Army of none.

ARMY OF NONE Of the dozens of tables lining the gymnasium at Park East High in Spanish Harlem, Asif Ullah's stands out. Instead of interchangeable college pamphlets, Ullah offers students a look at the splashy political hiphop magazine AWOL. The cover of the new issue depicts George W. Bush and his cabinet thugged out with bandanas and guns, gold chains and tanks. The kids invariably laugh upon recognizing the president of the United States in an Oilers jersey. Then Ullah starts his pitch.

"The government's like a gang," he says. "And who does the fighting for them? If you sign up for the military, they own you for eight years, and you're gonna be behind when you get out. Imagine someone rips off your chain…"

Ullah speaks to the kids in their own language, with an intimate knowledge of their position. For five years Ullah has been visiting college fairs, manning phones at the War Resisters League office on Lafayette St. and talking to classes. Lately, teacher requests for his lectures are on the rise. In classrooms, he deconstructs the promises of military recruiters now flooding city high schools in anticipation of dwindling reenlistment among troops returning from Iraq. Ullah tells his young audiences that the average Pell grant is equal to the tuition promised by the military and that Army skills are worthless in the civilian job market. He debunks the myth that the military is a bastion of racial and gender equality. He tells them about AmeriCorps. Today at Park East, he convinces Pamela, 17, to back out of the Army's Delayed Entry Program.

"I don't wanna go," she says. "My mom doesn't want me to go. I see the people dying in Iraq on tv and I think, 'I could be them next year.' But [the recruiters] still come to my house, they make it sound too good to be true."

Another student says he wants to back out of the Navy's Delayed Entry Program, but is afraid. "They tell me that I could go to prison for a month or two," he says.

Ullah tells him that whatever he signed at 17 isn't a legal contract. He adds the boy's phone number to a list of Park East students who want more information and a mailed copy of AWOL. (Park East administrators have forbidden him from handing out the magazine at the school.)

As Ullah packs up his things at the close of the fair, a Park East history teacher thanks him for being there and asks him for his card. She wants him to talk to her students whenever he has time. Asif Ullah pulls out a schedule book and searches for a white space.