Protesters stage sit-in at Army recruitment office

Protesters block the entrance to the U.S. Army recruiting office on North McDowell Boulevard Friday.

July 13, 2005

By EMILY BRADY
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

Protesting the war in Iraq and the recruitment of area youth into the U.S. military, a group of teenagers and adults staged a sit-in in front of the U.S. Army recruiting office on North McDowell Boule-vard Friday afternoon, complete with bloody images of mangled Iraqi civilians and a hand-lettered sign that read "Don't Recruit Me."

"We want the recruiters out of our schools," explained Carlos Giovanny-Roa, 21, a 2002 Casa Grande High School graduate and one of the protest's organizers. "We don't want them to continue to infiltrate our schools with propaganda that war is okay."

Giovanny-Roa, who wore a T-shirt of the image of the famous Cuban revolutionary hero Che Guevara and the hammer-and-sickle symbol around his neck, said his movement was called "The People's Revolutionary Organization."

Their goal, besides ending visits by military recruiters to locals schools, is to expose the hypocrisy of the G.I. Bill, he said.

The group of some seven teenagers and about four adults said they planned to sit or stand in front of the recruiting office until the early evening. One of the adults, Dusty Resneck, handed out informational broch-ures entitled "The Military's Not Just A Job ... It's Eight Years Of Your Life" to passersby.

The army officers inside locked the door when they saw the protesters coming, Giovanny-Roa said.

When two young men who had a previous appointment at the recruiting office arrived, they had to wait outside for a few minutes.

"There are other ways to pay for college," said a woman holding images of bloodied Iraqi civilians she said she downloaded from journalist Robert Fisk's Web site.

"Can I come in too?" Giovanny-Roa asked the military recruiter who let the two young men in.

"You have to make an appointment," replied the recruiter before shutting the door.

Recruiters inside the North McDowell office deferred comment to their Sacramento public affairs office, where Mary Miller, a U.S. Army Recruiting public affairs specialist, said "We're a free country; they have right to protest."

The response to the protest from motorists driving in and out of the shopping center seemed mostly positive. There were encouraging horn honks and one woman in a black-and-white striped shirt coming out of Starbucks simply said "thank you" as she walked by.

(Contact Emily Brady at ebrady@arguscourier.com)