Recruiters Lie

Believe it or not, the military once tried to recruit me. I had done well on the ASVAB, the military's placement test, and the recruiters mouths began to water. "You could be a nuclear scientist" they informed me, "working on a nuclear submarine." "Well, I'm not really a big fan of nuclear anything" I replied.

The recruiters were the epitome of the greasy used car salesman. They would say anything, make any promise in the world, to get me to sign up. Unfortunately for them I happened to look into some of their bogus claims. I had a friend who had went into the Nuclear program. It had a 40% failure rate, very tough to get through. And what happened if you failed? Did you get to pick anything else you might like to do, as the recruiter sweared to me? No. You were given what was available, which could be anything.

Things haven't changed much. And as recruiters miss their recruitment goals you can bet that the recruiters will say just about anything to get young kids to sign up. In fact this is exactly what was revealed in a recent story by WLWT-5 where investigators caught recruiters lying to kids to make Iraq seem less dangerous than it really is. As unbelievable as it may seem these idiots try making the case that it is more dangerous in the United States of America than it is in Iraq right now:

"You have more chance of dying here in the United States at, that is it, 36-percent die, kill rate here in the United States, people here just dying left and right, you have more chance of dying over here than you do over there."

Of course, as the story points out, the United States does not have a 36% kill rate. The recruiter just made it up. Oh and they made up some doosies:

"If you get on the Internet and look up how many deaths are in Columbia, S.C., in the past year, year and a half, and then compare that to how many deaths there are in Iraq, there's more deaths going on in Columbia, S.C., for no reason, none, over a pair of Nikes, over a jacket, people stealing people's wallets, shooting people. There's more deaths going on in Columbia, S.C. -- I know, I just got back from there -- than there was in the whole time when I was in Iraq."

Of course it's complete nonsense. To drive the point home, the news crew contacted the police in Columbia:

Sgt. Thomas Thomas of Columbia, S.C., police department: "There were 16 homicides in the city of Columbia in 2004. This year to date we have five in the city."

I'll share one more whopper with you:

Recruiter: "Dayton area alone, which is about four or five counties, Dayton area alone, 1,500 people died in two weeks. You know what that was from? Car wrecks. Those numbers that we get, we get from the actual highway patrol. So, I mean, all that stuff's factual. So, you look at that way. We've lost 1,500
soldiers so far over in Iraq. We've been over there for three years. If you add it together, 1,500 people died in five counties alone within two weeks, just from car wrecks."

According to the story, there weren't 1,500 deaths from car wrecks in the entire state of Ohio for the whole year.

They lie folks. Not only do they lie, but they will encourage your kids to lie, too! CBS News just did a story on this. High school senior David McSwane decided to see just how far recruiters would go to get him to sign up. McSwane, an honor student, informed the recruiter that he was a high school drop out. Response?

No problem, McSwane says the recruiter explained. He suggested that McSwane create a fake diploma from a nonexistent school. McSwane recorded the recruiter
saying on the phone: "It can be like Faith Hill Baptist School. Whatever you choose."

Drug problem? Not a problem! Although official policy is that enlistees with a drug problem are unacceptable, the recruiter says, "

'Not a problem. Just take this detox." He said he would pay for alf of it, and told me where to go (to get it)."

Just a one time deal? This particular recruiter had at least done it two times previously:

"The two times that I had the guys use it," the recruiter says on the tape, "it's worked both times. We didn't have to worry about anything."

The recruiters in this story are being investigatged. And the situation has gotten so bad that on May 20 the military halted all recruitment efforts. The progessive newsire had this to say:

Today's so called "stand down" follows over 480 allegations of impropriety by recruiters since Oct. 1, 2004. As the improprieties increase, more organizations have formed to focusing attention to stop recruiters from lying, misleading, and harassing students.

Should it be any surprise that parents don't want recruiters at schools? And let's not place all the blame at the feet of these recruiters, either. What a mess they have to deal with. How on earth could they be honest? What could they say? We want you to join the military and go fight in an unecessary and illegal war?

My advice: keep your kids away from recruiters. They will lie. They will encourage your kids to lie. And if they sign up, they will be forced to defend a lie, the biggest lie of all: the Iraq War.


Worried about your kids? Take action! Get started at Leave My Child Alone. It's a great place to get started to learn what you can do to keep your child safe from these predators.

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