DATE: Wednesday, July 2, 1997               TAG: 9707020480

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY J.M. HIRSCH, ASSOCIATED PRESS 

                                            LENGTH:   95 lines

UNDERAGE SOLDIERS ENLISTED UNDER A HIGHER LAW SOME 25,000 U.S. VETERANS WHO FIBBED TO FIGHT A WAR WON'T LOSE THEIR BENEFITS.

Growing up in a time of heroics and drama, George Brouse desperately longed to defend his country. But he was three years shy of the legal enlistment age.

So he lied about his age and joined the Army anyway, and in 1943 15-year-old Brouse found himself in Tunisia, fighting Nazi Germany.

``I don't know whether it was just because they were careless, or whatever, but they didn't find out until I was in Africa,'' he said.

Brouse, now 69 and living in Philadelphia, is far from the only one who fibbed to fight - it is believed that 25,000 veterans, mostly from World War II, broke the law to enlist in the military.

More than 50 years later, many are under the mistaken belief that they could lose their veteran's benefits if their secret is revealed.

The Veterans of Underage Military Service, founded in 1978, is trying to bring those former child soldiers together. The group's 1,200 members want to provide support to their peers who grew up on the front lines and to dispel the myth that the government will punish their dishonesty.

Only a dishonorable discharge ordered by the Department of Defense could change a veteran's benefits, said Veterans Affairs spokesman Ken McKinnon. And the Department of Defense has no plans to pursue men and women who served so long ago, said spokeswoman Monica Aliosio.

``We were all gung-ho. . . . Everybody couldn't wait to get into the service,'' said 71-year-old Stanley Drewniak, of Manchester, N.H. He was 16 when he enlisted in the Navy.

Men were allowed to join the military at 17 with their parents' permission. But McKinnon said recruiters were looking for able-bodied soldiers and often turned a blind eye to age restrictions. Boys as young as 12 signed up.

``During the war, everyone was patriotic, and we thought we were doing some good. I was in high school and I saw the other kids going and wondered why I couldn't,'' said 69-year-old Harry Wallace, of Durham, N.H., who joined the Merchant Marines when he was 16.

Although going to war seemed like high adventure, child soldiers probably suffered more than older recruits.

``One of the issues . . . is as children they found themselves in horrendous situations,'' said clinical psychologist Edward Kubany of the National Center for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

But there are no studies to prove that they suffered more than older combatants; there are only memories, tempered by a half-century.

To fool the more vigilant recruiters, most boys dropped out of school, altered their birth certificates and then persuaded or tricked their parents into signing permission slips. Others avoided their parents entirely.

``One guy called it the two-bit hedge. His father wouldn't sign for him, so he went downtown and got a hobo. He bought him a few beers and got him to sign,'' Brouse said.

But overcoming the military's height and weight restrictions demanded greater creativity.

``To get in, you had to be 110 pounds. So that day I ate 4 or 5 pounds of bananas and just tipped the scale,'' said Frank McNeil, 69, of Portsmouth, N.H., who joined the Navy when he was 16. ``I hate bananas now.''

McNeil said his diminutive size made surviving boot camp the most challenging part of his military career. Most of his peers were at least five years older and considerably larger than he was. As a result, the only sleeping space he got on the train ride to camp was in the overhead luggage rack.

But Drewniak said his age was an advantage.

``The good point was that I was smarter than the rest, though only for the reason I had just got out of high school. I knew how to study. . . . These other guys had been out of school for two or three years. They'd lost it,'' Drewniak said.

Their age-related mishaps often entertained fellow soldiers.

Wallace said one of his first assignments was aboard a hospital ship. While it was docked in Galveston, Texas, a teacher brought her class aboard for a tour. As they were leaving, the woman mistook Wallace for one of her students and refused to get off the ship without him. It took one of the senior officers to convince her the boy was a member of the crew.

But though they looked young, McNeil said, the underage soldiers grew up fast. And they knew they were missing out on the lives their friends at home were enjoying.

``You go from raising hell with the kids on the corner to somebody shooting at you,'' McNeil said.

In addition to the dangers of war, the boys also risked being caught in their lies. Depending on how young they were when caught, that meant anything from being dismissed and sent home to being court-martialed and dishonorably discharged for fraudulent enlistment.

Brouse said he was caught when appendicitis sent him to a military hospital in Italy and his doctor learned his real age. But he said the man was sympathetic and put him on medical leave until after his 17th birthday.

Drewniak said this sort of tacit government consent was common.

``At that time, it was the right thing to do,'' he said. ``I don't say you should do that all the time, but I didn't hurt anybody. I think I helped myself. I helped my country. . . . I'm glad I did what I did.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

``We were all gung-ho,'' said Stanley Drewniak, 71, of Manchester,

N.H. He was 16 when he enlisted in the Navy.

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