The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

Tarsha Moore stands as tall as her 4-foot 8-inch frame will allow. Staring straight ahead, she yells out an order to a squad of peers lined up in three perfect columns next to her. Having been in the military program for six years, Tarsha has earned the rank of captain and is in charge of the 28 boys and girls in her squad. This is Lavizzo Elementary School. Tarsha is 14.

The Defense Department and a private contractor have been building an extensive database of 30 million 16-to-25-year-olds, combining names with Social Security numbers, grade-point averages, e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

When Capt. Larry Dibble wanders into Greece Olympia High School, just outside Rochester, he is greeted with smiles and handshakes. Teachers invite him into their classrooms to talk to students about joining the Marine Corps. The school provides an almost-complete list of student names and telephone numbers. In another suburb, at Fairport High School, Dibble is barred from setting up a recruiting table. Appointments are required to talk to students, and interviews are allowed only in the guidance office. The school will release student contact details only with written parental approval.

Two years into the war in Iraq, as the Army and Marines struggle to refill their ranks, parents have become boulders of opposition that recruiters cannot move. Mothers and fathers around the country said they were terrified that their children would have to be killed - or kill - in a war that many see as unnecessary and without end.

For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!" Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.

A recent front-page story in the New York Times reported growing opposition among parents to the U.S. military's efforts to contact and recruit their children. In the process, parents are also discovering some uncomfortable things about the federal government.

At first glance, there does not appear to be any connection between these two headlines: “President signs No Child Left Behind into law,” and a headline from last month, “Army, Marines miss recruiting goals again.” But there is a connection, and a big one.

Once the databases’ access is given to the Selective Service System, they would merely have to open the search engine and request, say, a list of students who are to graduate next year with a degree in nursing. A set of parameters could be entered concerning the proper ethnic and gender makeup…and presto…welcome to Fallujah. If they wanted to get really fancy, they could even skim off the students with the best grade point averages or the highest test scores. The possibilities are endless.

(CBS) Pressured to meet quotas, some U.S. military recruiters have bent or broken the rules for enticing young people into the service. CBS News reports that a little-known provision in the federal No Child Left Behind law gives these recruiters a secret weapon when aiming to recruit high schoolers, and catch the attention of students as young as 14. CBS News has reported that from asking teens to lie to their parents to guiding them through duping the drug-test system and forging documents, recruiters will go to many lengths to get young people to enlist.