"Recruitment criticism misguided, soldiers say"

Critics of on-campus military recruiting have been outspoken the last few weeks, expressing their discontent with UB's policies. Military officials and members of the armed forces, however, say recruiters do have a place on campus and many of the attacks they endure at UB are unfair and misguided.

"Our recruiters are soldiers, not salesmen. We have and will continue to recruit with integrity," said Sergeant First Class Andrew Patterson in response to accusations that recruiters have a reputation for misleading recruits.

For the last six years, Patterson has been the head of the Buffalo area recruiting office for the United States Army that covers UB.

"Our mission in recruiting at this time is to recruit qualified men and women to fight the global war on terrorism," he said.

The issue of campus recruitment is a hot topic these days, as a Supreme Court case scheduled to open on Tuesday will consider the constitutionality of a law that allows government officials to disallow academic grants to universities that deny on-campus recruiters.

The debate extended to UB when members of UB's Progressive Alliance called for the university to stop handing student e-mail addresses to military recruiters.

Recruiters say that what they offer is positive for some students, and what they do is misunderstood.

According to Patterson, recruiting on-campus is just one way the military enlists personnel for divisions of the Army that require specialized training and higher education.

"The main reason we prospect for future soldiers is (because) the Army, as well as the other services, have become very technical and require education levels beyond high school," Patterson said. "We are selecting for Officer Candidate School, which requires a minimum of a four-year college degree or (to) be a senior in a four-year program."

Patterson said most students have a misconception that all military members they see on campus are recruiters. Rather, they are infantrymen -- soldiers that are assigned to the recruiting office from other divisions.

"I'm fighting for you," said one staff sergeant in the recruiting office who asked that his name not be used because of previous media experiences in Iraq. "The Army's not a bad place. I've loved it from the minute I started. We follow our leader, and our leader is the Commander in Chief."

Avi Eisenberg, a freshman international studies major and an ROTC Cadet, agreed there is a misconception about campus recruiters.

"We have one officer with the title of Enrollment Officer," Eisenberg said. "The other actual Army officers are not really responsible for that sort of thing."

Eisenberg, who is aspiring to branch into either infantry or aviation in the Army, says he's already learned a lot in the ROTC program.

"It's actually a lot of fun for the most part. This semester we have done a wide range of things such as rappelling, very basic military operations in urban terrain tactics, and some skills on the water (like) swimming with a rifle and making a floatation device out of battle-dress uniform pants," Eisenberg said.

In addition to his regular classes, Eisenberg takes a military science course and lab each week, which he cross-enrolled in at Canesius College. Eisenberg is hoping to go active in the Army, versus into the reserves, when he graduates.

The Supreme Court case - Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights - will question the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals already found the legislation unconstitutional last month for the military's "don't ask, don't tell" statutory requirement regarding openly gay candidates.

FAIR believes that the current policy is discriminatory, and thus military recruiters don't legally meet standards like those for private employers.