent recruiters from approaching minors. Enforcement would be complaint-driven. But legal experts say the ordinances could potentially violate federal law. The No Child Left Behind Act stipulates that schools receiving funding under the Act must provide the same access to recruiters as colleges provide or lose said funding. Beyond that, the measures could be deemed unconstitutional. As reported in the Journal earlier this year (“First to Contact, First to Contract,” April 17), legal experts say the acts may violate recruiters’ freedom of speech and the federal government’s authority to raise a military.

Meserve is confident, however, that the measures will stand. The purse strings attached to No Child Left Behind aren’t at risk, he said, because it’s the voters — not the schools — making restrictions. As for the First Amendment, he says it was designed to protect the people from the government, not vice versa.

“People think we’re anti-American or anti-military,” he said. “We are not trying to stop recruiting; we’re not expecting to end the war or change the whole structure of the military. We’re just saying, bottom line, it’s wrong to recruit kids. That’s it.”

Sgt. DeBoard said the military has its own absolute: “Bottom line: We’ve got a mission, and we’re going to make it happen no matter what.”

Something has to give.

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