Dear Civil Resisters gang and Supporters,
Well, we had a go of it again today with the military recruiters, this time at the UO Career Fair at the EMU Ballroom. After listening to Simona Sharoni's talk last night about militarism on campus, and how she got a grudging verbal "permission" from an executive assistant to President Frohnmeyer for presenting a contrary view to the military recruiters, a small contingent of civil resisters staffed a table at the stairway entrance to the ballroom with some of our placards (new messages under pictures of GI's with missing limbs: "How about a career in the US military?") and our literature "Facts the Military Recruiters Don't Tell You." We hit the mark, by getting a lot of attention from the students, getting the literature into the hands of perhaps 90% of the job seekers, getting into some good discussions with two of the recruiters who came and sought us out, all while working with/fending off the Career Fair administrator and campus security.

Present and fully attending to their duties during some or all of the 5 hour shift were: Gordon, Kenny, Hank, Jack, Rachael, and yours truly. Big kudos to Gordon, who got the materials to and from the site, and was the only warrior at his post for the entire shift--amazing! And Gordon successfully engaged another vet, who told horror stories about injured vet buddies whose disability claims were delayed so long they became homeless; Gordon persuaded him, I believe, to start coming to our Monday meetings.

I myself had to leave after the first hour and a half, but we were well covered by then. A few highlights from what I saw and what Gordon relayed to me happened after I left:

We had a few straight-up discussions with military recruiters who came out to talk with us. They were interested in the information we were distributing, and listened fairly well to what we were saying. They seemed to lend credence to my position after hearing about my father's experience in WWII and my brother's close call on 9/11 at the Twin Towers. But in trying to refute our position, both recruiters would always come back to, "But Saddam was such a tyrant" arguments. They would not address any of the information in our materials about their
deceptions concerning VA benefits, abuse of soldiers, injuries and mental illness. Nor could they deal with the fact of 100,000 dead Iraqis killed by American forces, in a country supposedly grateful that we had "liberated" them. When I told the Navy recruiter that according to US government figures 300,000 Iraqis had been killed under Saddam in 24
years of rule, and we had killed 100,000 in 24 months, I got blank stares. And I got agitated denials when I quoted the figure of 5,500 desertions. Campus security came by while I was there, saying they had received a complaint, and wanted to see our permit. I explained we had a verbal OK from Dave Huben. This took some discussion, and he had to check it out with the people upstairs.

Eventually we were given the OK by security, although after I left, Gordon tells me this happened two more times, each time with different security personnel responding to unspecified complaints, and Gordon explaining our permission for being there. This may have been a form of harassment by people on campus who wanted to silence us, perhaps the recruiters themselves. But since there was no basis for a complaint, and we had a verbal OK from someone in the President's office, we were able to continue. In my first encounter with campus security, Corporal Mike Eppley was getting a bit intimidating toward me, and that's when Kenny pulled out his videocamera and started filming. When Eppley noticed he was being filmed, he looked quite angry, and moved toward Kenny, ordering him to stop filming. I asked Kenny to comply, as the presence of the camera was only escalating the situation. Relieved, Eppley agreed to check our authorization.

Kenny also went into the ballroom and filmed each of the six separate tables of recruiters who were there (good to make them realize they're being watched, I think). He also got into an animated lengthy discussion with three College Republicans, and held his own quite well, thank you very much. I hope Kenny will share with us the thrust of their arguments. Kenny also did a fine job of getting our literature out to many, many tables in the food court areas. I did not get any details of the experiences of Hank or Rachael, other than that Rachael really "got
her feet wet" with hands-on activist work, and learned how important it is to know your material and be able to talk comfortably about it. Our elder statesman Hank, who doesn't hardly have to say anything because people just seem to respect him, always has a few pearls to share anyway.

Here’s the perspective on the day from Gordon:

”We met one couple who told us of their very recent decision not to join the military. The young lady told me they (I think she meant "he") had been thinking seriously about it, and that she was incredibly relieved that they had decided not to (picture). There were numerous times that we were grilled by security people (picture). Each time they seemed convinced that we were doing something wrong and that we shouldn't be there. In fact our participation was a very last minute addition to the career fair program and we were not really surprised by the attention. Each time we politely explained our authorization and each time they left, promising to check on our references. One fellow who identified himself as alumni seemed to be particularly disturbed by our presence. He passed us with great scrutiny numerous times and eventually engaged us in conversation, asking why we were here and what authorization we had. We told him we had permission to be here and asked him who he was since he didn't identify himself verbally or by uniform. He huffed off, probably straight to security. He came back later and loitered around to no effect.

Numerous times throughout the day one of us would make the rounds to the eating areas and distribute our flyers onto unused tables. That was a good idea as we saw many people reading them while eating.

At one point later in the day, we got "ambushed" by a small group of young Republicans. They managed to get Ken off to one side by himself, while the rest of us passed out our flyers, and engaged conversations with others present. Ken really had his hands full and put up a great unassisted debate against the three of them. Some passers by stopped to watch and listen to the intense and passionate discussion going on. One of the passers-by wanted to thank Ken for his gallant effort but couldn't stay. He asked me if I could thank Ken for him. Those of us in
our group couldn't help but notice Ken's situation and eyed each other in sympathy for him! Eventually our Rachel was able to go over and join the discussion (include picture). They were quite persistent and put forth lots of reasons why we should be at war, but eventually they tired and left.

We chatted with some of the military recruiters numerous times throughout the day. For the most part they were good natured and some of them even engaged us in some serious conversation about our participation in the war. One of them pointed out the statement in our flyer (add link) that refers to our claim that money for college is not guaranteed and that only 57% of those who enroll in the program actually get their benefits. He called that a lie, and I told him that I was a veteran who was in that program and that my own educational benefit
money was snafu'ed by some administrative error that forced me to drop out and get a job. I'm sure he must have thought I just made that up but I didn't. It really happened.”

And here’s the report from Jack:

“I also had extended debate with three or four young Republicans, who eventually gravitated to Kenny on the other side, leaving me with just one die-hard.  Bystanders gathered to watch and listen, becoming dense enough at times to twice draw a request not to block the stairs. It provided an opportunity to publicly counter a series of typical conservative arguments and provide lessons in US history and geopolitics to the opponents and audience alike.  Two opponents became interested enough to take flyers and my Sq13 cards to inspect the web site, as did several listeners.  One female listener in particular was very appreciative.  The fact that they stayed as long as they did suggests that they were troubled by the facts and images confronting them, and undoubtedly departed less certain of their positions.

Kenny and Rachel later voiced an interest in improving their debating weaponry, and we might consider more role-playing.”
 

I want to thank Dr. Simona Sharoni for suggesting this demonstration and for wringing "permission" from Dave Huben, Executive assistant to President Frohnmeyer for such an action. It was invaluable, as it turns out, to be able to say we had his permission to be there, as the woman managing the event, Deb Kerchek, and campus security, were both rather non-plussed about our presence. But the verbal OK served in lieu of a written permit which is normally required, and we held our ground, set up our table and placards of graphic injuries of the war at the stairway entrance to the ballroom, and gave out our "Facts That Military Recruiters Don't Tell You" to nearly every student who came in. And we know for sure of one young man who was about to go in and enlist, and changed his mind after reading our literature (with the help of his girlfriend). So we felt it was a very positive and productive day for our group and the anti-war effort.

--Peter Chabarek