Call to Arms Put on Hold By Many Fearful of War

Christopher Acosta wanted to join the Navy, but after the crisis in the Middle East heated up, he changed his mind. So did his parents. Don’t go until the conflict cools, they told their 17-year-old son.

“I can’t see fighting over oil,” said Acosta, a high school senior in Escondido.

In the wake of Operation Desert Shield, many military recruiters are having a difficult time wooing applicants--an indication, critics say, that Americans are not throwing their support behind the U.S. involvement in the Gulf.

“Recruiting is harder--it would be foolish to say it isn’t,” said Vice Adm. Jeremy Boorda, chief of Naval Personnel and deputy chief of Naval Operations in Washington.

Although recruiting statistics suggest a drop-off, military officials say the figures are not conclusive and that it is unclear what is causing the lull. Since Iraq invaded Kuwait, Navy recruiting has slowed, which officials say is worth watching but poses no problems. In November, Navy recruiters missed their goal for obtaining new recruits by 27%. During the same month, Army recruiting dipped 23%.

“It’s hard to say if Operation Desert Shield has had an effect. Recruiters are meeting their goal objectives,” said Major Doug Hart, a Pentagon spokesman.

Slowdowns in recruiting have had little impact because the Navy and other branches of the armed forces can dip into manpower “bank accounts” and call up deferred recruits, Boorda said. He and Hart said the military suffers no deficit in able-bodied, qualified recruits, especially since Congress asked the armed forces to reduce their numbers by 80,000.

But critics say the Pentagon is scrambling to hide the fact that potential enlistees are shying away from possible participation in a war.

“You cannot discount the clear indications that the growing prospects of war in the Middle East are having a negative effect on volunteer enlistment. The young are saying, ‘This is not my war,’ ” said retired Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll, a former assistant chief of Naval Personnel in Washington.

“To say that the military is continuing to meet monthly accessions because of delayed entry recruits is a natural cover-up. Those people signed a binding contract. The fact that they continue to pull those in camouflages the fact that they are not getting the new contracts,” said Carroll, deputy director of the Center for Defense Information. “They are going to fall behind--and they are trying to avoid the bad publicity that will slow down recruiting even further. If you’ve got a dog at the box office, you don’t advertise that you have unsold tickets.”

For recruiters in Southern California, the sting of Operation Desert Shield is sharp. They say some parents, like the Acostas, are now voicing concerns and stopping their children from enlisting.

Most potential recruits ask whether they will be sent to the Gulf, and the longstanding selling point about learning a skill isn’t quite as effective today as it was before August.

For Chris Acosta and others, the danger of combat outweighs the military’s allure. Acosta wanted to enlist because of fairly typical reasons--the chance for adventure, travel and the accompanying educational benefits.

“This Middle East thing really scared me,” he said. “I didn’t want to take the chance that they would put me out on a boat in the Gulf.”

Instead, he started working part time in the fish department of a pet shop to save money for next year, when he hopes to attend a local college.

Denise Acosta Stringfield, his mother, said the family had numerous discussions about whether Chris should enlist. If he chose to enlist as a 17-year-old, he would need his parents’ permission. Stringfield’s father had served 20 years--including two tours in Vietnam--as a Marine. Describing herself as pro-military, Stringfield, 34, says she had very mixed feelings about her son’s dilemma. In the end, she let Chris decide.

“Even though we may not go to war, a lot of young men are dying, more than 50 so far. It just hit me that Chris could be killed, my son could be killed,” said Stringfield, a customer service sales representative. “He’s only 17--he’s still pretty young. He’s got plenty of time to enlist.”

In the wake of the Persian Gulf crisis, Pentagon officials have no plans to alter their $2-billion annual recruiting campaign to lure more enlistees, spokesman Hart said. But to help recruiters attract enlistees, the Army established $2,000 bonuses for positions such as water treatment specialists that have been difficult to fill during recent months.

Some recruiters are changing their approach. Sgt. 1st Class Dave Eisenbarth, a Simi Valley Army recruiter, has given up on cold calls to youths’ homes, a standard recruiting method. Instead, he frequents shopping malls in hopes of finding potential enlistees.

Rather than having interested youths come to his office, Eisenbarth now sets up meetings in their homes--hoping to also chat with parents. In this way, he tries to short-circuit what seems like the inevitable volley of questions that parents fire

when they learn that their kids have seen a recruiter.

Other recruiters note some unforeseen burdens caused by Operation Desert Shield. When Marine Corps Sgt. Joe Steele visits schools, he can no longer bring light armored vehicles--one of the Marines’ most popular calling cards. Most of the eight-wheeled jeeps, which travel in water and on land, have been shipped to the Middle East, along with the men who drive them.

Youths were allowed to climb into the vehicles, and their absence is a loss, said Steele of the San Diego Marine Corps Recruiting Station, which includes San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties. To compensate, he is trying to arrange for historical displays of older equipment. It won’t be quite the same, he acknowledges, but it beats just handing out pencils, stickers and posters.

Those who do sign up are, like Marcie Palmer, gung-ho and patriotic, recruiters say.

“If this dirtball Hussein--that’s his name isn’t it?--thinks he can get away with this, he’s got another thing coming,” said Palmer, a 27-year-old San Diego car rental agent who this week applied to join the Army. “I want to go over to the Persian Gulf to do my part.”

Others, like Terry Lee Faugno, hope that the military will be more lenient in their standards--a possibility that officials say won’t happen.

Faugno, a 20-year-old Escondido native, applied and was rejected two years ago when a military counselor cited emotional problems, he said. Now Faugno hopes he will get another opportunity.

“I always wanted to join the Navy--here’s my chance. We got a nice little war brewing, now is the perfect time to join,” said Faugno, a college student. “If we fight, I’ll be there. I may not like the idea of fighting, but I’ll do it anyway. . . . All I want is a chance to show I am OK, I am not a failure. I have potential, and I can use it.”

These days, recruiters say, they see mostly concern and patriotism. That surge of enthusiasm is shared by some who are simply not eligible, like Frank Zingaro, a 75-year-old Valley Center resident.

Zingaro visited the Navy recruiting station in Escondido last week in hopes of convincing recruiters that he could assist American troops in Saudi Arabia.

“I can do work in the background and relieve the younger people to do more strenuous work,” said the business acquisitions consultant, who said he had served briefly in the Army. “I am healthy; I want to volunteer. We have got to stop mad guys like Saddam Hussein.”

Zingaro was gently rebuffed by Petty Officer 1st Class Al Garcia, who acknowledged that, as the crisis wears on, more and more retired military personnel stop by recruiting stations.

“You gotta admire his attitude,” said Garcia wistfully, as Zingaro walked away.

Yet recruiters are facing increasing numbers of applicants who want to know where they will be stationed. Selling what could turn into a war is not easy--even if most new recruits would not be eligible to be shipped out of the country for at least four months.

“It means we need to talk to more people. We are selling a way of life; not a job. . . . . We are selling money, educational benefits, adventure and travel. But some parents say they would just as soon not have a son or daughter in the Army right now,” said Lt. Col. Richard Holmes, of the Army’s Los Angeles recruiting battalion, a region that stretches from Santa Ana to Paso Robles. In that area, Holmes said recruiters have been able to meet their monthly quota of 300.

Disparities in recruiting change from region to region, as well as among the different branches of the armed services. Holmes and others explain that this often has to do with the area’s economy and the strength of its recruiting staff. In this elaborate courtship, recruiting rates can also vary from month to month.

In the area reaching from San Diego to Barstow to Las Vegas, Navy recruiters met their goals in October and missed their mark slightly in November. But, in September, they fell far short of their goal, obtaining 228 new enlistees when they recruited 106--about a third of what they recruited during the previous year.

“I really get frustrated when I invest so much time, when I talk with an individual, and he is ready to go for it. Then it comes down to taking the physical, and he says, ‘I am not going, I am afraid,’ ” said Petty Officer H.L. Scott, recruiter-in-charge at the Navy recruiting station in Escondido. “Desert Shield has had an impact, everybody knows that.”