On Tuesday March 8th Students from the University of Vermont chapter of Students Against War attended the University sponsored career fair, in an effort to prevent military recruiters from successfully enlisting any of their fellow classmates. In preparation for this action the campus group hosted a public meeting the evening preceding the fair, the goal of which was to equip its members, and anyone interested in joining us, with facts and arguments to use against the military.

The group's strategy, largely sculpted by its relatively small number of members, was to monopolize the time of the recruiters by posing politically charged questions, in an effort to accentuate the military's discriminatory policies; the poverty draft; and the imperialist nature of the occupation in Iraq, among other things. The goal was to expose the deceptive tactics to students at and around the military tables, as well as to inform them of as much as possible so as to dissuade them from possibly signing up.

Additionally in the course of these conversations we hoped to convince our listeners of the importance of rebuilding the anti-war movement.

Our short time for planning and the military's redoubled presence, (hearing about our intended intervention early in the morning they set up three separate tables manned by twelve different recruiters) definitely put us at a significant disadvantage, but ultimately didn't prevent us from effectively blocking them from talking with anyone but our members for all four hours of the event; a significant victory since at our peak we had only fifteen activists with us.

The nation wide success in opposing the military's efforts to enlist more young people to fight for the subjugation of other nations to U.S. imperialist interest is certainly cause for celebration; but with each victory for our side, the military takes away a new lesson and alters their approach accordingly, so its necessary that we do the same. What the events here in Burlington demonstrate is that the military is conscious of efforts against them, and so are increasing the number of recruiters dispatched to events they expect to elicit the direct opposition of activists. In Burlington we were able to counter this with each member's ability to argue with the recruiters, essentially without interruption, for four hours; something which was largely aided by our public meeting the evening prior to the career fair.

In order to present an honest appraisal of SAW's activities last Tuesday it must also be noted that while we were very successful in paralyzing the recruiters from signing up any potential recruits, in doing so SAW was disabled from enlisting people to our cause, since our focus was so targeted upon arguing with the recruiters. This may not have been a problem had there been fewer men in uniform to oppose us, but what it none the less brings to the fore was our failure to call on other student groups, for support in our efforts in an active manner. We put up a good number of flyers with information about our planned activity, but where we went wrong was not going directly to meetings and actively convincing others to join us.

So in closing, there are three things which are of paramount importance for other activist groups to take away from SAW's experience in Burlington. Firstly is that in each new attempt at counter recruitment we must be prepared to face the military's increasingly aggressive tactics (especially in light of events in New York).

Second is that seeking out the assistance of other student groups in all of our activities is a necessary step toward both rebuilding the anti-war movement, and in better coordinating a successful counter recruitment action (this second point being a reaffirmation of the lesson drawn from the recent experience in Ithaca NY).

Lastly, and perhaps most important, is the critical significance of being able to successfully conduct developed political arguments; it was prolonged debates about the real U.S. objective in Iraq, and the role of U.S. imperialism generally, as well as the parasitic nature of the military's tactic of targeting the working class! These arguments which must be made with those around us so as to convince our friends, our class mates and other people around us to get involved in helping us rehabilitate the anti-war movement.