thedrifter
08-02-04, 06:15 AM
Reasons to join service as diverse as recruits
Valley youngsters among those helping branches meet goals.
By Dan Sheehan
Of The Morning Call
Something more insistent than patriotism nudged Edward Rodriguez toward military life. There was a voice, too, a familiar one, urging him to honor himself and his country by earning the curved Mamluk sword, the snowy gloves, the sharp blue tunic of a United States Marine.
''They're America's fighting spirit,'' says Rodriguez, 18, offering a sincere sound-bite summary of the armed forces branch that fascinates him now more than ever as he prepares to leave Catasauqua for 13 weeks of basic training at Parris Island, S.C.
Here is a young man who has already perfected the look of utter seriousness and purpose characteristic of Marines standing ceremonial guard or staring out from the glossy covers of recruitment pamphlets.
Photos of Rodriguez from kindergarten through high school show the same stony features. It isn't a sullen or unhappy face, but a determined one. It's the face of the contemporary soldier-in-waiting, the young adult who visits the recruiter and says ''Sign me up'' even though the television and newspaper speak loud and long of war and death, of kidnappings and beheadings.
''I just had to do it,'' he says.
There are plenty of young people following the same path. Half the world seems to be in flames most days but recruitment continues apace. The four main branches — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — had shipped a total of 128,900 recruits into active service through June, with all branches meeting year-to-date goals. In fiscal year 2003, total recruitment of 184,879 exceeded the overall goal by 500.
The services, particularly the Army, are nonetheless stretched thin, raising the question of whether those goals are high enough in the first place. But that is another story. This one is about the starting gate of military life, when the kid out of high school makes the fateful decision to follow Uncle Sam's beckoning finger.
''Instead of sitting at home not doing anything, I thought I could make a difference,'' says Tara Jancovic, a 20-year-old Allen High School graduate who enlisted in the Air Force after a couple of restless semesters at community college. ''I could meet people from all over the world and make money doing it.''
Some young people turn to the armed forces as a last-gasp effort to escape delinquency or poverty. Indeed, one of the enduring criticisms of the volunteer forces is that they draw so heavily from the precincts of the poor.
Filmmaker Michael Moore makes that point in his controversial ''Fahrenheit 9/11,'' portraying recruiters as a camouflaged crossbreeding of Amway salesmen and rainmakers targeting young people with few options in life.
But Rodriguez, Jancovic and others interviewed for this story don't fit the profile of enlistee as quasi-victim. They are, variously, honor roll students, star athletes and odd-job laborers from middle-class homes, drawn to the service by the material rewards of tuition or training and the intangible satisfaction of service.
''With all these wars and troubles all around, I wanted to serve my country,'' says Natalie Haro, an Air Force recruit who is the second in her family to join the service. Her older sister is a Marine serving in Iraq.
Carlos Campos, a 19-year-old prep school basketball standout from Bethlehem, might have taken his hoop skills to an NCAA Division I school in Florida or California. He says his Catholic faith guided his decision to choose the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
''I believed if I prayed, I would be put in the right direction,'' Campos says. ''I don't know what's going to happen, but I know in my heart that this is what I want to do. I am going into the military because I believe I will become a good officer.''
For some, a higher calling
Rodriguez, a tall, wiry former football player — he was a safety at Catasauqua Area High School — will be the third member of his family to become a Marine, assuming he makes it through boot camp.
His mother's father was the first. His uncle, George L. Rosado — actually a cousin, though older by 21 years — was the other.
Uncle George is the familiar voice, the one Rodriguez carries in heart and head as he ponders the future beyond Catasauqua.
Rosado died this year, losing a struggle with drug addiction that began before his Marine service and flared after he left the Corps.
It is hard to overstate Rodriguez's devotion to his uncle. He sleeps with a laminated card from the funeral Mass under his pillow and keeps a framed portrait of Rosado in uniform on the desk in his bedroom.
At the funeral, he placed a brass pin on his uncle's chest: the eagle, globe and anchor, symbol of the Marines.
''He was always a good guy, always strong,'' Rodriguez says. ''I guess it's instilled when you're a Marine.''
Throughout high school, Rodriguez was shaped by twin forces: a growing interest in world cultures and political affairs, and admiration for the Marines.
To his parents' consternation, he began talking to recruiters when he was 16. His admiration grew into reverence. These days, his interests revolve almost exclusively around the Corps, to the point where his preferred reading material is ''Sgt. Grit,'' a catalogue of Marine memorabilia and merchandise.
''We tried to convince him to go into another branch,'' says his mother, Magnolia. ''I wanted him to go in the Air Force. I always had the impression of the Marines that they were animalistic. They were the killer branch.''
She is not of that opinion now, but admits to a simmering trepidation as her son embarks on his new path. ''I don't want to lose my little boy,'' she says, with a touch of pleading in her tone.
Campos, the son of Nicaraguan immigrants, faced some of the same resistance at home, despite the prestige of his acceptance to the Naval Academy.
His parents' frame of reference in military matters is the Nicaraguan civil war that brought Marxist Sandinistas to power in the late 1970s.
''Seeing life like that, I can see why they're nervous,'' says Campos, the first one in his family born in America. ''They saw friends get shot.''
But Campos, like Rodriguez, persuaded his parents that the military way was the only way for him. Perhaps, he told them, he can use the experience for the greater good.
He remembers visiting Nicaragua at age 12 and seeing a half-dressed little boy walking on the rough road of a poor village, clutching a lizard.
''It was something he was going to eat later that day,'' Campos says, shaking his head. ''He was just so happy he had food. It was so sad. It made me think 'Why do I have it so good?'
''After that, I really wanted to do something. I really wanted to give back.''
Looking to serve safely
Such declarations of altruism are common among young people choosing the military.
''There's normally five reasons people enlist,'' says Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Fullen. ''Education, training, serving their country, travel, and adventure.''
Picking the branch is another matter.
Staff Sgt. Jeff Avanzato, an eight-year Air Force veteran who works two doors down from Fullen at the recruiting center in Upper Macungie Township, readily admits he has things easier these days than his Marine and Army counterparts.
While they are scouring the community for potential enlistees, he is busy returning phone messages from young people eager to explore the Air Force's array of training programs.
The branch's popularity is rooted in the perception that airmen — the term applies to men and women — live cleanly and remain at a safe distance from combat.
After all, only 4 percent of Air Force enlistees become pilots. The rest are part of a massive network of engineers, mechanics, weather forecasters, radar operators, police officers.
Enlistees also endure the shortest basic training course, at six weeks.
''My sister said 'Join the Air Force,''' says Natalie Haro, an Allentown Central Catholic graduate who leaves this month for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. ''She has friends who went into the Air Force from the Marines who said it was much better.''
Tara Jancovic says friends in the Army and Navy told her the same thing. But here, again, are a couple of enlistees who had a hard sell at home. Jancovic's mother tried to talk her out of enlisting ''because of the way things are.''
Haro faced the same pressure: ''My parents don't want the same fate for me as my sister,'' she says.
Ultimately, their parents accepted that their children aren't children anymore.
''The thing that I'm afraid of, like every mother, is just that she's leaving the house,'' says Natalie's mother, Lucila. ''It's not that I'm afraid for her life, because God is too good. It's just the nature of parents with kids going away.''
continued...........
Valley youngsters among those helping branches meet goals.
By Dan Sheehan
Of The Morning Call
Something more insistent than patriotism nudged Edward Rodriguez toward military life. There was a voice, too, a familiar one, urging him to honor himself and his country by earning the curved Mamluk sword, the snowy gloves, the sharp blue tunic of a United States Marine.
''They're America's fighting spirit,'' says Rodriguez, 18, offering a sincere sound-bite summary of the armed forces branch that fascinates him now more than ever as he prepares to leave Catasauqua for 13 weeks of basic training at Parris Island, S.C.
Here is a young man who has already perfected the look of utter seriousness and purpose characteristic of Marines standing ceremonial guard or staring out from the glossy covers of recruitment pamphlets.
Photos of Rodriguez from kindergarten through high school show the same stony features. It isn't a sullen or unhappy face, but a determined one. It's the face of the contemporary soldier-in-waiting, the young adult who visits the recruiter and says ''Sign me up'' even though the television and newspaper speak loud and long of war and death, of kidnappings and beheadings.
''I just had to do it,'' he says.
There are plenty of young people following the same path. Half the world seems to be in flames most days but recruitment continues apace. The four main branches — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — had shipped a total of 128,900 recruits into active service through June, with all branches meeting year-to-date goals. In fiscal year 2003, total recruitment of 184,879 exceeded the overall goal by 500.
The services, particularly the Army, are nonetheless stretched thin, raising the question of whether those goals are high enough in the first place. But that is another story. This one is about the starting gate of military life, when the kid out of high school makes the fateful decision to follow Uncle Sam's beckoning finger.
''Instead of sitting at home not doing anything, I thought I could make a difference,'' says Tara Jancovic, a 20-year-old Allen High School graduate who enlisted in the Air Force after a couple of restless semesters at community college. ''I could meet people from all over the world and make money doing it.''
Some young people turn to the armed forces as a last-gasp effort to escape delinquency or poverty. Indeed, one of the enduring criticisms of the volunteer forces is that they draw so heavily from the precincts of the poor.
Filmmaker Michael Moore makes that point in his controversial ''Fahrenheit 9/11,'' portraying recruiters as a camouflaged crossbreeding of Amway salesmen and rainmakers targeting young people with few options in life.
But Rodriguez, Jancovic and others interviewed for this story don't fit the profile of enlistee as quasi-victim. They are, variously, honor roll students, star athletes and odd-job laborers from middle-class homes, drawn to the service by the material rewards of tuition or training and the intangible satisfaction of service.
''With all these wars and troubles all around, I wanted to serve my country,'' says Natalie Haro, an Air Force recruit who is the second in her family to join the service. Her older sister is a Marine serving in Iraq.
Carlos Campos, a 19-year-old prep school basketball standout from Bethlehem, might have taken his hoop skills to an NCAA Division I school in Florida or California. He says his Catholic faith guided his decision to choose the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
''I believed if I prayed, I would be put in the right direction,'' Campos says. ''I don't know what's going to happen, but I know in my heart that this is what I want to do. I am going into the military because I believe I will become a good officer.''
For some, a higher calling
Rodriguez, a tall, wiry former football player — he was a safety at Catasauqua Area High School — will be the third member of his family to become a Marine, assuming he makes it through boot camp.
His mother's father was the first. His uncle, George L. Rosado — actually a cousin, though older by 21 years — was the other.
Uncle George is the familiar voice, the one Rodriguez carries in heart and head as he ponders the future beyond Catasauqua.
Rosado died this year, losing a struggle with drug addiction that began before his Marine service and flared after he left the Corps.
It is hard to overstate Rodriguez's devotion to his uncle. He sleeps with a laminated card from the funeral Mass under his pillow and keeps a framed portrait of Rosado in uniform on the desk in his bedroom.
At the funeral, he placed a brass pin on his uncle's chest: the eagle, globe and anchor, symbol of the Marines.
''He was always a good guy, always strong,'' Rodriguez says. ''I guess it's instilled when you're a Marine.''
Throughout high school, Rodriguez was shaped by twin forces: a growing interest in world cultures and political affairs, and admiration for the Marines.
To his parents' consternation, he began talking to recruiters when he was 16. His admiration grew into reverence. These days, his interests revolve almost exclusively around the Corps, to the point where his preferred reading material is ''Sgt. Grit,'' a catalogue of Marine memorabilia and merchandise.
''We tried to convince him to go into another branch,'' says his mother, Magnolia. ''I wanted him to go in the Air Force. I always had the impression of the Marines that they were animalistic. They were the killer branch.''
She is not of that opinion now, but admits to a simmering trepidation as her son embarks on his new path. ''I don't want to lose my little boy,'' she says, with a touch of pleading in her tone.
Campos, the son of Nicaraguan immigrants, faced some of the same resistance at home, despite the prestige of his acceptance to the Naval Academy.
His parents' frame of reference in military matters is the Nicaraguan civil war that brought Marxist Sandinistas to power in the late 1970s.
''Seeing life like that, I can see why they're nervous,'' says Campos, the first one in his family born in America. ''They saw friends get shot.''
But Campos, like Rodriguez, persuaded his parents that the military way was the only way for him. Perhaps, he told them, he can use the experience for the greater good.
He remembers visiting Nicaragua at age 12 and seeing a half-dressed little boy walking on the rough road of a poor village, clutching a lizard.
''It was something he was going to eat later that day,'' Campos says, shaking his head. ''He was just so happy he had food. It was so sad. It made me think 'Why do I have it so good?'
''After that, I really wanted to do something. I really wanted to give back.''
Looking to serve safely
Such declarations of altruism are common among young people choosing the military.
''There's normally five reasons people enlist,'' says Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Fullen. ''Education, training, serving their country, travel, and adventure.''
Picking the branch is another matter.
Staff Sgt. Jeff Avanzato, an eight-year Air Force veteran who works two doors down from Fullen at the recruiting center in Upper Macungie Township, readily admits he has things easier these days than his Marine and Army counterparts.
While they are scouring the community for potential enlistees, he is busy returning phone messages from young people eager to explore the Air Force's array of training programs.
The branch's popularity is rooted in the perception that airmen — the term applies to men and women — live cleanly and remain at a safe distance from combat.
After all, only 4 percent of Air Force enlistees become pilots. The rest are part of a massive network of engineers, mechanics, weather forecasters, radar operators, police officers.
Enlistees also endure the shortest basic training course, at six weeks.
''My sister said 'Join the Air Force,''' says Natalie Haro, an Allentown Central Catholic graduate who leaves this month for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. ''She has friends who went into the Air Force from the Marines who said it was much better.''
Tara Jancovic says friends in the Army and Navy told her the same thing. But here, again, are a couple of enlistees who had a hard sell at home. Jancovic's mother tried to talk her out of enlisting ''because of the way things are.''
Haro faced the same pressure: ''My parents don't want the same fate for me as my sister,'' she says.
Ultimately, their parents accepted that their children aren't children anymore.
''The thing that I'm afraid of, like every mother, is just that she's leaving the house,'' says Natalie's mother, Lucila. ''It's not that I'm afraid for her life, because God is too good. It's just the nature of parents with kids going away.''
continued...........