Why He Went to War

When 18-year-old Anthony Ramirez walked into my office nearly a year ago to apply for a job with the youth magazine I edited, I knew right away I wanted to hire him. He seemed confident and brave, with hoops in his ears, a thick silver chain around his neck and steady eye contact. I sensed he had a story to tell, even if he wasn't sure what it was.

The magazine Anthony worked for, called 110 Degrees, is a program of the Tucson-based nonprofit organization Voices, Inc, which trains low-income youth to document community stories in writing and photography. As the magazine's writing director, my job was to help Anthony and 19 other teenagers research, interview for and write a story about themselves or a community issue and share it with the public.

Like many students new to the creative process, Anthony struggled for much of the year, failing to consistently contact his interview sources, flip-flopping on his story ideas, and staring at the blank computer screen. Then, just a month before the deadline, almost by accident, he wrote a remarkable first-person narrative about what it was like growing up with a dad in prison. His story reported how his anger had taken over and how he had spent the bulk of his adolescence drunk, high, in fights and juvenile detention centers before choosing to straighten out.

I was amazed by his voice, his honesty, and his willingness finally to express himself. As his mentor, I felt overjoyed by the small revolution he'd undergone at his desk. His piece was well received when it appeared in the local paper and he stole the show at our community release party when he read parts of it aloud.

When the program ended in May, Anthony told me he was taking the summer off "to kick back and relax." He'd just graduated from high school and deserved a break. When I asked him about college, he said he was thinking about it. I trusted him to stay out of trouble. He seemed transformed.

I'd seen this before. The work we do at Voices is rooted in the belief that stories can change the lives of those who tell them and those who hear them. Something about the process of researching, interviewing, writing, photographing, and publishing builds confidence in young people, particularly when they share their stories with the community. In my years of doing this work, I'd seen that the pen could be mightier than the sword.

But what happens when the sword is wielded by the U.S. military?

Six weeks into the summer, Anthony and I spoke on the phone. He had something to tell me, and wanted to know what I thought. He had enlisted in the Army.

What about college? What about your writing? What about this war? I asked, shocked. In my quivering, cracking voice, he knew where I stood.

He agreed to meet me for lunch.

I armed myself with articles and pamphlets, many of which I'd downloaded from the San Diego-based Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities, a nonprofit community organization that provides young people with an alternative point of view about military enlistment.

I told myself I wanted to hear Anthony's reasons for enlisting, but in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to convince him to change his mind.

I was up against a formidable force.

Anthony was a recruiter's dream. A Mexican-American teenager from a low-income home with no father figure, Anthony was pretty directionless, despite his recent publishing success. Though Anthony went to the U.S. Army recruitment office on his own, recruiters are tracking down others like him all over town: In shopping malls, as Michael Moore so deftly showed in Fahrenheit 9/11; in schools, thanks to a provision in the No Child Left Behind Act that allows military recruiters access to students and their contact information; even in the Boy Scouts: at a Boy Scout Jamboree in Fort Hill, Va earlier this month, President Bush thanked the scouts "for serving on the front lines of America's armies of compassion" and praised those who "have shown the highest form of patriotism by going on to wear the uniform of the United States."