Damned anti recruiting movement

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Army GI

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Maybe it's because I'm in a bad mood today, but I am so damned sick and tired of these high school students coming on TV acting like military recruiters are no better than sexual predators.

I'm watching something on mun2 where these kids are complaining that military recruiters are "targeting" them and that the military "misleads" you into thinking you're going to go to college but then "send you away" to a war somewhere.

NO WAY?! The MILITARY...sending people to WAR? Who would'a thought??!?!

Didn't these stupid idiots pay attention in history class? What do they think it's the purpose of the military? You join a group who's posters have guys with camouflage and assault rifles and then you wonder "WTF" when you get sent to war? C'mon people:rolleyes:

Maybe if our schools spent just a little extra time talking about the significance of wars in history instead of glossing over it in a paragraph, kids wouldn't be so F-ing clueless.:mad:
 
Do a search on UC Santa Cruz and anti recruiting. The non truths that these people come up with will make you vomit.
And the rare pro military quote you come across?
Odds are that is me.
 
It might also help if kids weren't taught that violence doesn't solve anything, but instead were taught that the world doesn't owe you a gol darn thing, it takes more than being old to be a real man or woman, you are the only one responsible for your actions, and NOTHING is free. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
 
... And since this thread isn't about guns, but is about a political (and most likely, legal) aspect of college recruiting... Care to guess where I'm moving this thread?

Hang on!
 
I'm watching something on mun2 where these kids are complaining that military recruiters are "targeting" them and that the military "misleads" you into thinking you're going to go to college but then "send you away" to a war somewhere.
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Anybody who thinks they'll never be deployed (or believes the recruiters that tell them so...and yes, some recruiters have pulled that line) is an idiot. Fair enough. However, I doubt many reasonable people signing up for the reserve components would expect to spend, say, 3 years out of a 6-year Reserve/Guard enlistment deployed. Or expect to be deployed twice before having the chance to finish a single four-year degree. Or be deployed for 3 years out of a 4 year enlistment than ends up lasting 5. And you know damn well the recruiter isn't going to mention the possibility.

Or will deny it and lie through his third point of contact if it's brought up by the recruit or somebody else.

And please, oh please, don't anybody try and claim that recruiters won't lie, and horribly, in order to get somebody to sign. I seem to remember just a couple years ago the recruiting command decided to stop all recruiting activities for some short amount of time to "train" their recruiters on the whole "not lying their butts off" thing (or in other words, "ethics").

I've had a recruiter tell somebody straight up, to my face, that I was lying, and that what I was claiming could never and did never happen. Which was that I was held over for over four extra months in basic training due to an injury (actual broken wrist, cast and all), without being allowed any time home on leave, and treated in the standard "basic training" fashion for the entire time. Nope, could never happen and I was full of crap, and just trying to scare the potential recruit from enlisting.

Right.

So yes, many recruiters (no, not all) can be absolute scum. They'll say just about anything to make their numbers, and I really don't like the idea of forcing schools to give these (of whom many are) slimy creeps access to high school kids who may not know better in order to receive federal funding.

Then again, I'm not really a fan of the "withhold federal funding" bat to get states to do pretty much anything...for as long as that state's citizens are forced to pay federal tax, I'd say it's a pretty horrific abuse of power.
 
I believe it's wrong to deny recruiters access to schools - be it universities or high schools. If the schools make listening to the recruiters mandatory that's another thing, but don't believe that's the issue here.

San Francisco has gone so far as to deny the military from filming recruitment advertisements in the city.

A bit too much in my mind.
 
San Francisco has gone so far as to deny the military from filming recruitment advertisements in the city.

A bit too much in my mind.
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This I agree with.

I believe it's wrong to deny recruiters access to schools - be it universities or high schools. If the schools make listening to the recruiters mandatory that's another thing, but don't believe that's the issue here.
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This not so much. I don't appreciate the idea of my school pimping my info, or my children's info, out to people with the kind of track record military recruiters have. Let them make their numbers in an ethical fashion for a decade or two first, and I'll reconsider. Until then, they can use their rosters from ASVAB tests (which I agree with allowing schools to offer, as long as it's made clear that info will be provided to recruiters), walk-ins, and a the phone book checked against the do-not-call database.


Oh, and a little explanation as to the previous anecdote...the recruiter would have been correct that this is not necessarily the norm. Many/most recruits that experience long-term injuries (more than a few weeks) do receive convalescent leave to take some time off at home. But I got unlucky, and ended up with a doctor that "didn't believe in convalescent leave." Because, her explanation went, it's not like you're going to get put on paid leave from your permanent duty station because of a broken wrist (true). I made a halfhearted attempt to suggest that at my permanent duty station I would be able to go home at night to my family, read books, listen to music, and not have a drill sergeant up my posterior 24/7 (also true)...but she wasn't wanting to hear it, and you can only go so far with a Captain, especially as a basic-training private. Hell, even that was probably over the line, and I was probably lucky not to end up in more trouble. Good times.

Not that I expect anybody to care, but I like to make sure such stories are "complete" because around here I've found that a lot of people like to fill in the blanks with whatever is convenient based on their opinion of the poster in question.
 
As to San Francisco's stance, I'm fine with it.

As long as they also agree that if a massive earthquake hits there, there will NO National Guard troops assisting the city. At all.

They don't like the military...why should the military help them in a time of need? Screw'em.
 
I don't expect the situation to improve much. Even in a modern society we still haven't figured out a way to ensure polite discourse, freedom of speech and hot-button issues. Heck, we can't even decide on a Glock vs 1911 debate.

My town of Madison is also "full of it." One former mayer, Paul Soglin, did not want military aircraft from local Truax Field to fly into his airspace.

But my point is that freedom of choice/speech is messy, and this is the element we ought to be addressing.

In a perfect world, an army recruiter should have a booth on campus, politely discussing the attributes of military service, and right next to him should be a booth of dissenters, handing out their flyers. Periodically they should buy each other coffee.

However, you can get shouted down on my campus. In the free USA, doctors have been shot at abortion clinics. They plan to bury Tibbets in an unmarked grave. I see no progress in racial tensions. You can get your teeth handed back to you for using the word "RUB" at a bike shop. I hear nothing but vitriol on talk radio--from both sides.

I think we ought to sit down with an Advil and discuss just what our Framers meant on the concept of protected speech.
 
Sorry, but from personal experience I know that military recruiters can be overly aggressive and misleading. The most common feature of every military recruiter I've had dealings with is how quickly they will downplay your chances of actually going to war or being in combat. "It'll probably be over even before you finish your training" "Even if you do have to go over their, you'll probably be in a support role where you'll never see combat"

Then come the endless letters and visits. I once downloaded a virtual tour of the Army, and less than twelve hours later had two recruiters knocking on my door. I know that the military has a man power shortage, but showing up at someone's private residence without an invite or at the very least a phone call is rude, at best.
 
This hits close to home. I have five sons, ages 17, 16, 14, 13, and 12. Firstborn will be 18 next month. Is anyone in America willing to take odds that the draft will not be reinstituted sometime during the next decade that my sons are at risk from it?

My second son, the 16 year old, wants more than anything to be a pilot. He signed up with the Civil Air Patrol (similar to ROTC, only for Air Force) a couple years ago. He loves it. His friends all love it too. They get in uniform on Saturday mornings, learn radio protocol, learn how to march in step, take tests to get promoted, all that good stuff. His plan when he got into CAP was that he would later join the AF and become a pilot.

These are all rural kids from conservative families, gung-ho types, pro-military. Prime ground for recruiters, right? Wrong. These kids all compare notes, and talk to currently enlisted folks. My son told me he isn't going to go military after all, because, he said, he could not find a single currently enlisted person who would join up if they could go back and do it over. The guys he's talked to have spent time in the sandbox, multiple deployments, stop-loss keeping them in long after their term should have expired, and so on. And it all adds up to young folks who are proud to serve their country, proud of what they've done ... but who bitterly resent the way they have been treated by the military they serve and the country they love.

Don't have any answers here. Don't watch TV much and haven't seen the anti-recruiter ads. But the military right now has more problems than pop culture dissing them. My money says our all volunteer army ain't gonna have a whole lot of volunteers in the next few years, for fighting an unpopular war or for anything else, if they don't treat the people they do have quite a bit better than they have been.

pax
 
I was in college in 2001 and remember hearing everyone whine and moan that all these poor college students on military scholarships were going to be shipped off to Afghanistan.

It really ticked me off that it was alright to take military scholarship money, but when it was time to hold up their end of the bargain they were pissed off!

I had one friend in the reserves during that time and he was DAMN PROUD to go!
 
Pax,
FWIW, I'm enlisted, currently active duty 20yrs 6mo, 2 years national gurd time prior, I just reenlisted yesterday and would make the same decision today that I made more than 20 years ago.

IMHO
One thing that many fail to see is that recruiters are salesmen. They are no different than a recruiter for AT&T. The sell you on the good things and don't talk about the bad things. The military recruiter sells 30 days vacation a year, free(reduced) air travel for trips to Europe, and money for college. It's pretty hard to sell a year in Iraq, mowing grass and picking weeds on detail, shining shoes for inspection etc.
The AT&T guys sells high pay, fitness center membership, season tickets to Yankees games, company car etc. It's hard to sell 75 hour work weeks, not seeing your family on weekends, etc.
Those that say they wouldn't do it again, listened to the sales pitch, but did no research on their own. I see them everyday and wish it were in my power to help them on their quest to get out. We really don't need the disruptions and morale issues they provide.


Just my opinion YMMV
 
But note that AT&T's salesmen are selling you a service, not four (or MORE...) years of your life. As much as I pity anyone who takes what a recruiter says at face value, the recruiter's job should be more of a "well, yeah, here's how it is and while some people say it sucks, it's really good because..." and then all the good things that come with military service. That's why Be All You Can Be was such a better slogan, I think... At least Army Strong is getting back to those roots.

You'd think that anybody would be against recruiting anyone under false pretenses. It's just worse in the military when the recruit is not legally allowed to say "you know boss, this just isn't working out for me. I'm not showing up for work tomorrow: I quit as of now, and will be seeking employment elsewhere."
 
As to San Francisco's stance, I'm fine with it.

As long as they also agree that if a massive earthquake hits there, there will NO National Guard troops assisting the city. At all.

They don't like the military...why should the military help them in a time of need? Screw'em.
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Yes, because the choice of supporting an organization that openly and officially discriminates against a significant portion of the city's population and forgoing aid from that organization that the city's residents pay for like anybody else is certainly a reasonable one.

No, really.

:rolleyes:
 
Yes, because the choice of supporting an organization that openly and officially discriminates against a significant portion of the city's population and forgoing aid from that organization that the city's residents pay for like anybody else is certainly a reasonable one.
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GAY CARD PLAYED! :rolleyes:

San Francisco is the penultimate example of liberals living securely due to the sacrifices of the military that defends their freedom...and then spitting on that same military.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to all these anti-military trust fund brats in the next earthquake, when they suddenly realize that their peace-blogging skills won't help defend them against the looters coming up from the part of the city they don't talk about. I wonder who they'll be begging for help?
 
Maybe we should just go back to the draft, that way no one will have to deal with those evil recruiters. Anyway it would be a lot more fair since everyone will get the chance to serve their country like it or not. I bet we would see a mass exodus of certain people to Canada and other points.
 
GAY CARD PLAYED! :rolleyes:
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Yes, because typing something in all caps with an exclamation and a emoticon is the pinnacle of discourse. Though I guess dripping sarcasm topped with the same emoticon wasn't much better.

I was just giving at least one reason that SF might not be too accommodating towards military recruiters, considering the organization openly and officially discriminates against a significant portion of their population (15%-20%, depending where you get the estimates). A portion that votes. A prevailing liberal attitude is obviously also a factor...but in many cases where either schools or localities have "blackballed" the military in some way or another, it's often their discrimination against homosexuals that is given as the official reason.

If that's playing the "gay card," well then there it is...down on the table.

I had never even heard of the "gay card" before, I guess this is some new thing where we take any hot-button issue, put "card" after it, and that relieves us of any obligation to craft a meaningful retort. [EDIT: I know, we can call this the "'Card' Card!"]

San Francisco is the penultimate example of liberals living securely due to the sacrifices of the military that defends their freedom...and then spitting on that same military.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to all these anti-military trust fund brats in the next earthquake, when they suddenly realize that their peace-blogging skills won't help defend them against the looters coming up from the part of the city they don't talk about. I wonder who they'll be begging for help?
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Probably the military...and the military should and will come, since A) not every citizen of San Francisco, despite the Broad Brush(TM) you're trying to employ, is anti-military (or even anti-war) and B) they pay for that military with their taxes like everybody else.

In fact, with a median income well above the national average, they probably pay for more of that military than the citizens of Backwater, Mississippi.
 
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of the nation's most deadly military accidents.

Veterans groups and history buffs had hoped that tourists in San Francisco could walk the same teak decks where sailors dodged Japanese machine-gun fire and fired 16-inch guns that helped win battles across the South Pacific.

Instead, it appears that the retired battleship is headed about 80 miles inland, to Stockton, a gritty agricultural port town on the San Joaquin River and home of California's annual asparagus festival.
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...city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things.

"If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.
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My opinion stands. Screw'em. Let them live without the military they DO hate so much. The people elect the officials who pull stunts like that. So screw'em.
 
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