HOUSTON -- With a war in Iraq and fighting on the rise in Afghanistan, the struggle to bring in new U.S. Army recruits is heating up again. Video
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And Irving Gonzales, 18, got caught up in it all.
As his family’s oldest male, he feels he has to do whatever it takes to help out his single mom. For him, that means working long hours at his after-school job.
“My mom was left struggling. I would give her more than half my paycheck,” Gonzales said.
That’s why the Aldine High School senior started thinking about the Army – and the tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses that can come with enlistment.
“They were offering me school, they were offering me bonuses,” he said.
So Gonzales signed up – but only to “pre-enlist” in the Delayed Entry Program. DEP allows kids to try out the military without a binding commitment.
But the 11 News Defenders have found there is a problem: Army recruiters aren’t sticking to the program and are bullying and even lying to potential recruits and their families to keep them from dropping out.
After he had a change of heart, Gonzalez became one such victim.
“I’d rather just stay here, go to college,” he said he told his recruiter.
The reaction: Gonzalez said a recruiter told him if he did drop out, they would send him to jail.
Scared, Gonzales called Sgt. Glenn Marquette, a supervisor at the Greenspoint Recruiting Station.
Marquette told Gonzales there was no way out.
“You signed a binding contract,” he said.
But that wasn’t true.
Army recruiting regulations say delayed entry members can leave any time. They specifically mention “under no circumstances will any (recruiter) threaten, coerce, manipulate, or intimidate (future soldiers), nor may they obstruct separation requests.”
Further, they state: “At no time will any (recruiter) tell a (Delayed Entry Program) member he or she must go in the Army or he or she will go to jail.”
But when Gonzales asked Marquette what would happen if he just didn’t show up for service, a phone recording captured this reply:
“Then guess what?” said Marquette. “You’re AWOL. Absent without leave. You want to go to school? You will not get no loans, because all college loans are federal and government loans. So you’ll be black barred from that. As soon as you get pulled over for a speeding ticket, they’re gonna see you’re a deserter, they’re going to apprehend you, take you to jail.”
Marquette continued: “So guess what? All that lovey-dovey 'I wanna go to college' and all that? Guess what? You just threw it out the window, because you just screwed your life.”
Eric Martinez, 17, is another young recruit who changed his mind.
“They make it seem there’s no way out,” his mother said.
Martinez said the nearby National Cemetery constantly reminds him – and his mother – of the risks and horrors of war.
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