THE HARD CORPS : Individuals From Diverse Worlds Learn to Toil as a Unit in State Organization That Is Partly Army, Partly Scouts

It’s 5:30 a.m., a Monday, on Oat Mountain on the grounds of a former Nike missile base high above Chatsworth. Eleven recruits line up on the asphalt to begin their second week of boot camp in the California Conservation Corps.

There were 12 the week before. One went home for the weekend and didn’t return.

The remaining 11, wearing a ragtag assemblage of sweat clothes, gym shorts and wool trousers they brought from home, form two lines that are separate from the 100 regular Corps members who are beginning their day at the same hour.

Their drill instructor, a frizzly-haired, bare-chested youth in red sweat pants, leads the team in an hour of calisthenics, a regimen that begins the day for all 2,000 members of the CCC.

Military form and physical fitness are inherent to the philosophy of the Corps.

The CCC, created 10 years ago by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., remains as it was in the beginning--a little bit Army and a little bit Boy Scouts.

By design, the Corps takes young men and women off the streets--about half of them are high school dropouts--and pays them minimum wage for an eight-hour day working for the state.

Corps members clean freeways, plant trees, fight fires and clean up after floods.

Along the way, they are expected to learn teamwork, self-discipline, pride and commitment so that when their yearlong tour of duty is over, they can find better jobs.

That’s not an easy mission.

From the first bend and stretch, this batch of recruits displayed a special charm. But you wouldn’t call it military.

“I want you to know I pulled a tendon in my knee,” growled the only woman in the group. She was standing by casually while the others exercised.

“Do you have a doctor’s note?” the drill instructor asked.

“No,” she said.

“You’ll have to talk to my supervisor,” he said. The recruit walked away.

When the group started jumping jacks, a tall youth in the back did sit-ups instead.

“I sprained my ankle playing basketball,” he explained. But no one paid attention.

All eyes were on a Latino man at the front wearing a polyester shirt and dark wool pinstriped trousers who was struggling to do a jumping jack. Cristobol Benitez would jump up and snap his legs out while his arms stayed over his head.

Everyone started to laugh.

“Don’t laugh,” the drill instructor, a leadership trainee, shouted.

“Como si,” another Latino said, adding instructions in Spanish.

Benitez tried again with similar results.

The drill instructor decided to move on.

“Sound-off, one-two,” he called. “Everybody.”

Benitez continued to flail. The tall one with the bad ankle continued to do sit-ups. A handsome youth beside him did the exercise with only one arm and grimaced in apparent pain.

The rest were out of sync.

The drill instructor stopped, exasperated.

“You guys want to start off at the same time?” he yelled, his face turning red. “I’ve seen it done lots of times. I know it can be done.”

During the lull, a tall youth with short, bleached curls, a face resembling Paul Newman and a body like Apollo (none of it hidden except by his blue gym shorts) continued running in place.

“What you need is a little rhythm going,” he said in a rah-rah voice. He flopped to a prone position and did a couple of push-ups on his own.

Bob Seeley, the heavyset Oat Mountain supervisor, watched from a distance and rolled his eyes.

Seeley moved in.

“Pick it up. Pick it up,” he yelled. “You guys are a team. Operate like a team. Function like a team.”

One of the Latinos translated that for the others. Seeley took the cue.

“Uno, dos, tres--uno; uno, dos, tres--dos,” he said, signaling for the others to join the chant in Spanish.

They started again, still out of sync. Seeley backed off. His duty was to build their spirit, not to break it, he said. There would be plenty of time to work on their skills.

In the CCC, they expect all kinds--and they get them.

Other than a willingness to work, there are no aptitude requirements to join the Corps, said Susanne Levitsky, a CCC public information officer in Sacramento. Any California resident who is 18 to 23 and not on probation can apply through the Employment Development Department.

“We will take everybody,” Levitsky said. “A lot are seeking a sense of direction, somewhere to go, something to do. This gives them the skills they may not have.”

The Corps hires once a month, and tries to draw recruits from all levels of society, Levitsky said.

In this group, the effort had been successful. Breakfast, starting at 6:30, gave the recruits a few minutes to tell about themselves.

The blond Apollo was eager to speak first.

Alex Halligan, 22, from Wilmington, Del., is an actor. His credits, in regional theater, range from playing Thomas Jefferson in “1776” to Rocky in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” He came to California, of course, to break into Hollywood. The CCC was kind of a sabbatical, he said, to establish an income while he searches for auditions and because, well, to make himself a better person.

“I’m fulfilling a personal growth obligation for myself,” Halligan said in a perfectly modulated voice. “I want to get in shape. I feel I’m contributing something to the state of California as well as doing myself a favor.”

Growth Opportunities

Halligan said he found many personal growth opportunities--some unexpected.

“I’m learning Spanish unbelievably fast,” he said. “I have three Mexican roommates who are really super polite.”

One of them--Benitez, the one who couldn’t do a jumping jack--should have been a comic, because he has the talent to make people laugh, even when they don’t know what he is saying.

“I call him the ‘Mexican Benny Hill,’ ” Halligan said, referring to the British slapstick comedian.

Halligan’s roommates and two other Spanish-speaking members of the crew were going to be learning English. As part of their CCC training, they were enrolled in classes several nights a week at Mission College in San Fernando.

Their progress by the beginning of the second week was not spectacular, however. None of them spoke more than a few words of English.

They volunteered nothing about themselves, but, with another Corps member interpreting, answered questions politely.

Two said they were from Mexico. When the question was rephrased, they said their home now is in Pacoima.

One had been a plumber’s assistant. Two had worked in factories. One had never worked before.

Steady Work Outdoors

They had found the job through friends and liked the work, they said, because it was steady and in the outdoors.

The youth with the sprained ankle was Robert Minicucci, 18, a high school dropout from Van Nuys.

“I’m trying to get on my feet,” Minicucci said. “I was out on the streets for a few months.”

Minicucci said his mother found out about the Corps and urged him to join. It had turned out well. He thought he might like to become a forest ranger.

Minicucci had two friends, brothers Chuck and Doug Jones.

Doug was a dry-wall apprentice who couldn’t find work. He started night school, but dropped out.

Chuck, 20, was the one who did one-handed jumping jacks.

He said his right side was partially paralyzed following surgery.

“I got sick on my 13th birthday,” he said.

“Everybody here likes him ‘cause he’s got a strong will,” Minicucci said.

Chuck was excited to be in the Corps. “It’s not the best pay, but it’s money,” he said. “I’ve never had a job before.”

The last member of the team, Elaine Gibbs, didn’t show up for breakfast. She had gone on sick call.

At 7:30 a.m. the calm was broken by a call for a room check. (Tight, hospital corners were required on the beds).

By 8 a.m., the squad wearing khakis and hard hats was lined up for work with lunch bags in hand.

But there was confusion that day at Oat Mountain.

Two team supervisors had gone on training. One called in sick. Another was away with his ailing mother. That left the recruits without a leader.

To stall for time, Seeley drafted Halligan to lead them around the compound to pick up bits of trash. “Make sure they put their names on their lunches,” Seeley said.

“Se llama en el lunch, please,” Halligan shouted in his best Spanish and his best tenor.

They followed Halligan amiably until a new leader appeared.

She was B. J. Murad, the center’s work crew coordinator.

‘Grandma Dynamite’

Murad, 58, joined the CCC after she had earned a Ph.D. in education but found no job. The Corps suited her style.

“Call me ‘Grandma Dynamite,’ ” she instructed the crew gruffly.

Grandma Dynamite directed the recruits to a van and drove at a steady 55 m.p.h. to Verdugo Park in Glendale.

“Our project is the installation of irrigation systems,” she said.

“Does that mean we’re going to be digging ditches?” one of the Jones brothers asked.

In theory, it did. But in practice, it worked out differently. The city crew that was working on the irrigation project went to another job and would not return for a couple of hours.

In the meantime, Murad said, the Corps would clear around some redwood saplings.

She gave the instructions. Then Eduardo Leal, who understood some English, translated.

The crew spread out on the hill and began to chop weeds with tools called “pulaskis,” which are half ax and half mattock.

The Spanish-speaking youths spread themselves over the hillside. They worked silently and steadily.

The Jones brothers worked side by side. Chuck scratched with the pulaski as well as he could using only one hand.

Halligan, his work shirt unbuttoned to the navel and an ever-present, movie-star grin on his face, chose the biggest clump of weeds and began to hack away.

“Better than paying $300 a week for an aerobics club, you know what I mean?” he said.

“Button that shirt, Alex,” Murad instructed stiffly. “It’s one of Grandma Dynamite’s idiosyncrasies. If you’re going to wear your uniform, do it right.”

“Yes ma’am,” Halligan said, buttoning his shirt.

Minicucci, on the other hand, seemed to just wander around.

Murad observed him a few minutes, then approached.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Robert,” he said.

“You do a pretty good job of following around where somebody’s already been, don’t you, Robert?” she said. “Don’t be dilly dallying around.”

Minicucci stumbled on the bank and shrieked in pain.

Murad chastised him for wandering off the trail.

“Right, ma’am,” Minicucci replied sarcastically, then climbed up the bank.

Murad let the transgression pass and changed the subject.

“The CCC responds as the need prevails,” Murad said.

Work on Parks, Highways

Her Oat Mountain crews perform 10,000 hours of community work each year in city parks, on the highways and in Angeles National Forest, she said.

That day, however, the need arose in an unusual way. Before the city of Glendale irrigation crew returned, Seeley phoned with an order for the crew to return.

He had just received word that 23 new trainees would arrive that day. Seeley needed men to rearrange furniture in the barracks.

Back at Oat Mountain, Halligan and the Jones brothers went to work clearing brush outside the camp. The Latinos moved furniture. Minicucci found a bench near the barracks.

“I’ll do any work that doesn’t involve walking,” he said to anyone who would listen.

The furniture movers walked back and forth in front of him.

In her office, Murad confessed that she had almost lost her temper and docked him a day’s pay. But she restrained the impulse. There would be plenty of time for discipline.

“Sometimes I want to cry because they’re so limited,” she said.

After dinner that day, the recruits would drive in a van to Mission College in San Fernando.

Minicucci and the Jones brothers would be in a class to earn their high school diplomas. The Latinos would be studying English. Halligan would be studying just for fun.

The lights would go out early. Roll call comes at 5:30 a.m. on Oat Mountain.

EPILOGUE

The basic training session has ended now.

Elaine Gibbs and Eduardo Leal left Oat Mountain without completing the course. The other eight recruits graduated to become Corps members.

Alex Halligan, Chuck Jones and Doug Jones are doing well. Robert Minicucci is improving.

“He’s turned himself around,” Grandma Dynamite said. “There’s hope.”

Cristobal Benitez, the Mexican Benny Hill, is still with the group. The other three non-English speakers left after basic training.

Ricardo Ramirez, director of the center, said they reported to him after being interviewed by The Times that they were not legal residents of the United States.

Corps members must sign a document stating allegiance to the United States if they are legal residents, and, if they are not, swearing that they have permission to work. Apparently, the recruits did not know what they were signing, Ramirez said.

They were required to leave the Corps.