Lawmakers Consider Restrictions On High School Recruiting

By Susan Haigh

Associated Press

HARTFORD (AP) — Bernadette Conroy was shocked to pick up the phone last year and find that a US Army recruiter wanted to speak to her 16-year-old son.

“My son was just a junior at the time and not even in possession of a driver’s license yet. Wasn’t shaving yet. I was still driving and picking him up from football practice and to the movies with his friends,” the Newington mother told the legislature’s Education Committee on Monday.

“And here was this man trying to get him to enlist during wartime,” she said.

Representative Andrew Fleischmann, the committee co-chairman, said he’s heard from other families who feel military recruiters are targeting young, impressionable teens, in hopes of meeting their recruitment goals.

Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, has proposed a bill that requires each school board in the state to have a policy of prohibiting the recruitment, military or otherwise, of any student under 15 years old unless the recruiter has permission from the student’s parent or guardian.

The bill also requires recruiters to set up appointments with individual students through the school’s guidance office, and make sure that parents and their teens know that it is a voluntary decision to meet with a recruiter.

Additionally, the bill requires schools to notify students and parents that they can opt out of the military recruiting process. At Monday’s public hearing, some people testified that they didn’t know about the opt out option.

Major Nathan Banks, a spokesman for the US Army, said Army recruiters play by the rules and provide teens with general guidance and knowledge about the military.

“An individual cannot join the military unless he’s 18 years of age to sign on his own,” Banks said. The military does accept 17-year-olds with a high school diploma or GED, but only the teen’s parent or guardian gives consent.

“Once you get into the contract phase, definitely a parent is going to be present,” he said.

Chris Grohs, a medic in Iraq and Afghanistan and current University of Connecticut student, said his recruitment experience was positive, but he’s heard from others in the military who were given a lot of promises that didn’t come true.

“It seems a lot of people were misled by their recruiter and a lot of people ended up not getting what they were told they were going to get,” he said.

Grohs urged lawmakers to limit recruiters’ access to high schools. The state is obligated to provide the same access to military recruiters at schools that’s provided to other recruiters, such as universities and employers.

“It’s kind of like letting the fox in the hen house. You have recruiters — their sole goal is to make that quota,” Grohs said. “Anything you can do for parents to say, ‘No I don’t want my child to have their information accessible by a recruiter’ is definitely a very good thing.”