Comrades in the Classroom

...When pressed, he and other Army officials changed their tune, claiming that it does, in fact, serve a recruiting function, however indirect...

...We give them the official Soviet line," and then "open it up to questions" from the students, says Clemons, a.k.a...

...I am Major Dimitri Alexei Kleminski," begins Captain David Clemons, a reservist from Fort Worth...

...Carrie, who is "a very typical teen-ager," was saying "how weird it was...

...The issue of deception aside, Project Confrontation brings up a basic question: What's the Army doing in the classroom anyway...

...The presentation usually lasts fifty-five minutes...

...The U.S...

...We challenge them to look up everything we say and check it," says Glaser...

...They speak with a "Saturday Night Live or Dr...

...You use a two-by-four," says Clemons...

...But Clemons, Glaser, and Army recruiters stress that the choice as to when to notify the students is left entirely up to the principal...

...They also sharply attack the United States for being an imperialist power...

...Ulanov is actually Captain Tom Glaser, a member of the Texas State Guard...

...Both officers claim the program is designed to generate a healthy skepticism among the students...

...But since when has the job of teaching students in public schools been entrusted to the military...

...We're trying to show those kids we're interested in education," said Kimbrell, who stressed the pedagogical function of the program...

...At a typical performance of Project Confrontation, an Army recruiter introduces the phony Soviets at a high school assembly, claiming that the soldiers are officials of the Soviet Mission in Houston...

...Last fall, in Richardson, Texas, similar objections were raised after a Project Confrontation program...

...That's hardly good modeling, that's hardly setting a good example...

...How do you get people's attention...

...If you believe everything your teachers say, just because they are teachers, you have surrendered to them.' " But the program also serves a standard Cold War function...

...One or two parents felt also that students should not have been misled...

...Glaser and Clemons both have civilian jobs and can't afford to organize and finance their program by themselves...

...What seems to alarm them most is the Army's resort to trickery: Often, the students don't find out the "Soviet" soldiers are impostors until the following day...

...One schoolboard voted to have flags in every classroom" as a result of the presentation, says Glaser...

...They do not recruit during our class, and as far as I can tell, not after the class," says Clemons...

...Glaser says he asks the students...

...It shocks them," says Clemons...

...The exercise, which has taken place only in Texas, is called Project Confrontation...

...Carrie Taebel "attended the program and expressed some confusion and concern about these Russians," her mother recalls...

...We tell them, 'If you believe everything we say, you're in our power...

...Clemons and Glaser insist the deception is necessary...

...The insignia, belt buckles, Soviet badges, and shoulder boards" are all authentically Soviet, procured from an unnamed "Czech connection," Glaser says...

...The reaction of students is "puzzled, quizzical, and challenging," says Glaser...

...During the question-and-answer period, Clemons and Glaser defend the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Russians' political process, and the Soviet human rights record...

...It's his school...

...Kleminski...

...I'm a capitalist warmonger...

...Upkeep is sometimes no easy matter, he adds: "When Comrade Brezhnev died, we were in kind of a hustle to get black armbands...

...The purpose was to increase the general knowledge of the Soviet Union and hopefully raise patriotic feelings among the students," says Major John Myers, an Army spokesman in Washington, D.C...

...and our way of life...

...They subscribe to a number of Soviet publications, including Pravda, Radio Moscow, Sputnik, Soviet Military Review, and the Soviet OfMatthew Rothschild is an associate editor of The Progressive...

...soldiers in Red Army uniforms and passing them off as the real thing to about forty high schools...

...They are apparently defending the program and the deceit both," she says...

...You don't go around lying to teen-agers...

...Some are told beforehand, some are told after, and I'm aware of some incidents where they've never been told...

...Adds Glaser: "If we came in and said, 'We're American soldiers dressed up as Soviets and we don't believe what we're about to tell you,' the kids would fall asleep...

...I've been told if we were available, there are thirty schools that have already asked for us...

...I saw more feelings of pride and patriotism expressed than I had seen in some time with these juniors and seniors," Lena Douphrate, a vocational counselor at Newman Smith High School in Carollton, Texas, wrote to Glaser last fall...

...But the stirring of patriotic feelings is one obvious plus so far as the Army is concerned, and the "Soviet" soldiers deliver a pitch on the duty to serve in the motherland's army: "If your country gives you life and liberty, isn't it your obligation to defend it...

...We do what the principal wants us to do," says Clemons...

...Kay Taebel registered a written complaint with her school board president, but the only reply she received was a formal school policy statement from 1972 stating the district's assembly policies...

...There is no statutory provision either for or against this," concedes Jack Muhlenbeck, spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at its Fort Sheridan, Illinois, headquarters...

...Project Confrontation is supposed to prepare students for the Soviet challenge...

...Glaser is a vice president of Holloway Arms, which manufactures rifles...

...Yeah," he says...

...But the Army will have to pick up the tab...

...Mary Helen Jones, a teacher at Richardson High School, viewed the program in the same way: "It creates a lot of patriotism among the kids," she says...

...Captain Stanley Kimbrell, area commander for the Fort Worth Army Recruiting office, agrees: "We do not decide when the students are told...

...But the program has raised other feelings—such as anger and resentment—among the parents of some high school students...

...Ann Scarr, who teaches government at Lamar High School, took all her classes to see the presentation, and found that it produced "the desired reaction: The students became angry and defensive...

...The next time a recruiter walks down the halls, the students may say, 'Yeah, I remember him, he was with the Soviets.' " Still, no matter how you slice it, Project Confrontation assigns to the Army the function of a public school teacher, indoctrinating students with its peculiar version of world history and its narrow notion of civic duty...

...In the last year, the Army Recruiting Command has spent $6,000 dressing up two U.S...

...Glaser, Clemons, and a number of Army officials insist there is no direct Army recruiting connected to the program...

...they are simply propaganda exercises, instilling old Cold War sentiments in the hearts of impressionable teenagers...

...This is a new—and questionable—activity for the Army...

...Project Confrontation tends to bring on a simple surge of nationalism...

...We don't plan to have any more events this [fiscal] year because of funding," says Muhlenbeck...

...This "gets them going" on the idea of enlistment, Glaser says...

...By early May, the "Soviet" roadshow had finished touring for the season...

...My comrade is Sergeant Vladimir Mich Ulanov...

...Clemons is an independent insurance agent...

...A student or two felt they should have known from the beginning," says Tom Kelly, principal of Richardson High School...

...Our whole objective is to make the students think," says Clemons...

...No recruiting is done at the presentations...

...The students want it," says Clemons...

...We do things exactly as he says...

...It puts the Army in the back of their minds," adds Kimbrell...

...The Army is "not sure yet" whether it will sponsor the program again in September, Muhlenbeck adds...

...The American army is not an army of patriots, but an army of technicians, an army of mercenaries...

...A leaflet the soldiers leave behind with the high school principal quotes approvingly from a Soviet article: "The procedure for training for real combat must include simulated combat with an 'enemy' performing his distinct maneuvers without any sort of simplification...

...When I began inquiring about the program, officials insisted it had no recruiting tie-in...

...When they first run into Soviet propaganda, if they're not aware of it, they're going to be eaten alive," says Glaser...

...Clemons and Glaser mention to the principal, however, that they favor notification the following day...

...Army concocts its own commissars ficial Handbook...

...Project Confrontation "will at a later time" help the enlistment effort, says Muhlenbeck...

...We are soldiers of the Soviet Union...

...Army thinks so, and it's dispatching bogus Soviet soldiers to prepare high school students for the day when the real invaders wash ashore...

...Kay Taebel is not alone in voicing opposition to the program...

...The pretenders, who know Russian, work hard at achieving a degree of realism...

...It's the deceit that concerns me," says Kay Taebel, whose daughter Carrie, a senior at Lamar High School near Dallas, attended one of the programs...

...As an educator and as an American citizen I feel encouraged by their defense of the U.S.A...

...Strangelove accent," says Glaser, and they wear Soviet-looking uniforms, which are dyed and altered GI uniforms...