Recruitment Shakedowns

[JakeD]

A single mom with a meager income, Marcia raised her kids on the farm where, until recently, she grew salad greens for restaurants.
Axel's father, a Marine Corps vet who served in Vietnam, died when Axel was 4.
Clearly the recruiters knew all that and more.
"You don't want to be a burden to your mom," they told him. "Be a man." "Make your father proud." Never mind that, because of his own experience in the service, Marcia says enlistment for his son is the last thing Axel's dad would have wanted.


As of lately, military recruiters have been resorting to underhanded tactics to fill their quotas. I've read of everything from their willingness to forge school records, provide detox kits in order for potential recruits to pass drug tests, and now something like this where two goons essentially kidnapped a kid in order to intimidate him into enlistment.

I'm sure that this has happened before, but this is the first time I've ever heard of it being widely popularized in a last act of desperation on the military's behalf.

Do you know of anyone who has been through something like this before, and what is your personal view of military recruiters?

Do you think the desperate floundering to fill the military ranks is significant of a much bigger problem that could afflict the U.S. long after the Bush presidency?

[audiedoggie]

I don't know of anyone personally, but I think it sucks what they did! I would be more intelligent and longer-winded about it, but I am exhausted!! :p

[dynamitt]

I still dont see the poiny of the war...so my hope is that if less and less people are willing to serve as soliders, Bush will finally get the point and stop all this crap...but i guess what will rather happen is that serve in militrary will become mandatory...

[Amaurote]

There's been some speculation about the decline of the US military in some papers here..they're comparing the scale and effectiveness of the soldiery unfavourably with the effort against the Vietcong - back then the deployment, technical capacity, terrain and enemy all severely militated against the prosecution of the campaign against Ho, but in comparison with that the Coalition has fared poorly with vastly superior materiel...and this is over 40 years down the road, in a new military-industrial age. The comparison may be made with the Boer War, where the watching Prussians noted how ineffective the ranks of red-coated bogies were against sharpshooting farmers.

[Mr. Bojangles]

Had a run in with a recruiter the other day. Cocksucker wouldn't turn loose of a kid to his parents, and they called me. I had a little chat with Staff Sgt. Shitbucket and let him know that if he persisted, he'd be recruiting in jail.

He saw the light fairly quickly. These assholes are talking to kids where the young'uns hang out, promising tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses, and fabricating stories of what the kids will be doing in Iraq. Something needs to be done.

[JakeD]

I had a little chat with Staff Sgt. Shitbucket and let him know that if he persisted, he'd be recruiting in jail.

Large Inmate: "Oh, a recruiter, eh? I love a man in uniform. I think I'm gonna recruit you to be part of my armed force...of bitches."

Recruiter: "Uh...heh heh."

[Boozer]

Mt brother almost got fanagled into signing up with the Army. They promised him everything he wanted - he wanted to be a machanic and work on everything he could. He got up to Syracuse, and they had the papers ready for him to sign. While reading through them, he saw that they had him signed up for water treatment. When he called them on it, they said that he'd have to start there, then get transferred to mechanic. He told them to pound salt, and they left him in Syracuse by himself. He called mom collect and she wired him money for a bus ticket, ad no one here knew anything about Syracuse at the time as we all avoided it like the plague. Fucking cock-sucking bastards anyways.

[Bassmama]

For the last few months an ad has appeared on TV where 2 black teens are sitting on a curb in a really crappy neighborhood talking. One is telling the other about how WONDERFUL the military's going to be- send him to school, housing, food, status, etc.
Another one is a black teen sitting at a table with his mother telling her that it's time HE becomes a man & he found someone that will pay for his college education 100% & his mom puts her paper down to listen.

1) they're targeting blacks- especially ones from poor neighborhoods
2) they're promising things they won't follow through on without a price that they never mention- education
3) they're making it seem like these kids won't be 'men' unless they join
4) I thought racial profiling was illegal???? Maybe for everyone EXCEPT the government?

[dynamitt]

arrrrrrrrrrrrrgh
just make me mad.
Is there nothing that can be done to stop this crap ?

[pepe le pew]

this will happen everytime there is a war. the government needs people to fill their armies. they go to war; most of them get killed - and theres openings in the armies that have to be filled. the best way to do this is to target those people who think that they dont have a too bright future ahead of them. Fahrenheit 911 showed these scenes where these 2 recruitment officers target poor back communities and make the kids there false promises.

even in a much smaller country like the maldives (where i am from) there is huge recruitement drives. at least they used to have. i was forced to join the army when i finished school. they promised me i'd get three stripes after basic training and a scholarship for further studies. none of that happened. i remained a private for 3 years working as a patrolman in the police force which is just part of the army/navy/fire department/ everything. i was promoted to lance corporal, and worked in the administration for 2 more years till i landed this schol and i transferred to another branch of the government. almost five years of my life wasted.......