Salvation Army’s College Trains Cadets for Battle on Poverty

Tucked neatly into the coastal bluffs on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, picturesque Crestmont is a different kind of military college.

While the school’s crest bears crossed swords with the words “Blood and Fire,” the motto of the smartly uniformed cadets is: “Soup, Soap and Salvation.”

Welcome to the decidedly upscale campus of the Salvation Army’s Officer Training School, where cadets learn the Salvationist Church’s brand of ministering the gospels of Christ while helping the down and out.

The 54-acre Rancho Palos Verdes site, bought 15 years ago from the Catholic archdiocese, was once home to Marymount College. The Salvation Army plans to double the size of the training facilities and expand the campus convention center.

“We’ve outgrown the campus,” said Maj. R. Ernest Clevett, a church spokesman, explaining that more space is needed to train officers in the theologically conservative church’s war against human misery and sin.

There is a certain irony in housing and training this army’s ministers in such a richly landscaped, well-appointed setting. The campus overlooks the ocean in one of the wealthiest areas in Southern California.

“We do feel a bit guilty at times,” said cadet Drew Helms, 29, the son of Salvation Army parents. Comparing the lush campus to Los Angeles’ Skid Row, he said: “It’s like two worlds . . . going from the clean and sterile to the filthy streets . . . where homeless people live in cardboard boxes.”

Ironies aside, the army acquired the campus in 1977 at a bargain price of $4.5 million, much less than it would have cost to buy undeveloped land and build. Leasing the Crestmont tennis courts to a private club pays for campus upkeep.

For men and women enlisting in the Salvation Army’s holy war, times have never been more challenging: a hard-hitting recession and government cutbacks have torn gaping holes in the nation’s safety net.

Not only is the number of people in need increasing, but the demographics of the destitute have changed dramatically, Clevett said. The needy are younger, homeless, penniless and desperate. The appearance of crack cocaine and other cheap drugs have added to the problems.

There has been no shortage of recruits, Clevett said. An average of 50 recruits a year volunteer for training in the two-year accredited college. Students pay $4,000 a year for tuition, room and board.

The current class of 92 cadets includes a native Alaskan, five Koreans, a Chinese national, a Laotian, four African-Americans, one African, five Latinos and a Marshall Islander. Many students are married; husbands and wives train together and are ordained on graduation.

The 24 instructors are army officers and ordained ministers. The school is a seminary teaching a theology similar to Methodism; courses include social work, preaching, community relations and fiscal management. Uniforms are worn as a symbol of dedication and obedience, officials said.

Many recruits have turned their backs on yuppie values, Clevett said. The recruits are posted wherever the army needs them, for an average pay of about $18,000 a year.

Cadet Kristy Bowlen, 28, from Ruston, La., a college graduate with a degree in social work, gave up her job with a large insurance firm. “The money there was great, but I didn’t enjoy the backbiting to get to the top,” she said. “I came here because God called me.”

Crestmont is one of four officer training centers in the United States. A planned 10-year expansion project here, which would allow cadet enrollment to be increased to 175, was presented last week to the Rancho Palos Verdes Planning Commission. While there is no apparent opposition, city officials worry that the project may cause traffic problems.

Best known for its bell-ringing Christmas solicitations, the Salvation Army has become a fixture on the American scene, a symbol of charity in a throwaway society.

In the field, the army operates soup kitchens, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, emergency shelters for the homeless, job training and sheltered workshops--all with a church service attached. Last year, the army provided 63 million meals and lodging for 6 million homeless in the United States. Overseas, the army runs orphanages and is involved in Afghan refugee relief, medical clinics in Ghana and food relief in Russia.

This army of 16,900 uniformed officers is an extension of the Salvationist Church, founded by William Booth, a fierce-looking, bewhiskered Methodist preacher who took his ministry to the streets of London more than a century ago.

Booth used a military-style uniform and brass bands to draw street-corner crowds. He or a follower preached against sin and offered help to the afflicted.

The church’s international headquarters is still in London, and the Salvationists have a worldwide membership of 2 million with operations in 99 countries, Clevett said.

Uniformed in blue and red, the army first marched into Los Angeles in May, 1887, holding tent meetings at Temple Street and Broadway downtown, and opening its first mission not far away.

Cadets at Crestmont take field trips every week to facilities such as Harbor Light, the army’s alcohol rehabilitation center on 5th Street in the heart of Skid Row.

“We do an open-air (service) and hundreds are there. They come for the food,” cadet Helms said. His first exposure to the street was shocking, and he described watching as the homeless put up their cardboard shelters and lit trash fires to keep warm as the darkness came.

“They are all in such need.”