thedrifter
07-29-07, 08:17 AM
Military recruiters find a receptive audience among the men and women of San Joaquin County
By Christian Burkin
July 29, 2007
Record Staff Writer
Kody Cain is learning to walk all over again.
Dressed for exercise, the 19-year-old stands at attention outside the Army recruiting office in Stockton, on Pershing Avenue near March Lane.
Staff Sgt. Darrell Smith, an Army recruiter, is running Cain through some basic drill movements. It starts easy, with stationary movements, then suddenly gets a lot harder.
"Forward march."
The movements are new, and Cain still has to think about what he is doing. Pretty soon, left becomes right, and instead of swinging his arms naturally - right arm, left leg, etc. - he is "monster-mashing," the military's term for the Frankensteinian plod that results from moving your arms in unison with your feet. There's a word for it because millions of recruits before him have done the same.
"It takes me a couple of tries," Cain said.
Cain doesn't need persuading; he's already enlisted in the Army. In the few months before he ships out to basic training, he's doing his best to prepare himself.
"I'm a little bit nervous," he said. "More excited than anything."
The decision was years in the making, he said. He had been talking about joining the military since he was a freshman and finally decided to do something about it.
Most recruits take a long time with their decisions, said Smith, but there are exceptions - men and women who walk in, sign up and are funneled through the process in just weeks.
"One day they wake up and decide 'Today's the day!' " he said.
Cain, who attended Calaveras, West Point Alternative and Franklin high schools, will be a welder for the Army. Welding and metal work is a family tradition, he said.
Cain says his father, Stanley Cain, serving time in state prison, is one of the best welders in the country.
The towering Cain says his reasons for joining stem from personal interest and altruism.
"I want the experience, and I figure anybody who lives in America has an obligation to do something for their country," he said.
That sentiment is an echo of the San Joaquin Valley, recruiters say, where high enlistment numbers can be attributed to military-friendly families, schools and youth. It's a different story across the Altamont, they agree.
In San Joaquin County, "It's easier to sit down and talk to young people and tell them the Army story," said Capt. Eric Petersen, commander of the Army recruiting company that oversees the county.
Parents, teachers and friends of recruits also are more supportive than in the Bay Area, where "influencers," as Petersen calls them, are often hostile, he said.
Sgt. 1st Class Mark Wilder, commander of the Golden Gate Recruiting Station in San Francisco, is unabashed about the difference.
"It's easy street compared to here," he said.
In San Joaquin County, military recruiters enjoy almost unfettered access to schools, Petersen said.
"They're very receptive in San Joaquin County," he said. "They let us on campus anytime we want to for classroom presentations."
In the San Francisco Unified School District, recruiters are limited to just two campus visits a year, a district spokesman said. And in November, the school board voted to eliminate Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs at local schools, saying that military policies were incompatible with the district's values.
From May 2006 to May 2007, Wilder said, roughly 80 people joined the military from San Francisco, which has a population of about 750,000. In Stockton, with about 279,000 people, an average of more than 100 people a year have joined the Army alone since the start of the Iraq war, according to data from the Sacramento Army Recruiting Battalion.
The difference is so stark that the Sacramento Battalion, which oversees Northern California, splits the stations between the Valley and the Bay Area for the purpose of handing out annual awards for recruiting, Wilder said.
This regional difference may partially explain another set of statistics - the astonishingly high number of the county's sons and daughters killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In raw numbers, Stockton and Tracy are among the five California cities hardest hit by the war. Stockton is third, behind Los Angeles and San Diego. Next is Long Beach, a city of almost a half-million people, followed by Tracy, with a population of just 80,505, according to the state Department of Finance.
Local enlistment rates into the traditional front-line forces, the Army and the Marine Corps, may also help explain this disparity.
The Marine Corps, in particular, is a popular destination for San Joaquin County youths, said Gunnery Sgt. Egidio Ryan, a recruiter in Stockton.
Ryan acknowledges the toll the war has taken on the region but says that the numbers of those killed are still miniscule in comparison with the number who have joined.
Plus, Ryan says, recruits have few illusions about what they're getting into.
"Most people, it's been my experience, when they decide to be Marines, they understand the risks," Ryan said.
Because of that, and because the military is still a volunteer force, Ryan said, he never feels guilty about his work.
Despite a pressing need to fill the ranks of a growing force, Ryan said he can still afford to be selective about whom he recruits. He turns hopefuls away on a daily basis, he says.
"If I don't think they have the potential to make it through training, it's part of my job as the station commander to direct them elsewhere," he said.
Contact reporter Christian Burkin at (209) 239-6606 or cburkin@recordnet.com.
Ellie
By Christian Burkin
July 29, 2007
Record Staff Writer
Kody Cain is learning to walk all over again.
Dressed for exercise, the 19-year-old stands at attention outside the Army recruiting office in Stockton, on Pershing Avenue near March Lane.
Staff Sgt. Darrell Smith, an Army recruiter, is running Cain through some basic drill movements. It starts easy, with stationary movements, then suddenly gets a lot harder.
"Forward march."
The movements are new, and Cain still has to think about what he is doing. Pretty soon, left becomes right, and instead of swinging his arms naturally - right arm, left leg, etc. - he is "monster-mashing," the military's term for the Frankensteinian plod that results from moving your arms in unison with your feet. There's a word for it because millions of recruits before him have done the same.
"It takes me a couple of tries," Cain said.
Cain doesn't need persuading; he's already enlisted in the Army. In the few months before he ships out to basic training, he's doing his best to prepare himself.
"I'm a little bit nervous," he said. "More excited than anything."
The decision was years in the making, he said. He had been talking about joining the military since he was a freshman and finally decided to do something about it.
Most recruits take a long time with their decisions, said Smith, but there are exceptions - men and women who walk in, sign up and are funneled through the process in just weeks.
"One day they wake up and decide 'Today's the day!' " he said.
Cain, who attended Calaveras, West Point Alternative and Franklin high schools, will be a welder for the Army. Welding and metal work is a family tradition, he said.
Cain says his father, Stanley Cain, serving time in state prison, is one of the best welders in the country.
The towering Cain says his reasons for joining stem from personal interest and altruism.
"I want the experience, and I figure anybody who lives in America has an obligation to do something for their country," he said.
That sentiment is an echo of the San Joaquin Valley, recruiters say, where high enlistment numbers can be attributed to military-friendly families, schools and youth. It's a different story across the Altamont, they agree.
In San Joaquin County, "It's easier to sit down and talk to young people and tell them the Army story," said Capt. Eric Petersen, commander of the Army recruiting company that oversees the county.
Parents, teachers and friends of recruits also are more supportive than in the Bay Area, where "influencers," as Petersen calls them, are often hostile, he said.
Sgt. 1st Class Mark Wilder, commander of the Golden Gate Recruiting Station in San Francisco, is unabashed about the difference.
"It's easy street compared to here," he said.
In San Joaquin County, military recruiters enjoy almost unfettered access to schools, Petersen said.
"They're very receptive in San Joaquin County," he said. "They let us on campus anytime we want to for classroom presentations."
In the San Francisco Unified School District, recruiters are limited to just two campus visits a year, a district spokesman said. And in November, the school board voted to eliminate Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs at local schools, saying that military policies were incompatible with the district's values.
From May 2006 to May 2007, Wilder said, roughly 80 people joined the military from San Francisco, which has a population of about 750,000. In Stockton, with about 279,000 people, an average of more than 100 people a year have joined the Army alone since the start of the Iraq war, according to data from the Sacramento Army Recruiting Battalion.
The difference is so stark that the Sacramento Battalion, which oversees Northern California, splits the stations between the Valley and the Bay Area for the purpose of handing out annual awards for recruiting, Wilder said.
This regional difference may partially explain another set of statistics - the astonishingly high number of the county's sons and daughters killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In raw numbers, Stockton and Tracy are among the five California cities hardest hit by the war. Stockton is third, behind Los Angeles and San Diego. Next is Long Beach, a city of almost a half-million people, followed by Tracy, with a population of just 80,505, according to the state Department of Finance.
Local enlistment rates into the traditional front-line forces, the Army and the Marine Corps, may also help explain this disparity.
The Marine Corps, in particular, is a popular destination for San Joaquin County youths, said Gunnery Sgt. Egidio Ryan, a recruiter in Stockton.
Ryan acknowledges the toll the war has taken on the region but says that the numbers of those killed are still miniscule in comparison with the number who have joined.
Plus, Ryan says, recruits have few illusions about what they're getting into.
"Most people, it's been my experience, when they decide to be Marines, they understand the risks," Ryan said.
Because of that, and because the military is still a volunteer force, Ryan said, he never feels guilty about his work.
Despite a pressing need to fill the ranks of a growing force, Ryan said he can still afford to be selective about whom he recruits. He turns hopefuls away on a daily basis, he says.
"If I don't think they have the potential to make it through training, it's part of my job as the station commander to direct them elsewhere," he said.
Contact reporter Christian Burkin at (209) 239-6606 or cburkin@recordnet.com.
Ellie