Following up on Dave's article, Recruiters Lie, I wanted our readers to understand WHY recruiters not only lie, but why they're in a position where they HAVE to lie. I'm not making excuses for them, I'm just telling it like it is. Understand that recruiting for the US Armed Forces is a sales job. And like any sales job the folks doing the selling are in a high pressure situation. They have quotas that MUST be filled and every 1st of the month they start at ZERO. Like civilian salesmen who get fired for not making quota, Army and Marine recruiters are threatened with being sent to Iraq if they don't fill quotas.
That would be bad enough, but our recruiters find themselves in the position of salesmen selling an inferior product that few desire at a price many times higher than their competitors. Especially when that higher price is the possibility of death or severe, life-changing injury.
Remember the good old days, right after 9/11 when young men and women were climbing over each other's backs to join the military because it was the patriotic thing to do? Keep that in mind, because one thing has NOT changed since 9/11 is that our young people are STILL patriots. That being so, what has changed?
The biggest change has come in the American people's perception of the Bush administrations War in Iraq. As FDTate showed us in his article, Lame Duck, 59% of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling the war. Included in that percentage are parents of graduating high schoolers being wooed to join the Army and Marine Corps. If you were to poll teens themselves, I would bet the approval percentage would be even lower. Our kids know what's going on and they don't like it.
What don't they like?
1. They don't see the war as necessary any longer.
2. They don't see the war as necessary from the beginning.
3. They feel they were lied to concerning why the US is at war.
4. They see the coffins and the disabled returning in ever increasing numbers.
5. They don't believe things are going well in Iraq, no matter what the administration or their recruiters are saying.
6. They know Stop Gap laws might keep them in the service longer than the term they sign up for.
7. They don't like that America is involved in torture.
8. They don't like that civilians doing the same job are paid 10X as much as they would be paid if they joined up.
9. They don't like that qualified and well trained individuals are kicked out of the service because they are gay. Especially at a time when enlistment quotas aren't being met. Remember, young people are far more gay tolerant than older people and especially more gay tolerant than lifers in the Armed Forces.
10. They don't like serving with people who have to be bribed with large sums of money in order to sign up. Mercenaries are not as dependable in the pinch as people who joined feeling it their patriotic duty.
11. They don't like the idea of back to back deployments and being way from home for longer than promised lengths of time.
12. The don't like that the Bush administration has no real exit strategy for Iraq. Yes, they do know about such things.
13. They don't like that wealthy kids of their same age won't have to join the Army or Marines to make a better life for themselves and their family. They may not be able to find work at home or a college that will accept them, but at least they won't have to die for someone else's warped ideology.
What's the effect of all of this? The Army hasn't hit quota during the last four months and the Marines have hit monthly quota only once this year. The Armed Forces are getting so desperate they're enlisting people with known drug problems and with minor criminal offenses.
The Pentagon's solution is to simply throw more money at students. They're considering upping the anti to $40,000 as an enlistment bonus. They just don't get the idea that such an offer won't work when 3/4 of the people believe the number of casualties in Iraq is unacceptable and over 60% feel the war is not worth fighting any longer.
In the meantime, recruiters show up at high school homecomings, deliver doughnuts and coffee to faculty members, eat lunch in school cafeterias, influence the elite to help them recruit less affluent kids, get involved with local Boy Scout troops, volunteer to help coaches do calisthenics and call cadence during sports training and, of course, schmooze, schmooze, schmooze.
The only way around this (the administration knows) is by (cough, cough) reinstating the draft.
