Threat of War Fails to Deter Many Sign-Ups for Services

EL MONTE —  Even as the clock ticked down toward midnight Tuesday, prospective soldiers, sailors and Marines were sorting through their options at the recruiting station on Valley Boulevard.

Despite a patriotic statement or two, few seemed to feel a direct link between their interviews and forms and the potential clash in the Middle East.

“I figure right now is the time to make a move for a career,” said Sergio Rodriguez, 21, a short man with a look of unruffled optimism. “I figure it’s either the police department or the Army.”

It looked like the Army. Rodriguez sat in the Army recruiting station, bubbling over with good feelings about military service. There were all those relatives of his who had done their time, including his father-in-law, who was in Saudi Arabia that very moment, running a first-aid center.

“He says you have to defend what you believe in,” Rodriguez said.

Besides, Army service was something that Rodriguez, an El Monte High School graduate who works in a hardwood distribution center, had always wanted to perform.

“What really got me pumped up was what was going on over there,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the distant Persian Gulf. “I don’t like the situation, but whatever has to be done has to be done.”

The last six months have been tough for recruiters in all branches of the service, including those in the multiservice office in El Monte. Although patriots and opportunity-seekers such as Rodriguez continue to move through the recruiting stations, the uncertainties of Desert Shield have apparently slowed the flow, recruiters say.

“To this point, not a shot has been fired,” Staff Sgt. David Knox, an Army recruiter, said Tuesday. “But there’s a lot of apprehension.”

For example, Army recruiters nationwide reached better than 97% of their goals during the last three months of 1989, bringing 30,121 new volunteers into active service, but reached less than 87% during the same three months in 1990, with 20,959 new recruits.

The results were even worse when it came to signing up Army reserves, an Army spokeswoman said. Army recruiters reached better than 101% of their goal in the last quarter of 1989, bringing in 16,448 new reserves, but they signed only 11,430, less than 81%, in the last quarter of 1990.

On top of that, the drop-out rate from the “delayed entry program”--high school seniors, for example, who commit themselves six or eight months before graduation in return for guaranteed jobs and college benefits--has doubled, from 9% to 18%.

The numbers are similar for other services, although the Marines say they have never missed “making our mission.”

“We’re not selling tangibles, we’re selling leadership skills,” said Marine Maj. Philip Parkhurst, head of the four-county recruiting unit headquartered in Los Angeles. “That’s what carries them on, later in life, into jobs with the Fortune 500 companies.”

In the San Gabriel Valley, the picture is a little brighter for recruiters.

The three services represented in the Valley Boulevard shopping strip, between a drive-in hamburger establishment and a billiard parlor, all say they’re meeting their goals. The Army station, for example, is bringing in more than its share of both active Army recruits and reserves.

The largely Latino population served by the office is generally positive about military service, recruiters say. “We’ve been getting a lot of calls from older guys who want to get back in,” said Sgt. Larry Smith, head of the Army recruiting station. Some can, depending on age, physical condition, terms of discharge and other factors.

Across the hall, Marine Staff Sgt. Lee Villarreal said most of his recruits lately have been former Marines. “I’ve got five or six guys I’m working on right now,” he said. “I even got a call from a former sergeant major. He was 48, and he wanted to know if there was any way he could help out.”

Army recruiters say their office has been deluged with calls from people who think that the current military situation will mean a relaxation of such pre-induction requirements as a high school diploma and a clean criminal record.

“Some people think it’ll be like the old days, when judges used to say, ‘Serve your country or serve the county,’ ” Knox said.

If anything, Sgt. Arthur Vanwyngarden said, Army standards are tougher now. “There can’t be any open law violations, not even an unpaid traffic ticket,” Vanwyngarden said. “You have to be drug-free. You’re given a drug test before you go to basic (training).”

The Army has also reduced its number of recruits who failed to graduate from high school, Smith said. “A year ago, about 80% (of new recruits) had high school diplomas,” he said. “Now it’s up to 90%. Basically, we’re looking for quality, not quantity.”

“Out of every 20 people I talk to, only three or four even start to qualify,” Knox said.

Most of the new recruits are youthfully optimistic people who have either had a tough time finding employment or, like Rodriguez, have been dissatisfied with their jobs.

“I want something more than running a forklift,” Rodriguez said.

“Contrary to popular belief,” said Dave Fox, 26, an Army veteran from Rosemead who was reenlisting Tuesday, “everybody isn’t coming home in a body bag.”

Work has been hard to find for Fox, a construction worker. “Everybody’s been spending their money on holiday items, and they’re not remodeling their homes right now,” he said. “There’s the oil situation too.”

Eddie Maldonado, 18, a South El Monte resident applying for admission to the Navy, said he “would have signed up, war or no war. I like guns.”

Grace Hernandez, 19, a department store clerk from Temple City who had just signed up for the Army reserves, said her friends had told her that she was crazy for signing up now. “I think they’re all afraid,” said Hernandez, a smiling woman with a 1920s-style flapper haircut. “They’re all going to college.”

Hernandez acknowledged the possibility that she might end up in a war zone. “I joined to serve my country,” she said. “I’m not afraid to go.”

Jose Soveranes, 22, a Cal Poly Pomona student from Baldwin Park, said he didn’t see college leading anywhere. Though he was a delayed entry applicant who signed up before hostilities began in the Persian Gulf, he said he accepted the possibility of going to war.

“That’s part of going into the Army,” he said. “You accept the responsibility that goes with it.”

He said his family had resisted the idea. “I’m usually the calm, quiet type,” he said. “This astonished everybody.”

Some recruiters suggested that their greatest benefit from the Persian Gulf situation has been the winnowing it imposes. “The people coming in now are either interested or they’re not,” Knox said. “With the situation the way it is, nobody’s wishy-washy.”