Patriotic Zeal Fuels Enlistment Fever

At the start of this week, Brian Bishop was an apprentice electrician. Samuel Valentino painted houses. And Jonathan Ridlen was aiming to become a teacher.

By the end of the week, spurred by Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, all three young men were at the Pasadena recruiting office of the U.S. Marine Corps, planning military careers instead. Their new career goals: to fight terrorism and protect America.

The televised terror first stunned the men, then infuriated them, filling them with a patriotism that surprised even themselves and a raw urge to act.

“I haven’t felt this way about the country ever,” said Bishop, 23. “I think I took it for granted. This one event has changed me. I feel I have a duty to help out however I can.”

Across the region, military recruiting stations reported a surge of interest in enlistment. At the U.S. Army recruiting station in Bakersfield, officials said nearly 80 men showed up on the day of the attacks, four times the usual number, and that interest was still running higher than usual by week’s end.

In Pasadena, where recruiters from all four services are housed in the same white stucco building on Colorado Boulevard, Army Sgt. Steven Davis got as many new walk-ins on Friday as he did on Tuesday: 11, compared to the normal daily average of one. Davis speculated that escalating talk of war, calling up the reserves and other potential military actions were keeping interest in enlistment high.

A few walk-ins were, in Davis’ words, “rednecks” who burst into the recruiting office declaring their desire to kill someone. But most were people with prior service records wanting to reenlist or people like Bishop who were moved by patriotic ideals to protect and serve.

“Finally people, rather than standing behind the flag, are preparing to stand in front of it and fight,” said Davis, who himself was moved to enlist on the day the United States entered the Persian Gulf War a decade ago.

Upstairs, on a Thursday afternoon in the Marine Corps office, Sgt. Byron Lam was reviewing enlistment requirements with Valentino, while Bishop and Ridlen were plying another recruiter, Sgt. Avis Tolliver, with questions: What’s on the screening test? Algebra? Haven’t been in school for four or five years, man. Want to brush up first.

Indeed, recruiters said the biggest challenge to enlistment was passing a basic aptitude test on 10th-grade level English and math skills. Others drop out of the process because of pressure from parents or friends not to join. Overall, Lam said, about half of those who walk in eventually drop out.

But Valentino, Bishop and Ridlen vowed they wouldn’t be among the dropouts. Not only do they want to enlist, they said, they want to see action immediately.

“If we happen to go to war, would we be able to participate in that or will they hold us back?” Bishop asked Tolliver.

“No, we won’t hold you back,” Tolliver said.

Bishop grinned broadly.

“It excites me,” Bishop said. “Even the death part of it, so be it.”

So be it, too, that his mother and girlfriend vehemently object to his enlistment--in fact, they did not even know he was coming to the recruiting station. “I think there’s a bigger picture involved, and that’s to serve my country and protect my country in the future,” Bishop said.

The Glendale resident, 6 feet, 3 inches tall with an easy gracefulness, was an ace high school pitcher drafted by the Houston Astros. He declined to sign and instead studied business at city colleges in Sacramento and Glendale. Now a full-time electrician, Bishop said he wanted to aim for intelligence work in the Marines. That, he said, is where he might be able to make a difference in hunting down terrorists.

Ridlen, 22, comes from a military family in La Crescenta that devotes an entire wall of its home to the service photos and citations of his father, brother, brother’s best friend and cousin. He alone has never made the family “Wall of Fame.” Now, he said, he might.

Of the pair, Bishop was the instigator for Thursday’s visit to the Marines. He said his mother woke him up with the news Tuesday, in time for him to see the World Trade Center’s second tower collapse. He says he hasn’t stopped watching TV since--or thinking about enlisting. That morning, he called Ridlen: “Our country’s been attacked. Let’s go down to the Marine Corps and see if we can get in.”

Valentino, 21, has thought on and off about enlisting ever since high school, when he joined the Naval Junior ROTC, he said. After the attack, he decided to get serious about his plans, going for the Marines. “They’re the first out, and I want to be where the action is.”

Valentino wasn’t always so patriotic. During a rebellious adolescent stage, he said, he refused to say the pledge of allegiance. His grandmother tore into him. The daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants who proudly displayed the flag on her porch every day, she regaled him with tales of his grandfather’s World War II service as an artillery gunman on bombers. The stories transformed him, he said.

“My grandfather was fighting for the freedom of other people, and I honored that,” said Valentino, whose wife, Erin, backs him completely despite some worries about their two toddlers, Samuel Jr. and Samantha.

“Joining the military is my way of passing that on, and hopefully my son will want to join too when he grows up,” Valentino said.

Ridlen spoke in more immediate terms.

“Let’s declare war, meet in the middle and duke it out,” he said.