At Southland High Schools, Military Recruiters Now Big Men on Campus

High school students are meeting unlikely celebrities at many campuses this year during their annual College Day fairs--spit-and-polish military recruiters.

“Are we giving out $10 bills?” asked Army Staff Sgt. Tom Cromer, after students mobbed his table at a recent college information fair at Fillmore High School.

At other tables, Marine recruiters shuffled through a stack of interest cards students had filled out, Navy recruiters tossed miniature blue footballs to eager teenagers, and the school’s drafting teacher basked in admiring glances as he strode into the school’s careworn gym in the battle dress uniform he wears as commander of his California Army National Guard unit.

Throughout the Southland, military recruiters say, students are greeting them with keen interest and even enthusiasm--prompted, they believe, by the Sept. 11 attacks and media focus on the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

“The difference is really amazing,” said Army Sgt. 1st Class Eduardo Atienza, who was greeted by cheers from more than 300 students at a noontime rally last week at Hollywood High School--even though the real stars were disc jockeys from KPWR-FM (105.9).

“It’s not always a big block party when we show up, but the interest in what we have to offer has gone up quite a bit” in the last two months, said Army Capt. Toy Flores, chief of public affairs at the Los Angeles Army Recruiting Battalion.

Military recruiters have long been a fixture at many public high schools; they stroll around during lunch, striking up conversations with potential enlistees. But even so, students are clearly more interested in men and women in uniform these days, administrators say.

Gene Hill, public affairs specialist at the 6th Army Recruiting Brigade in Las Vegas, said that although no statistics have been tabulated, recruitment in the command’s 15-state territory is growing. Officers at Southland recruiting stations said their reception on school campuses has generally become more enthusiastic.

Military Options Interest Students

Back at Fillmore High, all 1,000 students passed through the school gym, where representatives from nearly three dozen colleges waited at tables stacked with colorful brochures. But many students were more interested in military options, including protecting local targets from possible terrorist threats.

“Right now we have eight personnel working at the Oxnard Airport,” said 1st Lt. Cregg Hill, a Fillmore High drafting teacher and commander of Battery D, 144th Field Artillery. “We’re talking about staying there until March, and that can be extended or shortened depending on the governor’s assessment of the threat to air traffic.”

“Young kids are more aware of what’s going on now,” said Quincy Taylor, a Navy recruiter at a table with brochures explaining four- to six-year enlistment programs that return tuition benefits under the GI Bill. “Before, it was a big push for college, college, college. Now you hear, ‘I want to support my country, and then later I’ll be in college.’ ”

Although College Day is mainly aimed at Fillmore students headed for post-secondary education, the school has a good relationship with the military, said Principal John Wilber. “We want [students] to have as many options as possible.”

On-campus recruiting is necessary to maintain troop strength of the 16,000-member California Army National Guard and the 5,000-member California Air National Guard, said spokesman Terry Knight.

The state militia is part of the current homeland defense operation. The California National Guard has mobilized 4,800 men and women, with at least 1,200 deployed at bridges, airports and military installations. The rest shipped out of state or abroad in war-related combat or logistics support missions.

National Guard Seeks 2,700 Recruits

In Sacramento, Lt. Col. Tony Palumbo, the Army National Guard’s recruiting commander, said about 2,700 recruits are needed this year. In Ventura, Sgt. 1st Class Fernando Gutierrez, the unit’s recruiting and retention noncommissioned officer, was on hand at College Day. He is among 189 California National Guard recruiters statewide.

“At the end of the year, I have to have 36 enlistments,” Gutierrez said. “Otherwise, life is a little more difficult.”

Cromer cued up a video on a laptop computer showing soldiers in action and handed out pencils at his table. Filling his Army recruiting station’s quota has been a little easier since Sept. 11, he said.

“The last two months we put in 18 people. On average, we’d put in maybe six to eight,” Cromer said.

A lanky Virginian assigned to his first recruiting detail about a year ago at the Ventura station, Cromer said he watched the terrorist attacks on TV, then went to work.

“Sometimes now you hear, ‘I want to go kill somebody,’ ” Cromer said. “Those students we take aside and say, . . . ‘That’s not what we’re about. We’re not there to kill anybody; we’re protecting our freedom and trying to give it to other people.’ . . . [But] we [realize] their hearts are in the right place.”

At the Navy table, recruiter Taylor said students recently started asking him if striking back is the right thing to do--reflecting what some describe as creeping doubt over the military activity in Afghanistan.

Among the teenagers, who circulated under banners proclaiming champion athletic teams dating back to the 1920s, the mood around the military tables turned somber when the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were brought up.

“It kind of scared me at first,” said sophomore Brande Reilley, 15, who said she’s interested in the Navy’s travel opportunities, college tuition and career benefits. “My friends are seniors who are joining the Navy. . . . It just kind of inspired me, I guess.”