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NARR:
It's twilight, and after-work crowds pack the sidewalks of 125th street. This is Harlem's main drag, and people pour in and out of bright restaurants and shops. But the pace of commerce here belies the grimmer side of life in the neighborhood.
ACT: WALID MOHAMMED: 10 sec.
Those billions of dollars that's going to Iraq-- that money should be going into the black community where the most people are starving.
That's lifelong Harlem resident Walid Mohammed. And though there don't appear to be any starving people here, around 10% of the neighborhood gets by on less than $10,000 a year.
Mohammed says wars can make people rich—just nobody in this part of Manhattan.
ACT: WALID MOHAMMED: 5.5 sec.
They always say wars create money, but then when you look at the community, where's the money going?
Mohammed is a retired corrections officer. He says some of his former co-workers joined the military—before the Iraq war--to make extra money. Some paid a very high price.
ACT: WALID MOHAMMED: 6 sec.
I had a lot of guys that died in the war that used to work with me--worked with me 20 years in Sing-Sing.
ACT: AMELIA ROBERTS 2.1
These are babies going to the war.
Amelia Roberts says two of her nephews joined the military last year.
ACT: AMELIA ROBERTS: 12 sec.
They're 19 and they're 20, so, you know, it's constant prayers going up you know in hopes that not only that they will return safely, but everyone else's child.
Roberts says she also suspects that young black men like her nephews are drawn to the financial rewards of enlisting. And, says she thinks whites join up not just for the money
ACT: AMELIA ROBERTS: 11.2 sec.
They feel so…um…patriotic as to say, "I'm serving my country," you know what I'm saying? I mean look what the country is giving us right now, I mean you have to ask yourself is it really worth it.
For many young people, apparently it is.
ACT: REC: 3 sec.
And we get 'em every day. Every day they want to join.
That's a military recruiter, heading down 125th in a crisp uniform. He says money is rarely the motive to enlist. He asked to remain anonymous. Otherwise, he might lose his job
ACT: REC: 10 sec.
A lot of people think that you join the military because you have to. And, that's not the case. You join because you want to. Some people need it, others don't. When I joined I didn't need to join. I wanted to join.
He says his office hasn't seen a drop in numbers. But Army statistics show a a decline in the recruitment of African Americans. In 2000, around 26% of active duty soldiers were black. Today it's 20.
Lumumba, who didn't want to give his last name, is holding a stack of Veterans for Obama signs. He fought in Vietnam for 18 months. He learned that black soldiers can face a bizarre mind-game.
ACT: LUMUMBA: 9 sec.
The enemies always have ways of saying to you like, "Black man, what are you fighting us for? We're black too."
Those questions from North Vietnamese fighters made him rethink his role in that war. He says it's the same for black soldiers in Iraq.
ACT: LUMUMBA: 9 sec.
'Cause what they're saying is the truth. Black man, this is not your war.
Whatever your take on the war, the military recruiter says he thinks there's at least one thing most Americans have in common. Unless they're in the armed forces, or love someone who is, he says, the war probably hasn't affected their lives in any real palpable way.
ACT: REC: 9.8 sec.
I don't know, if you were walking down the street and Starbucks is getting blown up, something like that, and everybody felt the affects of it, maybe it might affect them but, life goes on here.
The sidewalks along 125th have begun to empty out. But there is still a very long line at the Starbucks on the corner.
Andrea Mustain, Columbia Radio News