The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Tuesday, we hear the debate over President Clinton's National Service proposal. Betty Ann Bowser looks at Georgia's Boot Camp alternative to prison, and Kwame Holman reports on the Senate hearings on gays in the military. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The Senate Armed Services Committee continued hearings today on gays in the military. They heard from a variety of current and former military personnel, both homosexual and heterosexual. They included a highly decorated active duty Marine sergeant who is gay and the retired commander of Desert Storm, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF [Ret.], Commander, Desert Storm: Are we really ready to do this to the men and women of our armed forces and to risk a possible decrease in our nation's ability to defend itself simply to force our servicemen and women to accept a lifestyle of a very well organized, well financed, and very vocal for what turns out to be a very small minority of our society? I personally sincerely hope not.

SGT. JUSTIN ELZIE, U.S. Marine Corps: I could be the best Marine in the Marines, save the lives of my platoon, and even die for my country, but because I am gay, no matter how good I am, I'm never good enough.

MR. LEHRER: We'll have extended excerpts from the hearing later in the program. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: In Bosnia today, there were more Muslim Croat battles in the Southern town of Mostar. The fighting came despite a cease-fire signed just 24 hours ago. The U.N. has accused the Croats of trying to rid the city of its Muslim population. Croat leaders have denied the charges and claim Muslims started the Mostar battles. President Clinton said today he's considering sending U.S. troops to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia to keep the fighting from spreading to countries like Albania, Greece, and Turkey. The troops would go only as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. A student challenged the President today to defend his calls for military action in Bosnia, given his opposition to the Vietnam War. It came during a question and answer session with the President at a suburban Chicago high school.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think that the United Nations, the world community, can do more in that regard. That's quite a different thing than what happened in Vietnam, where the United States essentially got involved in what was a civil war on one side or the other. There are some remarkable similarities to it which should give us caution about doing that. There are similarities to that. There are similarities to Lebanon, but that does not mean just because I wouldn't propose doing exactly what the United States did in Vietnam, that does not mean that the United States should not consider doing something more, especially if we can get the Europeans, who are, after all, closer to it, who have a more immediate stake in it, to try to help us to stopthe ethnic cleansing, the continued fighting, and minimize dramatically the risk of the war spreading.

MR. MacNeil: On Capitol Hill during the gays in the military hearing, Gen. Schwarzkopf was asked about the possibility of U.S. military action in Bosnia. He offered this advice.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, [Ret.], Commander, Desert Storm: We shouldn't do anything unless it's a coalition. We shouldn't do anything unless our European partners play a major role because it's in their backyard and they need to be part of it, should very much be a part of it. But most important, most important, we should not get involved over there until we have a very, very clear idea of the end situation that we expect to see when it's all over. And from that, we should have a very, very clear idea of the necessary set of conditions that would be in effect at that point for us to declare we have arrived at an end position. Before you do that, you don't want to commit ground forces into what could be a protracted war.

MR. MacNeil: At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware attacked the European allies for their reluctance to intervene in Bosnia.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN, [D] Delaware: Let's not mince words. European policy is based on cultural and religious indifference, if not bigerty -- bigotry. And I think it's fair to say that this would be an entirely different situation if the Moslems were doing what the Serbs have done, if this was Moslem aggression, instead of Serbian aggression. The truth is not lost -- the truth of this, in my view, is not lost on the Islamic world, which is filled with a rising anger that we have not yet begun to understand. And I predict we will pay a large price for it, as will the Europeans.

MR. MacNeil: Biden described the Serb offensive against Bosnia's Muslims as "fascist thuggery." Sec. of State Warren Christopher was appearing before the same committee and listened to Biden's remarks but did not respond.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton spoke to the students in suburban Chicago about revamping the federal student loan program. He has suggested the government make direct loans to students for college tuition, rather than going through banks. He told his audience their education was crucial to the nation's economic future, and he attacked lobbyists lining up to oppose the plan. The Senate today passed a so-called "motor voter bill" by a margin of 62 to 36. It now goes to the President for his signature. The legislation is intended to make it easier for Americans to register to vote. It allows registration by mail when people apply for driver's licenses and public assistance. The bill was opposed by Republicans, who argued it would increase election fraud.

MR. MacNeil: A fire at a doll factory in Thailand has killed more than 200 people and injured 500 others. Most victims were young women who comprise most of the country's factory work force. It was one of the worst factory fires in history, and officials expected the death toll to rise as more bodies were pulled from the rubble. The cause of the blaze was not immediately known. In Ecuador, the death toll from Sunday's landslide has now reached 64. At least 150 people are missing and feared dead. The landslide occurred during torrential rains in a small gold mining village 250 miles south of the capital, Keto.

MR. LEHRER: A businessman is the unofficial winner in Paraguay's presidential election, making Paraguay the last country in South America to convert to democratic civilian rule. The winner is Juan Carlos Wasmosi. His party has dominated Paraguay's congress since 1947, but he is the first civilian to lead the country in almost 40 years. The election was Sunday.

MR. MacNeil: The Environmental Protection Agency today reported that many of the nation's water systems contain excessive amounts of lead. EPA officials called it a serious concern for public health. They cited 819 systems serving about 30 million people. Most were on the East Coast and in older communities where lead water pipes are still used. A new British study concluded that HIV- infected smokers develop full blown AIDS twice as fast as non- smokers diagnosed with the virus. Doctors compared the medical records of 84 HIV-infected patients who went on to develop AIDS. They said the smokers developed the disease in about eight months, compared to fourteen and a half months among non-smokers. Their findings will be published this week in the science journal "AIDS."

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to National Service, Boot Camp instead of prison, and gays in the military. FOCUS - SERVING OTHERS

MR. MacNeil: President Clinton's National Service proposal is our lead focus tonight. It would give some students up to $10,000 for college expenses in exchange for two years of public service work. The National Service idea is part of a comprehensive package designed to make a college education more affordable. The President explained it today to a group of students at Fenton High School in Bensonville, Illinois.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If you would like to have a system in which it is easier to borrow money to go to college two or four years and which it will be easier to pay it back and in which more of your tax money will be spent to benefit you and your education and your future, then you need to tell your members of Congress without regard to their political party that you would like to have a better future, and this is a change that you want made.

MR. MacNeil: The Clinton proposal includes four major points: Point No. 1 calls for lower interest rates on student loans.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: If you want a college loan that's guaranteed by the federal government, there's a lot of paper work involved and a lot of hassle. That's because there are a lot of extra costs in there from middle men, from banks, and from corporations who profit from the current loan program. Your Senator, Paul Simon, was the first person who ever came to see me well over a year ago to say that we ought to make loans directly to students from the United States government in a financially secure way so that we could cut out paper work, cut out all the time it takes to apply for them, and eliminate excess profits for middle men. Every student borrower can enjoy a lower rate if we do this.

MR. MacNeil: The second point is to make repayment of the loans easier.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: What I want to do is to give every American young person who borrows money to get a two-year or a four-year education after high school the option of paying the money back based on how much you make so that you can never be saddled with a debt burden greater than a certain percentage of your income. That way, there will never be an incentive not to be a teacher, not to be a police officer, not to work with kids in trouble, not to do whatever you want to be. You'll be able to pay your loan back because it will be a percentage of your income. Regardless of how much you borrowed, we'll work it out so that the monthly payment is never too burdensome.

MR. MacNeil: The third point is lowering default rates on college loans.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: We lose about $3 billion a year to people who don't pay their loans back. Now there's a reason for that, and I'll explain it more later, but one of the things we do, we're going to loan you the money directly. We're going to collect the money directly too, involving the tax records at tax time so you can't beat the bill. People who borrow money, once you make it possible for them to repay it, should not be able to welch on the loans. That undermines the ability of children coming along behind you to borrow the money. People ought to have to pay the loans back if we make it possible for them to do it. Everybody ought to have to do that.

MR. MacNeil: The fourth element of the plan, which involves increasing government spending, is the President's National Service proposal.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: To give tens of thousands of you the chance to earn credit against these loans before you go to college or while you're in college or to work them off after you get out of college, not by paying them off, but by serving your country in a community service program, working with the elderly, working with other kids, working with housing programs, working with things that need to be done in the neighborhood or in nearby neighborhoods, or if you do it after you get out of college, working as teachers and police officers, or in other needed areas in under served communities in America. Just think of it. We could have tens of thousands of people who could pay off their loans entirely by giving a year or two of their lives to making their countries and their communities better.

MR. MacNeil: The National Service proposal would be phased in gradually. In the first year, about 25,000 students would receive assistance at a cost of almost $400 million. By 1997, the program would include about 100,000 students at a cost of 3.4 billion. Overall, the plan would cost the taxpayers 7.4 billion between now and 1997. We have four views on National Service. Sen. Harris Wofford is a Democrat from Pennsylvania. Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington; he worked on policy development in the Reagan White House. Wendy Kopp is the founder of Teach for America which places college graduates as teachers in under served schools for two years of service. And Tom Gerety is the president of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Sen. Wofford, tell us first of all, what is the central purpose of this? Is it to lower the default rate on loans, or the line incidentally, the only line which got applauded there today I noticed, or to help more poor kids into college, or to inspire a sense of service?

SEN. WOFFORD: Well, I think the President has rolled into one ball several good ideas, and it's a good ball he's thrown to us. As a former college president of a private and a public college, I think his proposed reforms of our loan system make a lot of sense and are going to help a lot of people. I for one think that the crux of this idea is to bring the idea of the Peace Corps home to America on a growing and practical scale, not this time the way some of us dreamed of it 30 years ago when we wanted to see peace go forth to the rest of the world as one big federal peace corps, but this time coming up from our communities and from our institutions around the country. And I think this plan is a plan that can really change America.

MR. MacNeil: Can it change America, President Gerety, and do all the things, other things it's hoped it will do?

MR. GERETY: The challenge here is really the wrapping into one ball as Harris Wofford said of several ideas. The service idea is a good idea, and a lot of us feel passionately that this has been an undercurrent of the last number of years where we focused on the young kids getting rich in early jobs and so on, but that there's been a growing commitment to volunteerism. In my own school at Trinity, for instance, twice as many young people volunteer in the city of Hartford now as did four or five years ago. There is no question that we are grateful to the President, enthusiastic about the service idea. The tougher set of questions here are whether or not a program for roughly a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand students should carry away so much money. And just to give Sen. Wofford the angle from a college campus where I still am, I want to say that we're very concerned about where the early money is coming from. Work-study, for instance, is going to be cut 15 percent next year, which means that a young person in my campus who might have 200 hours of work at the minimum wage will be cut down to 170 in order to gather up the moneys to pay for that. Some very worthy programs, and the really modest federal effort to help needy students, are going to be cut to create this. All of us on campuses feel that that's too bad, and so our natural enthusiasm for the service idea is tempered by a sense of, gosh, couldn't you have found the money for this somewhere else?

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Wofford, how do you respond to that?

SEN. WOFFORD: I don't think that's going to happen. I think the Pell Grants for low income students are, in fact, going to come forth from Congress, making up for the shortfall of the last few years. That's a detailed set of arguments that are going to be made, but I think the administration is working with us to do that. This is a form of work-study. It's a very effective form, and I hope, indeed, the present work-study program not only is funded fully, but a good part of that is used for community service, instead of just servicing our campuses. Originally, Congress intended the work-study program to be such that would enable young people to work their way through colleges by serving in the communities, and colleges and universities, including those I administered, defined themselves as public service institutions. So 95 percent of that work is now on campus. But I think as part of this National Service we should ask for a large part of the work-study program to be addressed to community service.

MR. MacNeil: Well, let's come back to the funding question. I'll let you elaborate on that in a minute. Just for a general comment, Mr. Bandow, what do you think of the plan?

MR. BANDOW: I think there are some real problems with it. A very important problem I think is this bundling of different ideas together. I mean, National Service has a long history of kind of utopian thought, where it's been the attempt is to solve a whole host of different problems, to kind of change people's ethics, to make them more humanitarian, and now the President is selling it as a means of helping you go to school. I think that raises real questions of whether or not this is genuine service. I mean, it looks to me what the President is essentially selling this as is here's a good way you can go to school. You know, the benefits are you get a $5,000 non-taxed tuition voucher plus a minimum wage salary, plus some health care benefits. That's not a bad package in terms of employment. I think there is a real issue, is this the way to try to promote a service ethic in America? I think we want more service, but it strikes me you don't need a federal program to do so. We have 80 million Americans doing some form of service work. I mean, I think there's a real -- you know, we look over the past few years, we've seen an explosion in the private sector of service work. I think we need to build upon that. I have real qualms about whether we'll get $7 1/2 billion worth of benefits out of this program, real questions of what these people will do, real questions about the kind of, the structure set up to manage the program, to decide what jobs these people will do, to sort out complaints from labor unions, a whole host of very important, practical questions.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. And I'll come back to those in a minute. Wendy Kopp, as someone in the service area straight of college as you were, successfully, does this promote the service ethic?

MS. KOPP: I think it --

MR. MacNeil: Paying people to -- by the federal government to do this.

MS. KOPP: You know, I also look at it from a slightly different perspective. And just to talk for a second from the Teach for America perspective, you know, we have over the past three and a half years mobilized twenty-four hundred of our most outstanding recent college graduates to assume teaching positions in critical needs areas. And we've done that as a struggling, hand-to-mouth, non-profit organization which literally doesn't know -- and I don't exaggerate -- where our salaries will come from one month from now. And what this bill will enable us to do is institutionalize and expand what has worked so well in the private sector but which can't be perpetuated by the private sector.

MR. MacNeil: So you see Teach for America as a potential recipient of some of these paid service workers?

MS. KOPP: Exactly. Well, Teach for America would be institutionalized as a public-private partnership through this program. So we would get half of say our operating expenses from this program. And that would simply enable us to expand, recruit a more socioeconomically diverse pool of people and to ensure that Teach for America is a life long institution.

MR. MacNeil: Am I right that Teach for America now illustrates one of the points they hope to correct in this, that the people able to do service work are people who in a sense can afford to?

MS. KOPP: Absolutely. Well, Teach for America makes a tremendous effort to recruit a diverse group of people. So economically, ethnically, et cetera. But our efforts are hampered by the fact that so many college students have huge financial commitments upon graduating from college.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Wofford, is, is the plan intended to help people or organizations like Wendy Kopp's?

SEN. WOFFORD: Oh, indeed. It's not going to be a federal, top down program. It's going to be a program like the GI Bill that gives in a sense a voucher to individual young people to go to programs like Wendy Kopp's, to go to Philadelphia Youth Service Corps, the Pennsylvania Conservation Corps, to go to programs that young people, colleges, universities form themselves and engage in a year of full-time service. The Peace Corps had an education bonus that helped some Peace Corps volunteers come back and go to graduate school. The military service gives an educational bonus, and I think full-time service requires some minimum expenses, minimum wage expenses, and it requires some kind of a value given at the end that will enable people to turn that service into the next stage of their lives in higher education or job training.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Wofford, how, 25,000 to begin with, or even 100,000 by 1997 is still a small a fraction of the age group and of the poor age group who might like to go to college. How will the be chosen? How do they become eligible to be chosen by I understand a lottery? Do they have to have achieved a certain high school grade level, for example?

SEN. WOFFORD: It's going to be a whole, diverse set of young people from age 16 in some youth corps, 17 usually to 25, and parts of these programs include even older people, but the selection and admission to programs is going to take place by those programs out in communities. It's not -- there's going to be a recruiting and information effort at the federal level, but the, the program is going to grow. People are going to be admitted to it according to one, how many young people want to be in it, and the proposal of the President is to have in these four years more young people involved than all the thirty-three years of the Peace Corps put together. So I think it's a -- you know, some say it's starting too small, some say too big, some too slow, too fast. I think it's just about right for sound building according to the market, a market determined by the young people who want to be part of it, and by communities who decide that the work they get is really worthwhile. We find that we get a dollar eighty-one cents of service for every dollar invested in our Pennsylvania Conservation Corps.

MR. MacNeil: Tom Gerety, what do you think of the size of the program and the way people would be selected?

MR. GERETY: That's a really tough question, and I must say that Sen. Wofford's comments would be great if he were running the program and balancing the budget, but there are two core difficulties for America that are addressed in this program. And I, myself, believe that they cannot be addressed all at once in one program. The first is the question of idealism. How do you tap in, as Wendy as, and certainly Harris Wofford's career shows a sense of idealism in young people should be led from the top in the national government. Many of us believe that this program is right on target for that, but a second, much more massive and difficult problem which puts America virtually alone in the world is the problem of paying for education. We have 12 million young people enrolled in community colleges and four-year colleges across the country, and a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand people simply is not any kind of an answer to the fundamental question or the fundamental crisis that's emerging: How can needy, young Americans get the best education they can use for our economy and for our country so they can give a life of service?

MR. MacNeil: Well, that's one of the President's promises in this, that --

SEN. WOFFORD: But, Robin --

MR. MacNeil: Yeah.

SEN. WOFFORD: Robin, the loan program is available to all young people. It's an option for all young people. The, the full-time service is an option that will grow and begins with twenty-five thousand up to a hundred thousand, but the loan program is for all.

MR. GERETY: Well, Harris, let me answer that by saying I want you to keep your eye on that loan program now that you're not a college president but a Senator and the loan program is inadequate to the future. The needy -- the thing that is so symbolically difficult for me as somebody who was a conscientious objector, who served and worked in Peru and then worked in New Haven and in Hartford, is I don't want to see a program right at the opening gate funded with cuts in things like work-study --

SEN. WOFFORD: It's not--

MR. GERETY: -- very modest college loans. You're not going to say it's going to. The budget suggests that it will be.

MR. MacNeil: Well, elaborate on that. What is your evidence that they are going to take one from one program to fund this?

MR. GERETY: It's pretty good evidence. The President's budget which was passed in principle by the people there in Washington suggest that roughly a couple of hundred million dollars in the education budget will be taken from cuts in the, 15 percent cuts in the four campus-based programs, including a 100 percent cut in the state incentive grants which encourage the states to help needy young people go to college. Now you can say, well, that's disconnected from this other four hundred million dollars of expenditure, and maybe in some abstract sense it is. What we as educators do is a wonderful new program funded at a rate of $400 million and some very solid old programs, always modest, never involving a lot of money, always involving as Sen. Wofford has suggested some commitment to community service, getting cut.

MR. MacNeil: Is that --

MR. GERETY: And those are for needy kids.

MR. MacNeil: is that the quiet understanding in the Senate, Senator, that --

SEN. WOFFORD: No.

MR. MacNeil: -- you pay half of the four hundred million by, by cutting the work-study program by 15 percent?

SEN. WOFFORD: Absolutely not. Stay tuned, Tom. The budget hasn't been adopted. The overall strategy for a $500 billion deficit reduction and overall strategy for investment in job training and education has been adopted. We're just starting on the budget, Tom, and I'll be in the thick of the fight to see that we make up the shortfall in Pell grants and that we help middle class students get the kind of loans they need to go to college. And I think the new option of income contingent, pay off according to your income, direct loans, is going to help many middle class students who will choose that option. But we won't close off the other options.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Bandow, do you see this program helping more poor kids get into college?

MR. BANDOW: Not really. I think we have to recognize part of the problem here is that, you know, we have educational costs that are very high. I think part of that has been inflated by the infusion of federal money, and it is also a problem frankly with --

MR. MacNeil: How has it been inflated?

MR. BANDOW: The more you put, the more money you put available to a system like that, imagine if one had vouchers for, you know, purchase of cars, kind of inflating the demand that way. Car prices would rise in kind of this massive infusion of federal money into this system. It strikes me the answer is not to come up with another program, spend more money, and take more money out of the private sector. I mean, the real question here is families are having a difficult time affording many things. Government at all levels takes half their incomes. I think there's a real question in terms of what do we do with higher education which isn't solved by coming up with kind of a hundred thousand people and creating a corporation for national service, spending money on these sorts of things, spending $7 1/2 billion I think for a very uncertain rate of return. That $7 1/2 billion could be spent on many other things. And this isn't free money, and I think the question about work-study exhibits part of the problem. It's also a question of medical research. It's a question about entrepreneurial investment to create jobs, and we can't assume that if you simply spend a thousand dollars on national service, you kind of baptize it as being public service, and you suddenly get these kind of benefits out of it.

MR. MacNeil: Let me go back to Mr. Gerety. Is federal funding driving college fees, costs up?

MR. GERETY: The impression -- certainly that I don't want to be some guy who denies all responsibility for my own institution, because costs have inflated at a rate that has got to be slowed and is slowing, but I just think Doug is misstating the question when he says, you know, we have a system, you know, that really does put virtually the entire freight of college costs, at least in the private sector and now to a large extent on the public sector, on young people. No other country in the world does that. And that's an extraordinary statement. Young people are getting out of college with enormous loans, and to say that that's some kind of a pillow that we can punch into, raising prices as we go without any pain being felt, is just wrong. Americans, young Americans are feeling the pain of paying for an expensive educational system. We've got to reorganize it, but I think we have got to pay attention to getting young people the best education they're capable of at a time in their lives where they haven't yet accumulated wealth.

MR. MacNeil: Sen. Wofford, on another point touched on by Mr. Sandow -- Bandow. What about the, the bureaucracy that would have to be created to administer this to set and police the work standards to make sure that some quality was being done to decide on the criteria for entry? In other words, to administer the thing, would it not result, have to result in a very large, new federal bureaucracy.

SEN. WOFFORD: Not at all, and this has been designed to avoid that. I think the way some of us planned in the '60s for a Peace Corps in America would have meant a big peace corps in America run by the federal government. This program learns from these last decades that we want an anti-bureaucratic, non-federal bureaucracy, locally run, often created, programs created by young people's institutions, themselves, including colleges, like Trinity College could organize a program, be responsible for its administration, for the selection, for the high standards. It's going to be an invitation to the imagination of local, non-governmental groups all across the country. The program is not going to be federally run program.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have an observation on the kind of people it would take to administer this specific program?

MR. BANDOW: Well --

MR. MacNeil: I'm coming to you in a moment, Mr. Bandow.

SEN. WOFFORD: We've got a lot of good ex-Peace Corps volunteers from Paul Tsongas down to the latest ones coming back.

MS. KOPP: Absolutely.

SEN. WOFFORD: And Wendy Kopp has produced --

MR. MacNeil: Well, let me just ask Wendy Kopp's opinion on that.

MS. KOPP: You know, I think that the important thing for the public to recognize about this bill is that, in fact, it doesn't create a federal bureaucracy. It inspires people, young people, old people, entrepreneurs to create programs to address the social problems in this country, and I think, you know, I think we're almost looking at the wrong question. I think this is the most powerful way to just transform America. If I was the President and I had to say how are we going to address these massive social problems which exist in this country, which we've all grown so immune to, I would say national service, because national service is turning young people who aren't yet socialized by the status quo loose on addressing those problems. And I've just seen firsthand over the past three and a half years the power of doing that, because I've seen the difference that our corps members are making in these schools.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. I'm sorry to have to cut it off there, but we'll come back to the subject. Thank you all. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: President Clinton also talked today, as we heard about his plan to change the student loan program. We'll look at that specifically tomorrow night. Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, Boot Camp in Georgia and gays in the military. FOCUS - ALTERNATIVE

SENTENCE

MR. LEHRER: Now to another program for young people that President Clinton supports. The issue here is not serving others; it's serving time. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

SPOKESMAN: [talking to prisoners] Here you don't have no Mac 10s, no nine millimeters, no shotguns, no Uzies. All you got here is your brains.

MS. BOWSER: This is Boot Camp run by the state of Georgia.

SPOKESMAN: Don't look at me, boy! Don't look at me! I'll be your worst nightmare! Down your knees.

MS. BOWSER: For the next four months, these young men will learn that the only bad dream worst than Lt. Wright is a trip to prison. These men, all under the age of 30, have been sentenced to Boot Camp as an alternative to incarceration for young, non-violent offenders. It begins with stripping away all semblance of life on the street.

SPOKESMAN: After you've finished, step up to the doorway, and somebody will spray you down with de-licer. Do not put your underwear back on until after you have been sprayed.

MS. BOWSER: A $1200 gold chain is exchanged for a khaki one-piece uniform. Designer jeans, boom boxes, and slang expressions are left behind. From now on, it's speak when spoken to.

SPOKESMAN: Do you understand me?

PRISONER: Yes, sir!

MS. BOWSER: Here at the Stone Mountain, Georgia, Boot Camp, there are no TV sets, radios, no telephone calls, no private cells. The only reading material allowed is religious or educational. From before dawn until lights out, these former dope dealers, check forgers, car thieves, burglars, and others guilty of petty crimes do what they are told. Whether it's shine your boots, stand at attention, clean a road or cut a tree for the state of Georgia, the inmate obeys. Everything, including meal formation, is done military style. There's less than 10 minutes to eat and no talking is allowed. Lt. Wright explains why the boot camp concept is being used on criminals.

LT. PAUL WRIGHT, Georgia Inmate Boot Camp: You've got to have discipline. If you want, if you want to make it in this world you've got to have discipline. This is absolutely necessary.

MS. BOWSER: This is Lt. Wright's favorite activity for detainees. He calls it motivational training. The inmates call it hell.

[INMATES EXERCISING]

MS. BOWSER: It's more structure and discipline than most of them have ever experienced, and Lt. Wright, who's been in corrections for 20 years, says in a lot of cases it works.

LT. PAUL WRIGHT: We're actually reaching some of them. If we can reach two or three kids, you know, I consider this a success. You've got the rich kid whose parents give him a car, give him money, give him everything he wants, never tell him no. Then you got the other kid that comes from the projects who got one single mother, she's probably only 15 years older than he is, and he don't have any discipline; he's going home when he gets ready, ain't no one to tell him no. So you got two kids here from different, diverse back field but no one teaching them any discipline, and you get 'em here and you teach 'em discipline, and a lot of 'em feel that you care something about 'em, and it makes 'em, it makes the difference.

MS. BOWSER: Steven Peebles is what Wright calls a creeper. He's someone who breaks into houses late at night. Arlen Moon was convicted of receiving stolen property, and Stephen Cooper is doing four months for robbing a convenience store. We talked to them at the end of their first day.

STEPHEN COOPER, Detainee: I don't feel too bad about comin' here, because one thing is, it was either this or the alternative of prison. And I didn't want to go to prison.

MS. BOWSER: Peebles, what about you, it's as bad as you thought it was going to be? What's bad about it?

STEVEN PEEBLES, Detainee: I'm not used to somebody bossin' me around like they's always doin'.

MS. BOWSER: You think you're going to get something out of being here?

STEVEN PEEBLES: Oh, yeah. Self-respect, discipline, just stuff in that neighborhood.

MS. BOWSER: Do you understand that if you wash out here, you're going to the slammer?

ARLEN MOON, Detainee: Yes.

MS. BOWSER: You do?

ARLEN MOON: Umm hmm.

MS. BOWSER: You didn't come in here with any delusions about that? What do you expect to get out of being here?

ARLEN MOON: Discipline.

MS. BOWSER: Boot Camp detainees usually accept that discipline. The alternative is simple; wash out here, and you're going to prison. We met 28 year old Demetrius Franklin in the hole, in solitary confinement. He dropped out of school, lost a string of jobs. Now he's flunked out of Boot Camp for not following rules, and he knows exactly where he's going.

DEMETRIUS FRANKLIN, Detainee: It's kind of hard to change a person's ways after thirty years, twenty-nine, thirty years.

MS. BOWSER: But if you don't change your ways, you're going to wind up in prison.

DEMETRIUS FRANKLIN: True, but now if somebody changes, he'll still be the same person.

MS. BOWSER: And Boot Camp, does that make a difference for the younger guys?

DEMETRIUS FRANKLIN: It should. The younger guys who are only eighteen, nineteen, they have a better opportunity.

MS. BOWSER: But for every seasoned criminal like Franklin, there are youngsters like Kareem Williams.

MS. BOWSER: Kareem, you're 20 years old.

KAREEM WILLIAMS, Detainee: Yes, ma'am.

MS. BOWSER: What did you do?

KAREEM WILLIAMS: Well, some of my friends had broke into this gun store, and they stole guns, and I had one of the guns they had stolen.

MS. BOWSER: Have you ever been in trouble before?

KAREEM WILLIAMS: No, ma'am.

MS. BOWSER: Tell me about your family.

KAREEM WILLIAMS: Well, my family has been with UPS about 25 years, and he's a supervisor there. My mom, she works for a doctor at Emery University Hospital. My brother, he's a policeman, and I have two sisters, one twenty-two and one twenty-one; they both work for the government.

JUDGE CLARENCE SEELIGER, Georgia Circuit Court: I sentenced him.

MS. BOWSER: Judge Clarence Seeliger sent Williams to Boot Camp and the other boys involved in the robbery to prison.

JUDGE CLARENCE SEELIGER: I think he will have learned something from it, that you can't do life-endangering activities and get away with it. Boot Camp may be just the thing to impress him without doing any damage to him which a prison sentence would have done to deter him from doing this kind of activity in the future.

MS. BOWSER: Do you think you'll ever be in trouble again?

KAREEM WILLIAMS: No, ma'am. I will think before I do something wrong next time, even like getting a speeding ticket or even breaking the speed laws. You'll just think, because you'll never want to go through something like this again.

MS. BOWSER: President Clinton is a big supporter of the Boot Camp program in Georgia. Last year, he made a campaign swing through the state that included a stop here at Stone Mountain. Since then, he has suggested the Georgia program could serve as a national model. His host during the campaign was Georgia Governor Zell Miller, another Democrat and avid booster of military boot camp- style justice.

GOV. ZELL MILLER, Georgia: The thing that will work best is a good, swift kick in the rear. That's what the Marine Corps did for me. That's what the boot camps do for these young offenders. I to this date, although I've been out of boot camp now for well over 30 years, I can still see and hear my drill instructor. I can see it as plain as day.

MS. BOWSER: In your face?

GOV. ZELL MILLER: In my -- yes, in my face.

SPOKESMAN: You fool with me I'll bust you so low you can sit on a cigarette paper and dangle your legs. You understand me? Speak up when I'm talking to you. Say yes, sir, no, sir.

PRISONER: [1983] Yes, sir.

MS. BOWSER: This is the way it was in 1983, when the first prison boot camp in the nation was established at the Dodge Correctional Facility in Chester, Georgia. Back then, it was called a shock unit, and Sgt. Joe Combs ran a tight ship.

JOE COMBS, Boot Camp Sergeant: All we did was try to scare them, you know, into staying straight for 90 days. We yelled and barked at 'em and worked 'em, and there was no programs at all. We locked them in their cells at night, and that's where they stayed.

MS. BOWSER: Today, Warden Joe Combs reflected on how boot camp has evolved since those early days.

JOE COMBS: Now we have a schedule for them, you know, from 5 o'clock in the morning till 10 o'clock at night. They're busy doing something. And we try to teach them, you know, self-discipline, and I think we've finally evolved into trying to, to help the young men, you know, not only by hard work, teaching them self- discipline, teaching the respect, the value of other people, but also to try to help them, you know, to better theirselves [themselves] through educational programs, through Alcoholics Anonymous, through Narcotics Anonymous, life school programs.

MS. BOWSER: An equally important component of the Georgia boot camp program is when the inmates graduate. They must do intensive probation. Again, Judge Seeliger.

JUDGE SEELIGER: They have curfews; they're checked on constantly. The houses that they live in, the homes that they live in are subject to search day or night, 24 hours a day. They have community service requirements. They must have a job. They must take drug testing on a regular basis.

MS. BOWSER: Since 1991, the boot camp concept for young, non- violent offenders in Georgia has begun to provide some positive results. Early studies indicate the recidivism rate for boot camps is lower than for those who go to regular prison. It is also less expensive an alternative for taxpayers. Under Gov. Miller, the concept is being expanded into other areas of corrections so that soon the state will have five thousand inmates in boot camp programs, making it the largest program of its kind in the nation.

SPOKESMAN: Do you think you can handle whatever life throws at you?

DETAINEE: Yes, sir!

MS. BOWSER: Here at Dodge, the state is now experimenting with older, more hardened criminals. We talked to repeat offenders Dave Hunt and Terry Davis two days before they got out of Dodge.

DAVE HUNT, Dodge Correctional Institute: I've been in prison three times in my life, and I didn't receive any rehabilitation in any of those times. All's I did was basically just lay around and watch TV and get fat.

TERRY DAVIS, Dodge Correctional Institute: And I work hard here, so I know that I can get out there and work for three, four dollars a hour 'cause I work here and don't get paid, so I know it shouldn't be no problem gettin' out there workin' now.

MS. BOWSER: And you'd be willing to work for three or four dollars an hour --

TERRY DAVIS: Yes, ma'am.

MS. BOWSER: -- instead of making $3200 a week as a drug dealer?

TERRY DAVIS: Yes, ma'am.

[BOOT CAMP DETAINEES MARCHING]

MS. BOWSER: Even among this population of repeat, hardened criminals, many serving life sentences, the state is experimenting now with boot camp, not as a way to rehabilitate them, but to make them more manageable.

OFFICIAL INSPECTING PRISONER'S ROOM: Looks good. Keep it up.

MS. BOWSER: Warden Leland Linehan has the dubious distinction of receiving the worst discipline problems from all over the state. To quote him: These are folks who will hurt you. He was told there was no way he would get people like Timothy Helton to cooperate.

WARDEN LeLAND LINEHAN, Valdosta Correctional Institute: And you've been through the program one time. This is your second or third time, right?

TIMOTHY HELTON, Valdosta Inmate: Second time.

WARDEN LeLAND LINEHAN: Second time.

TIMOTHY HELTON: Yes, sir.

WARDEN LeLAND LINEHAN: 'Cause you got a DR. Well, I handled your DR for you.

TIMOTHY HELTON: Thank you, sir.

WARDEN LeLAND LINEHAN: Now you do your part.

TIMOTHY HELTON: Yes, sir.

WARDEN LeLAND LINEHAN: Okay. And take it serious.

TIMOTHY HELTON: Yes, sir.

MS. BOWSER: But Helton is staying with the program in spite of what he considers to be abusive treatment by officers.

TIMOTHY HELTON: It's just the way they get right up in your face, and there ain't nothin' you can do, except just stand there at attention and accept that which that isn't bad, but I don't feel that they have to get right up in your face and talk to you like they do, because anytime you're in somebody's face and you're speaking loud, you know, saliva's going to come out of your mouth. Me, myself, I don't like having it on me from somebody else.

MS. BOWSER: Do you feel like you're getting anything positive out of being in it?

TIMOTHY HELTON: A lot.

MS. BOWSER: What do you think you're getting positive out of the program?

TIMOTHY HELTON: How to control yourself, how to control your temper.

WARDEN LeLAND LINEHAN: I think we've pushed a button somewhere. Sometimes I'm not sure what that button is, but I think that it's got a lot to do with structure, with discipline, something that these guys if you go back years and look at the environment they've been in, that has been missing.

MS. BOWSER: For sentencing judges like Clarence Seeliger, the verdict on boot camp is still out.

MS. BOWSER: Do you think the President and the governor of Georgia have vastly puffed up the whole notion of boot camp?

JUDGE SEELIGER: Well, I'm not exactly sure what they expect of boot camp. For my part, I consider boot camp just another alternative in sentencing that I use whenever I can.

MS. BOWSER: Georgia corrections officials do not hold boot camp up as an answer to the nation's crime problem, but they do say that for every one of these young men who graduate and never commit another crime, the taxpayers save $25,000 a year. And there's something else no one can measure, the number of crimes that never take place. UPDATE - DIVIDING THE RANKS?

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, the Senate hearings on whether to lift the ban on gays in the military. Kwame Holman reports.

MR. HOLMAN: Members of the Armed Services Committee went into the field to begin the latest round of hearings, traveling yesterday to the Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, to hear from sailors firsthand. Concern about privacy often is cited by opponents of lifting the current ban on gays in the military. Senators visited where sailors live in the closest quarters on board surface ships and submarines. Many said they opposed lifting the ban.

SAILOR: I think lifting the ban on homosexuals would be a mistake, because, because as they alluded to earlier, berthing areas are too small. It would cause problems that are unnecessary. The crew as a general rule is pretty tight. Morale is high, and if you brought in homosexuals, and they openly admitted they were gay, it would destroy morale on the ship. So I think it would be a big mistake to do that.

MR. HOLMAN: But other sailors said they could adjust to avowed gays in the ranks.

SAILOR: I mean, these are people who are, who are basically just like us only they have sex with people of their own, people of their own gender. And what people do in their bedroom is their own business.

MR. HOLMAN: The formal hearings were held in a Navy auditorium. Among more than a dozen witnesses on the list, the vast majority were opposed to lifting the ban.

CAPT. GORDON HOLDER, U.S. Navy: Earlier today, we saw the closeness with which we live. In those few spaces on my ship that you visited, you saw 113 bunks, the potential to add 32 more, only four showers, seven toilets, and four urinals. This total lack of privacy makes the idea of homosexuality in the military incomprehensible to me.

LT. FRED FREY, U.S. Navy: The combat units of the United States Navy in other military, the Army and the Marine Corps, you're going to sacrifice that unit cohesiveness. Their lifestyle is so objectionable to so many people currently serving in the United States military and the civilians in the country that there is no way that unit cohesiveness will not be detrimentally effective.

MR. HOLMAN: The only dissent came from two Navy officers who were removed from active service after making known their sexual orientation.

LT. [J.G.] TRACE THORNE, U.S. Navy: Mr. Chairman, I am the person you have been talking about all along. I'm an American. I am a Naval officer, and I am a gay man.

SEN. STROM THURMOND, [R] South Carolina: I'd like to commend you both for your desire to serve your country, however, your lifestyle is not normal. It is not normal for a man to want to be with a man or a woman with a woman. [applause in room]

SEN. NUNN: Let's, please, let's have order.

SEN. STROM THURMOND: And I'm just wondering if either of you has taken any step to investigate the possibility of getting help through a medical or psychiatric aid.

LT. [J.G.] TRACE THORNE: Sir, I have not investigated any help from a doctor, from a psychologist, or psychiatrist, because had I done so, that doctor, psychiatrist, or psychologist would have told me to go home and not to worry about it because as the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric & Psychologic Associations did in 1973, they said, this may not be a majority of the population, but it is normal; it is not a disease; it is not something to be ashamed of; and it is not something that should be on our list of diseases.

LT. [J.G.] RICHARD SELLAND, U.S. Navy: I have struggled certainly with this, and it's something like Lt. Thorne has said cannot be changed, because if it could, I certainly agree I would be one who would like to change and lead a heterosexual lifestyle and have children and so forth in a structured -- in structured society.

MR. HOLMAN: Both Lts. Thorne and Selland rejected the contention that the Navy's tight quarters and open shower stalls would encourage sexual aggressiveness by gays even if the ban was lifted.

LT. TRACE THORNE: I have been showering with other men from the day I entered that grade school gym class. From day one, I've been showering with other men. It hasn't been a sexual experience for me every day since I was a little kid. It's been a daily chore. And when I get in the shower, that's all I'm thinking about is showering and getting out of there. If was staring at some guy, it's breaking the rules. That's a violation of his privacy. You're absolutely right. And that shouldn't be tolerated. I don't think it's going to happen.

MR. HOLMAN: This morning, the committee returned to the more traditional setting of its own hearing room. The lead-off witness, retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the Gulf War troops, helped attract an overflow crowd.

GEN. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, [Ret.], Commander, Desert Storm: Don't get me wrong, please. I am not saying that homosexuals haven't served honorably in our armed forces in the past. Of course, they have. And I'm quite sure that they will in the future, although I candidly must say that I completely reject the grossly overinflated numbers voted by some organizations. However, in every case that I am familiar with -- and there are many -- when it became known in the unit that someone was openly homosexual, polarization occurred, violence sometimes followed, morale broke down, and unit effectiveness suffered. Plain and simply, that has been my experience.

MR. HOLMAN: Col. Fred Peck also became a familiar presence on television as spokesman for the Marine relief effort in Somalia. He said the militaries of other nations deployed there treat openly gay soldiers harshly.

COL. FREDERICK C. PECK, U.S. Marine Corps: Let me tell you, amongst the Australians and the Canadians, how they handled it, how the troops handled it, and that is by intimidation. They said that no gays would dare assert themselves where they were and it would be barracks justice and a very inhospitable environment for anyone to step forward. So they didn't have a problem, because no one came out of the closet, no one was stepping forward, and it was very easy for them to deal with. I don't advocate that as necessarily as the right way to deal with things; I just want to tell you how it is.

MR. HOLMAN: Col. Peck then made a personal revelation.

COL. FREDERICK C. PECK: My oldest, my oldest son, Scott, is a student at the University of Maryland. He's just about to graduate. If he were to walk into a recruiter's office, it would be the recruiter's dream come true. He's six foot one, blue eyed, blond hair, great student, but if he were to go and seriously consider joining the military, I would have to, No. 1, personally counsel against it, and No. 2, actively fight it, because my son, Scott, is a homosexual. And I don't think there's any place for him in the military. If he were to follow in my footsteps as an infantry platoon leader or a company commander, I would, I would be very fearful that his life would be in jeopardy from his own troops.

MR. HOLMAN: This afternoon, a second panel of military personnel testified, this one against the gay ban.

C.P.O. STEVEN R. AMIDON, U.S. Navy: While serving aboardsubmarines, I have directly supervised at least two individuals who were to a certain degree openly homosexual. While not every member of the command was fully aware of their sexual status, the members of their division, a large number of the enlisted men and some of the officers were aware of this fact. These two shipmates served their country well. They performed their duties in a superior and professional manner. They worked well with other members of their division, despite the distaste some of their shipmates had for their sexual orientation. In these two specific cases, neither sailor in any way disrupted the ship's mission. On the contrary, they contributed to the successful completion of that mission.

COL. MARGARETHE CAMMERMEYER, Washington Army National Guard [Ret.]: If the regulation did not exist, if people were not being separated because of who they were, there would never have to be a situation where they would have to come out and challenge that particular regulation the way it is, so that we have created a catch-22, is that their coming out is really a part of the trying to challenge the regulation of this doesn't make sense. If there were no regulations that you couldn't serve as a gay person in the military, you probably would never know that there gays and lesbians serving. In my own case, I would never have -- I mean, as it was, I didn't come out --

SEN. SAM NUNN, Chairman, Armed Services Committee: I want to come back to your case, because I think it is, it is almost unique, but there are literally thousands of gays and lesbians who are coming out around the country who are not part of the military. So it seems to me I don't follow the logic that it's a military regulation that is causing people to come out.

SEN. CARL LEVIN, [D] Michigan: In your unit, what was the effect when it was disclosed that you were gay?

SGT. JUSTIN ELZIE, U.S. Marine Corps: In the beginning of the week, there was a lot of tension in the office, and as people realized that life would go on, we'd still continue to do the mission, people realized I hadn't changed, and something I want to point out that Sen. Warner had said, and I just want to make clear is that even though the gay advocates want this policy done away with, I'm up here today as a Marine, not with any sign on me that says human rights campaign funder. I'm here as a Marine. I'm there right now with the Marines --

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Going back to the unit cohesion issue. Do see effects on your unit cohesion?

SGT. JUSTIN ELZIE: My unit, there's a couple of people that do honestly have a problem with it, but those walls are falling, okay, and I, personally, it's been fine.

MR. LEHRER: The Armed Services Committee plans to continue its hearings and visit another military installation next week. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Tuesday, there were more Croat-Muslim battles in Bosnia. President Clinton said he was considering sending U.S. troops to Macedonia to prevent the Bosnian fighting from spreading to other countries like Greece and Turkey. They would go only as part of a multinational U.N. force. The Senate broke a Republican filibuster and passed the so-called "motor voter bill," making it easier for people to register to vote. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and good night.