A Real Hero

If you know someone in high school thinking about enlisting, do your part to make sure they know their options and the downsides of becoming fodder for the Bush war machine!







When military recruiters set up a table at a high school in Sonoma County, chances are Elizabeth Stinson is taking a seat right next to them, to try to urge youngsters not to enlist.

The director of the Peace and Justice Center of Sonoma County counts at least 400 people she's "de-recruited" from the military, a statistic that helped her win this year's Long Haul Prize, given to the most active activist in politically active Northern California.

"Teenagers are trying to separate from their parents as individuals, so they're vulnerable to a recruiter," said the 57-year-old Forestville mother of three, surrounded by posters of Malcolm X, Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in her Santa Rosa office.

"It's only fair we show them there are other alternatives," she said.

Stinson has trained task forces of teenagers at five Sonoma County high schools to set up their own counter-military recruitment tables.