Showing posts with label Recruitment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recruitment. Show all posts
Friday, October 12, 2007
Saturday, July 16, 2005
The 5 Rs for military families and the troops; Retention, Recruitment, Recovery, Replenish, Repolitics
I just learned we have another family member, National Guard, who deployed to Iraq this week. To my knowledge, we now have 4 in our family in military service, 3 have deployed to Iraq of which 2 are returning Iraq veterans facing second deployments to Iraq under Stop Loss. That is in my immediate family.
I'm in contact with many military families who share similarities in their family experience to my own. One family has a son going for a third deployment while the daughter returns from her deployment with yet a third son in military service. In yet another family, a son is extended in Iraq beyond his contract even though he has been wounded three times already.
If I tried, I could not make this up. It goes from incredible to incredulous for military families across the country. Borrowing from the words of other military families, and borrowing from what has already been written and published, a panoramic photo forms and solidifies. It becomes difficult to dismantle with the tired spin arguments for why our troops should remain in combat in Iraq or even why they are there in the first place.
But aside from the point / counterpoint abstract arguments that serve the ego of the point of view, what is to become of our loved ones deployed? Has this country abandoned them and their families to suffer the losses while the arguing continues until someone, anyone can figure out how to get it right?
On Retention, Stop Loss, Extensions, Repeat Deployments; see this article;'Mothers on Their Soldier Sons' and read a full discussion on same article content with military families sharing their experiences at 'Stories from the Front'
On Senior and Junior Officers Decline in the ranks; becoming a serious and under reported difficulty. Here is letter from a military mother describing the experience of her son, who is an officer. It speaks quietly yet profoundly to how the soldiers care about each other.
From Army Infantry Mom:
Everyday our son was over in Iraq I just prayed he would come home safe. He was injured but was sent back. He told us each day that he went out, he did not know if he would come back alive.
His men were more important to him than his own welfare. It was his job to keep his men alive, despite some of the orders he was given that put his men in direct danger.
Iraq has become a haven for terrorists everywhere in the Muslim world.
Because of the lack of experience in this type of war, the senior officers have no idea what is happening on the streets. This is a serious problem. The junior officers have very little say in what they do day to day. They are the ones on the front line, making life or death decisions. Seven out of eight soldiers in our sons group died not in fighting insurgents, but as sitting/walking targets.
This is happening all over Iraq. The psychological toll to junior officers is much greater than people realize. Their men are their responsibility, their loss is never forgotten.
The situation in Iraq is not getting better. It has deteriorated. Each new group that is sent over from the states starts from scratch, making the same stupid mistakes that the group they are replacing has made.
There does not seem to be adequate training for replacements in the states by people who have actually been in battle. Our son had to counter many of the things his replacements had been told to do. The junior officers who have been in Iraq should be the ones training the reservists and the National Guard. They essentially have no control, no say in how things are being run, yet they are the ones fighting in the streets everyday.
This coupled with long deployments away from loved ones, has made reenlistment for junior officers extremely undesirable. Our son did not know of any junior officers that planned on staying past their enlistment requirements. Many that he knew were extremely bitter about being stop lossed.
The responsibility of young men’s lives is too great to be taken lightly. When they see young men dying needlessly, it is unacceptable, yet they are powerless to do anything.
Our son does not want to see another soldier blown up because someone in headquarters thought it would be a good idea to check IED craters on the side of the road.
He does not want to see another soldier die or become injured permanently because headquarters want convoys to drive around all day as targets for VBIED's, or IED's.
He does not want to set up another checkpoint that does not catch insurgents, but lets units become targets for VBIEDs that drive up and blow themselves up.
Junior officers are responsible for their men. When they cannot protect their soldiers adequately from harm, they cannot do their job, nor do they want to.
There is no satisfaction in this war that is getting worse by the day. Our son said that he did not think that we had any business being in Iraq. Afghanistan, but not Iraq.
On Recruitment Practices; full scale market and research development tools in use now to attempt to overcome the current declining recruitment levels, targeting the younger generation. Read that as designed to tap your children for military service. 'An Army of (No) One: An Inside Look at the Military's Internet Recruiting War' and 'Cyberstalking the Recruitable Teen'
Excerpt: What the military truly values is green teens. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon pays companies like Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), which claims it offers its "clients virtually unlimited methods for researching teens," to get inside kids' heads. It was also recently revealed that the Department of Defense (DoD), with the aid of a private marketing firm, BeNow, has created a database of twelve million youngsters, some only 16 years of age, as part of a program to identify potential recruits. Armed with "names, birth dates, addresses, Social Security numbers, individuals' e-mail addresses, ethnicity, telephone numbers, students' grade-point averages, field of academic study and other data," the Pentagon now has far better ways and means of accurately targeting teens.
Excerpt: What we do know, however, is that JAMRS is currently focusing on the following areas of interest in an attempt to bolster the all-volunteer military:
*Hispanic Barriers to Enlistment: a project to "identify the factors contributing to under-representation of Hispanic youth among military accessions" and "inform future strategies for increasing Hispanic representation among the branches of the Military."
*College Drop Outs/Stop Outs Study: a project "aimed to gain a better understanding of what drives college students to… ‘drop out' and determine how the Services can capitalize on this group of individuals (ages 18-24)."
*Mothers' Attitude Study: "This study gauges the target audience's (270 mothers of 10th- and 11th-grade youth) attitudes toward the Military and enlistment."
Excerpt: Additionally, eyebrows ought to be raised over a Pentagon that is looking at ways to influence the mothers of teens to send their sons and daughters off to war and at a military eager to study what it takes to get kids to "drop out" of school and how the military might then scoop them up.
On Wounded Soldiers, Veterans; facing the hurdles thrown up within the military systems that prohibit medical care they need to recover. See this newspaper article 'The Battle after the Battle'
Excerpt: The day before his 22nd birthday, a bomb hanging from a tree along a road near Fallujah exploded above Rory Dunn’s Humvee.
Dunn’s forehead was crushed from ear to ear, leaving his brain exposed. His right eye was destroyed by shrapnel; the left eye nearly so. His hearing was severely damaged.
Within minutes of the May 2004 explosion, he was strapped on a stretcher and flown by helicopter to a hospital in Baghdad – the first step in his 10-month struggle to recover.
Yet, even as Dunn fought to overcome his traumatic brain injury and other wounds, his mother, Cynthia Lefever, fought the Army to ensure her son continued to receive critical care from Army specialists. Lefever said the Army tried to pressure her son into accepting a discharge before he was ready – pressure other severely wounded soldiers say they’ve experienced, too.
Lefever and other critics say the Army’s medical system, particularly Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., has been overwhelmed by the number of wounded returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They accuse the Army of attempting to discharge wounded soldiers before their essential medical needs are met and transfer them to Veterans Affairs medical facilities.
Excerpt: Fernandez, the retired 1st lieutenant, was injured in a friendly fire incident in Iraq in April 2003. His right leg was amputated below the knee, as was his left foot. He was fitted with eight prosthetics before he found ones that were comfortable.
A graduate of West Point, where he captained the academy’s lacrosse team, Fernandez studied the regulations and was able to “push back” and fend off the discharge for months.
Excerpt: Former Staff Sgt. Jessica Clements of Canton, Ohio, suffered a traumatic brain injury when a bomb – the military calls them “improvised explosive devices” – detonated while she was riding in a convoy near the Baghdad airport. To relieve brain swelling, Clements said, a neurosurgeon at the Baghdad hospital clipped off a piece of her skull and temporarily inserted it into her belly for safe keeping.
“I could feel it,” said Clements of the piece of skull stored in her belly for four months before it was removed and reattached.
As she lay in a bed at Walter Reed, Clements said, she received repeated telephone calls from an Army official telling her she needed to start the discharge process
More on Wounded Soldiers; A snippet of Interview with Jack Robinson, legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America of Dallas, Texas.
Question; What is the process involved when someone is badly injured in Baghdad?
Jack Robinson: They get processed. Then from Baghdad, they usually go to Germany and get transferred to another aircraft. Then they go to Walter Reed. From there, they are processed out to all 50 states in different hospitals and bases. When I was up in Washington, I asked Congressman Chet Edwards how many wounded they had so far because the count I got the year before was over 15,000 wounded and maimed. He said it was into the 40 thousands. Now this is accidents, trucks, everything. That includes mortars and roadside bombs.
Read more; Who Supports the Troops, Part 1 and Part 2, Stories in America
On Depleted Uranium Troop Exposure: Louisiana recently passed legislation giving all returning veterans the right to get a best practices health screening test for exposure to depleted uranium. 'Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Soldiers and Veterans'
My own opinion having researched depleted uranium and soldiers potentially exposed is that it would be wiser to err on the side of caution and heed the expert opinions. Experts say, while again arguments continue in a controversial swirl of is it or isn’t it actively radioactive, that immediate and long-term health consequences compromising genetic makeup will have far-reaching impact onto generations being born and yet unborn. See Traprock for much more detail on depleted uranium.
On Political Scene; politically just now the buzz over Karl Rove deliberately leaking identity of undercover CIA operative to media has uppermost attention on many fronts. Is it treason? Is it administrative complicity in giving aid to the ‘enemy’? Is it criminal? Is it an offense to be prosecuted? Will there be a spin that will enable Karl Rove to waltz around the issue and avoid personal responsibility and accountability? Will this Administration bite the bullet on this and step up to the plate to acknowledge the deception foisted on the American public about reasons for initiating war in Iraq? Will this Administration continue to stonewall on hard issues that perpetuate the continued death and carnage of our deployed troops and Iraqi people?
Whatever it is or is not; one thing is clear to me. It is related to why this country is in Iraq in the first place and at the very least it ought to have every citizen questioning why did we sent combat troops into Iraq and why are they still there and what are the objectives and goals in Iraq? It ought to be abundantly clear by now that the Bush Administration misled America into war in Iraq. In my opinion, with deliberate deceptiveness the Bush Administration pushed an agenda of war in Iraq and it is showing a destabilization of America on a scale yet to be felt and seen. I hope not irreparably, yet fear the damage is one to be born for our coming up generation and even into next generations.
Military families bear the brunt of the political tango being conducted by this President and his administration. It is not an abstract issue for the families with deployed loved ones. It is not an abstract issue for the new young being aggressively and sometimes deceptively recruited into military rank and file. It is not an abstract issue for parents who have pre-teen and teen age youngsters being courted with military recruitment ads on television, and on internet in active campaigns to program their thinking towards offering up themselves in sacrifice at the altar of the Iraq war.
It is not an abstract issue for the families of the returning veterans terribly mutilated, torn of the body by IEDs or torn of the mind by traumatic brain injury or torn of the soul by trauma of carnage, killing and destruction. And it most certainly is not an abstract issue for families of the fallen, ask Cindy Sheehan how abstract it is for her family.
The 5 Rs for military families and the troops; Retention, Recruitment, Recovery, Replenish, Repolitics
Read more
I'm in contact with many military families who share similarities in their family experience to my own. One family has a son going for a third deployment while the daughter returns from her deployment with yet a third son in military service. In yet another family, a son is extended in Iraq beyond his contract even though he has been wounded three times already.
If I tried, I could not make this up. It goes from incredible to incredulous for military families across the country. Borrowing from the words of other military families, and borrowing from what has already been written and published, a panoramic photo forms and solidifies. It becomes difficult to dismantle with the tired spin arguments for why our troops should remain in combat in Iraq or even why they are there in the first place.
But aside from the point / counterpoint abstract arguments that serve the ego of the point of view, what is to become of our loved ones deployed? Has this country abandoned them and their families to suffer the losses while the arguing continues until someone, anyone can figure out how to get it right?
On Retention, Stop Loss, Extensions, Repeat Deployments; see this article;'Mothers on Their Soldier Sons' and read a full discussion on same article content with military families sharing their experiences at 'Stories from the Front'
On Senior and Junior Officers Decline in the ranks; becoming a serious and under reported difficulty. Here is letter from a military mother describing the experience of her son, who is an officer. It speaks quietly yet profoundly to how the soldiers care about each other.
From Army Infantry Mom:
Everyday our son was over in Iraq I just prayed he would come home safe. He was injured but was sent back. He told us each day that he went out, he did not know if he would come back alive.
His men were more important to him than his own welfare. It was his job to keep his men alive, despite some of the orders he was given that put his men in direct danger.
Iraq has become a haven for terrorists everywhere in the Muslim world.
Because of the lack of experience in this type of war, the senior officers have no idea what is happening on the streets. This is a serious problem. The junior officers have very little say in what they do day to day. They are the ones on the front line, making life or death decisions. Seven out of eight soldiers in our sons group died not in fighting insurgents, but as sitting/walking targets.
This is happening all over Iraq. The psychological toll to junior officers is much greater than people realize. Their men are their responsibility, their loss is never forgotten.
The situation in Iraq is not getting better. It has deteriorated. Each new group that is sent over from the states starts from scratch, making the same stupid mistakes that the group they are replacing has made.
There does not seem to be adequate training for replacements in the states by people who have actually been in battle. Our son had to counter many of the things his replacements had been told to do. The junior officers who have been in Iraq should be the ones training the reservists and the National Guard. They essentially have no control, no say in how things are being run, yet they are the ones fighting in the streets everyday.
This coupled with long deployments away from loved ones, has made reenlistment for junior officers extremely undesirable. Our son did not know of any junior officers that planned on staying past their enlistment requirements. Many that he knew were extremely bitter about being stop lossed.
The responsibility of young men’s lives is too great to be taken lightly. When they see young men dying needlessly, it is unacceptable, yet they are powerless to do anything.
Our son does not want to see another soldier blown up because someone in headquarters thought it would be a good idea to check IED craters on the side of the road.
He does not want to see another soldier die or become injured permanently because headquarters want convoys to drive around all day as targets for VBIED's, or IED's.
He does not want to set up another checkpoint that does not catch insurgents, but lets units become targets for VBIEDs that drive up and blow themselves up.
Junior officers are responsible for their men. When they cannot protect their soldiers adequately from harm, they cannot do their job, nor do they want to.
There is no satisfaction in this war that is getting worse by the day. Our son said that he did not think that we had any business being in Iraq. Afghanistan, but not Iraq.
On Recruitment Practices; full scale market and research development tools in use now to attempt to overcome the current declining recruitment levels, targeting the younger generation. Read that as designed to tap your children for military service. 'An Army of (No) One: An Inside Look at the Military's Internet Recruiting War' and 'Cyberstalking the Recruitable Teen'
Excerpt: What the military truly values is green teens. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon pays companies like Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), which claims it offers its "clients virtually unlimited methods for researching teens," to get inside kids' heads. It was also recently revealed that the Department of Defense (DoD), with the aid of a private marketing firm, BeNow, has created a database of twelve million youngsters, some only 16 years of age, as part of a program to identify potential recruits. Armed with "names, birth dates, addresses, Social Security numbers, individuals' e-mail addresses, ethnicity, telephone numbers, students' grade-point averages, field of academic study and other data," the Pentagon now has far better ways and means of accurately targeting teens.
Excerpt: What we do know, however, is that JAMRS is currently focusing on the following areas of interest in an attempt to bolster the all-volunteer military:
*Hispanic Barriers to Enlistment: a project to "identify the factors contributing to under-representation of Hispanic youth among military accessions" and "inform future strategies for increasing Hispanic representation among the branches of the Military."
*College Drop Outs/Stop Outs Study: a project "aimed to gain a better understanding of what drives college students to… ‘drop out' and determine how the Services can capitalize on this group of individuals (ages 18-24)."
*Mothers' Attitude Study: "This study gauges the target audience's (270 mothers of 10th- and 11th-grade youth) attitudes toward the Military and enlistment."
Excerpt: Additionally, eyebrows ought to be raised over a Pentagon that is looking at ways to influence the mothers of teens to send their sons and daughters off to war and at a military eager to study what it takes to get kids to "drop out" of school and how the military might then scoop them up.
On Wounded Soldiers, Veterans; facing the hurdles thrown up within the military systems that prohibit medical care they need to recover. See this newspaper article 'The Battle after the Battle'
Excerpt: The day before his 22nd birthday, a bomb hanging from a tree along a road near Fallujah exploded above Rory Dunn’s Humvee.
Dunn’s forehead was crushed from ear to ear, leaving his brain exposed. His right eye was destroyed by shrapnel; the left eye nearly so. His hearing was severely damaged.
Within minutes of the May 2004 explosion, he was strapped on a stretcher and flown by helicopter to a hospital in Baghdad – the first step in his 10-month struggle to recover.
Yet, even as Dunn fought to overcome his traumatic brain injury and other wounds, his mother, Cynthia Lefever, fought the Army to ensure her son continued to receive critical care from Army specialists. Lefever said the Army tried to pressure her son into accepting a discharge before he was ready – pressure other severely wounded soldiers say they’ve experienced, too.
Lefever and other critics say the Army’s medical system, particularly Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., has been overwhelmed by the number of wounded returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They accuse the Army of attempting to discharge wounded soldiers before their essential medical needs are met and transfer them to Veterans Affairs medical facilities.
Excerpt: Fernandez, the retired 1st lieutenant, was injured in a friendly fire incident in Iraq in April 2003. His right leg was amputated below the knee, as was his left foot. He was fitted with eight prosthetics before he found ones that were comfortable.
A graduate of West Point, where he captained the academy’s lacrosse team, Fernandez studied the regulations and was able to “push back” and fend off the discharge for months.
Excerpt: Former Staff Sgt. Jessica Clements of Canton, Ohio, suffered a traumatic brain injury when a bomb – the military calls them “improvised explosive devices” – detonated while she was riding in a convoy near the Baghdad airport. To relieve brain swelling, Clements said, a neurosurgeon at the Baghdad hospital clipped off a piece of her skull and temporarily inserted it into her belly for safe keeping.
“I could feel it,” said Clements of the piece of skull stored in her belly for four months before it was removed and reattached.
As she lay in a bed at Walter Reed, Clements said, she received repeated telephone calls from an Army official telling her she needed to start the discharge process
More on Wounded Soldiers; A snippet of Interview with Jack Robinson, legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America of Dallas, Texas.
Question; What is the process involved when someone is badly injured in Baghdad?
Jack Robinson: They get processed. Then from Baghdad, they usually go to Germany and get transferred to another aircraft. Then they go to Walter Reed. From there, they are processed out to all 50 states in different hospitals and bases. When I was up in Washington, I asked Congressman Chet Edwards how many wounded they had so far because the count I got the year before was over 15,000 wounded and maimed. He said it was into the 40 thousands. Now this is accidents, trucks, everything. That includes mortars and roadside bombs.
Read more; Who Supports the Troops, Part 1 and Part 2, Stories in America
On Depleted Uranium Troop Exposure: Louisiana recently passed legislation giving all returning veterans the right to get a best practices health screening test for exposure to depleted uranium. 'Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Soldiers and Veterans'
My own opinion having researched depleted uranium and soldiers potentially exposed is that it would be wiser to err on the side of caution and heed the expert opinions. Experts say, while again arguments continue in a controversial swirl of is it or isn’t it actively radioactive, that immediate and long-term health consequences compromising genetic makeup will have far-reaching impact onto generations being born and yet unborn. See Traprock for much more detail on depleted uranium.
On Political Scene; politically just now the buzz over Karl Rove deliberately leaking identity of undercover CIA operative to media has uppermost attention on many fronts. Is it treason? Is it administrative complicity in giving aid to the ‘enemy’? Is it criminal? Is it an offense to be prosecuted? Will there be a spin that will enable Karl Rove to waltz around the issue and avoid personal responsibility and accountability? Will this Administration bite the bullet on this and step up to the plate to acknowledge the deception foisted on the American public about reasons for initiating war in Iraq? Will this Administration continue to stonewall on hard issues that perpetuate the continued death and carnage of our deployed troops and Iraqi people?
Whatever it is or is not; one thing is clear to me. It is related to why this country is in Iraq in the first place and at the very least it ought to have every citizen questioning why did we sent combat troops into Iraq and why are they still there and what are the objectives and goals in Iraq? It ought to be abundantly clear by now that the Bush Administration misled America into war in Iraq. In my opinion, with deliberate deceptiveness the Bush Administration pushed an agenda of war in Iraq and it is showing a destabilization of America on a scale yet to be felt and seen. I hope not irreparably, yet fear the damage is one to be born for our coming up generation and even into next generations.
Military families bear the brunt of the political tango being conducted by this President and his administration. It is not an abstract issue for the families with deployed loved ones. It is not an abstract issue for the new young being aggressively and sometimes deceptively recruited into military rank and file. It is not an abstract issue for parents who have pre-teen and teen age youngsters being courted with military recruitment ads on television, and on internet in active campaigns to program their thinking towards offering up themselves in sacrifice at the altar of the Iraq war.
It is not an abstract issue for the families of the returning veterans terribly mutilated, torn of the body by IEDs or torn of the mind by traumatic brain injury or torn of the soul by trauma of carnage, killing and destruction. And it most certainly is not an abstract issue for families of the fallen, ask Cindy Sheehan how abstract it is for her family.
The 5 Rs for military families and the troops; Retention, Recruitment, Recovery, Replenish, Repolitics
Thursday, June 9, 2005
When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call
A recruitment story that exemplifies the relentless 'wearing down' tactics used by military recruiters. More the 'emotional manipulation' used on the young adults of 17 yrs, 18 yrs who have not yet the maturity of many adult years to recognize the ploys. Exploiting vulnerabilities is not, imo, the proud act and in keeping with the proud honor the marines like to be remembered and known for and shows desperation, not dignity or honor
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
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.
With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.
But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.
Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"
"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.
The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."
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.
The next weekend, when Marcia went to Seattle for the Folklife Festival and Axel was home alone, two recruiters showed up at the door.
Axel repeated the family mantra, but he was feeling frazzled and worn down by then. The sergeant was friendly but, at the same time, aggressively insistent. This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"
Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.
"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.
Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.
He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.
At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."
By then Marcia had "freaked out."
She went to the Burlington recruiting center where the door was open but no one was home. So she grabbed all the cards and numbers she could find, including the address of the Seattle-area testing center.
Then, with her grown daughter in tow, she high-tailed it south, frantically phoning Axel whose cell phone had been confiscated "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests."
Axel's grandfather was in the hospital dying, she told the people at the desk. He needed to come home right away. She would have said just about anything.
But, even after being told her son would be brought right out, her daughter spied him being taken down a separate hall and into another room. So she dashed down the hall and grabbed him by the arm.
"They were telling me I needed to 'be a man' and stand up to my family," Axel said.
What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.
Five minutes and $250 after an attorney called the recruiters, Axel's signed papers and his cell phone were in the mail.
My request to speak with the sergeant who recruited Axel and with the Burlington office about recruitment procedures went unanswered.
And so should your phone, Marcia Cobb advised. Take your own sweet time. Keep your own counsel. And, if you see USMC on caller ID, remember what answering the call could mean.
When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call
Read more
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
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.
With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.
But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.
Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"
"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.
The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."
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.
The next weekend, when Marcia went to Seattle for the Folklife Festival and Axel was home alone, two recruiters showed up at the door.
Axel repeated the family mantra, but he was feeling frazzled and worn down by then. The sergeant was friendly but, at the same time, aggressively insistent. This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"
Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.
"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.
Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.
He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.
At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."
By then Marcia had "freaked out."
She went to the Burlington recruiting center where the door was open but no one was home. So she grabbed all the cards and numbers she could find, including the address of the Seattle-area testing center.
Then, with her grown daughter in tow, she high-tailed it south, frantically phoning Axel whose cell phone had been confiscated "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests."
Axel's grandfather was in the hospital dying, she told the people at the desk. He needed to come home right away. She would have said just about anything.
But, even after being told her son would be brought right out, her daughter spied him being taken down a separate hall and into another room. So she dashed down the hall and grabbed him by the arm.
"They were telling me I needed to 'be a man' and stand up to my family," Axel said.
What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.
Five minutes and $250 after an attorney called the recruiters, Axel's signed papers and his cell phone were in the mail.
My request to speak with the sergeant who recruited Axel and with the Burlington office about recruitment procedures went unanswered.
And so should your phone, Marcia Cobb advised. Take your own sweet time. Keep your own counsel. And, if you see USMC on caller ID, remember what answering the call could mean.
When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call
Monday, April 18, 2005
Army helicopter lands at Port Angeles, Sequim high schools in bid to interest recruits
Local news in area where I live, Pacific Northwest. Military Recruitment efforts at work in the high schools.
2005-04-14
by RAUL VASQUEZ
``We need people.''
That's how 2nd Lt. Ray Leonard, pilot of an Army National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, summed up the state of his Fort Lewis-based unit as he landed the copter on two North Olympic Peninsula high school campuses.
Leonard and several other soldiers and recruiters touched down at Sequim and Port Angeles high schools, showing off the Black Hawk helicopter to students and staff.
While a steady stream of people gawked at the 1979-model utility tactical transport helicopter, many onlookers unloaded a series of questions about the 65-foot-long aircraft to the Army visitors.
A few students picked up Army National Guard recruiting materials -- including a keychain in the shape of a Army Humvee bearing the National Guard's telephone number -- from a box near the helicopter.
Need for more enlisteds
The pilot for this special mission was Leonard, who explained how his 66th Aviation Brigade at Fort Lewis is in dire need of more personnel.
``We were asked by Army recruiters to come out and show them [the helicopter],'' Leonard said.
``In my unit, we need people. We're short 17 pilots and basically a support crew at every level of the support process.''
While he hasn't been ordered to either Iraq or Afghanistan, Leonard said he understands that it could happen at any moment.
Not only for him, but for anyone who signs up in the Army National Guard.
``Maybe we will stay here longer, or it could be that we will have to go,'' said Leonard, who says his unit mostly carries out missions for the ROTC and to assist in operations around Mount Rainier.
``If you join the military, the odds are you very well might have to go [to Iraq or Afghanistan].''
That observation was not lost on one student, Ted Haeg, who talked at length with Leonard about the helicopter at Port Angeles High School.
``Personally, it's really interesting,'' said Haeg, who said he's considering joining the Army after graduating from high school.
``I've always wanted to be a Ranger, but because of the war, I don't know.
``The whole war aspect is really scary -- getting killed, you know.''
peninsuladailynews.com - Army helicopter lands at Port Angeles, Sequim high schools in bid to interest recruits
Read more
2005-04-14
by RAUL VASQUEZ
``We need people.''
That's how 2nd Lt. Ray Leonard, pilot of an Army National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, summed up the state of his Fort Lewis-based unit as he landed the copter on two North Olympic Peninsula high school campuses.
Leonard and several other soldiers and recruiters touched down at Sequim and Port Angeles high schools, showing off the Black Hawk helicopter to students and staff.
While a steady stream of people gawked at the 1979-model utility tactical transport helicopter, many onlookers unloaded a series of questions about the 65-foot-long aircraft to the Army visitors.
A few students picked up Army National Guard recruiting materials -- including a keychain in the shape of a Army Humvee bearing the National Guard's telephone number -- from a box near the helicopter.
Need for more enlisteds
The pilot for this special mission was Leonard, who explained how his 66th Aviation Brigade at Fort Lewis is in dire need of more personnel.
``We were asked by Army recruiters to come out and show them [the helicopter],'' Leonard said.
``In my unit, we need people. We're short 17 pilots and basically a support crew at every level of the support process.''
While he hasn't been ordered to either Iraq or Afghanistan, Leonard said he understands that it could happen at any moment.
Not only for him, but for anyone who signs up in the Army National Guard.
``Maybe we will stay here longer, or it could be that we will have to go,'' said Leonard, who says his unit mostly carries out missions for the ROTC and to assist in operations around Mount Rainier.
``If you join the military, the odds are you very well might have to go [to Iraq or Afghanistan].''
That observation was not lost on one student, Ted Haeg, who talked at length with Leonard about the helicopter at Port Angeles High School.
``Personally, it's really interesting,'' said Haeg, who said he's considering joining the Army after graduating from high school.
``I've always wanted to be a Ranger, but because of the war, I don't know.
``The whole war aspect is really scary -- getting killed, you know.''
peninsuladailynews.com - Army helicopter lands at Port Angeles, Sequim high schools in bid to interest recruits
Saturday, April 9, 2005
Two years later, military is depleted; National Guard is most strained branch
A gritty report of reality here; for all the 'creative' efforts on part of the military to meet the demands of this Administration, it would seem implosion has been reached.
By ANN SCOTT TYSON
The Washington Post
March 20. 2005 11:12PM
WASHINGTON - Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts.
The unexpectedly heavy demands of sustained ground combat are depleting military manpower and gear faster than they can be fully replenished. Shortfalls in recruiting and backlogs in needed equipment are taking a toll, and growing numbers of units have been broken apart or taxed by repeated deployments, particularly in the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.
"What keeps me awake at night is, what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?" Gen. Richard Cody, Army vice chief of staff, said at a Senate hearing last week.
The Iraq war has also led to a drop in the overall readiness of U.S. ground forces to handle threats at home and abroad, forcing the Pentagon to accept new risks - even as military planners prepare for a global anti-terrorism campaign that administration officials say could last for a generation.
Stretched by Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States lacks a sufficiently robust ability to put large numbers of "boots on the ground" in case of a major emergency elsewhere, such as the Korean Peninsula, in the view of some Republican and Democratic lawmakers and some military leaders.
.....snipped
Moreover, military leaders are taking steps to ease stress on the troops by temporarily boosting ranks; rebalancing forces to add badly needed infantry, military police and civil affairs troops; and employing civilians where possible. Friday, defense officials worried about recruiting announced that they will raise the age limit, from 34 to 40, for enlistment in the Army Guard and Reserve. The Pentagon is spending billions to repair and replace battle-worn equipment and buy extra armor, radios, weapons and other gear.
Yet such remedies take time, and no one, including senior officials, can predict how long the all-volunteer force can sustain this accelerated wartime pace. Recruiting troubles, especially, threaten the force at its core. But with a return to the draft widely viewed as economically and politically untenable, senior military leaders say the nation's security depends on drumming up broader public support for service.
"If we don't get this thing right, the risk is off the scale," said Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, the military's most stressed branch.
....snipped
Growing demands
As the military struggles to find fresh recruits, there is unprecedented strain on service members and their families.
Since 2001, the U.S. military has deployed more than 1 million troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 341,000, or nearly a third, serving two or more overseas tours.
Today, an entrenched insurgency in Iraq ties down 150,000 U.S. troops, inflicting upwards of 1,500 deaths so far - more than 10 times the number killed in the major combat operations that President Bush declared ended on May 1, 2003.
Because of the spreading violence from the insurgency, coupled with a smaller foreign coalition than was hoped for, the U.S. Army and Marines in particular have scrambled to keep a force of roughly 17 brigades in Iraq until now, rather than draw down to eight brigades or even be out altogether, according to previous military projections.
...snippped
As it rounds up troops for deployments, the Army has had to allocate limited equipment. It has shuffled thousands of items from radios to rifles between units, geared up new industrial production, and depleted the Army's pre-positioned stocks of tanks, Humvees and other assets to outfit units for combat.
Army stocks in Southwest Asia are exhausted, and those in Europe have also been "picked over," one U.S. official said. Roughly half of the Army and Marine equipment stored afloat on ships has been used up, the official said. Refilling the stocks must wait until the Iraq war winds down, Army officials say.
Meanwhile, a sizable portion of Marine and Army gear is in Iraq, wearing out at up to six times the normal rate. Battle losses are mounting; the Army has lost 79 aircraft and scores of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. "We are equip-stretched, let there be no doubt about it. . . . This Army started this war not fully equipped," Cody said in recent congressional testimony.
The priority on allocating scarce resources to deployed units means that forces rotating back home -especially reserve units - are dropping in readiness. In many cases, they are being rated at the lowest level, C4, because of a lack of functioning equipment, required training or manpower.
"The Army in the aggregate is reporting readiness levels that are less today than they have been in the past," said Paul Mayberry, deputy to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
.....snipped
Feeling the strain
Of all the military branches, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are suffering the most, as they provide between a third and half of the troops in Iraq, despite a legacy of chronic shortages in their manning and equipment.
"The real stress on the system was the fact that no one envisioned that we would have this level of commitment for the National Guard," which shipped seven combat brigades to Iraq and Afghanistan for the most recent rotation, Cody said.
Because the Army traditionally undersupplies Guard and reserve units, few had the troops or gear needed when mobilized. As a result, large numbers of soldiers and equipment were shifted from one unit to another, or "cross-leveled," to cobble together a force to deploy.
"We were woefully underequipped before the war started. That situation hasn't gotten any better. As a matter of fact, it gets a little bit worse every day, because we continue to cross-level," Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told Congress this month.
The widespread fracturing of units is making it increasingly difficult for the Army to assemble viable forces from the remaining hodgepodge - most of which have low readiness ratings, Army figures show. "It's a little bit like Swiss cheese. We've taken out holes in the units," Lovelace said. "Those holes are a lot of times leaders, and they are hard to grow."
Already, the Guard and Reserve have deployed the vast majority of their forces most needed for fighting counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan - such as military intelligence, civil affairs, infantry and military police - bringing into question whether the Pentagon's two-year limit on reserve mobilizations is sustainable.
"Can we do this forever? No. We can't do this forever at current levels," the Army National Guard's Schultz said in an interview.
In a sign of deeper problems, career citizen-soldiers frustrated by broken units and long, grueling war-zone duties are increasingly leaving the Guard. Attrition among career guardsmen is running at nearly 20 percent, said Schultz, who expects that as many as a third of the members of some units rotating back from Iraq will quit.
Recruitment is sluggish, reaching just 75 percent of the target for the first quarter of fiscal 2005 - meaning that the Guard is unlikely to reach its desired strength of 350,000 soldiers this year.
The viability of the Army Guard and Reserve will prove decisive, senior Army leaders say, as they consider in 2006 whether to permanently increase the size of the active-duty Army, and if so by how much. It also marks a critical test of the military's ability to appeal to the civilian population, not only with bonuses and education benefits, but also with an ethos of self-sacrifice that it considers the bedrock of the all-volunteer force.
"For the all-volunteer force to work, it has to work all the time, not just in peacetime," Schultz said. "It's now time to answer the call to serve, to assemble on the village green."
read entire article at Concord Monitor Online
Read more
By ANN SCOTT TYSON
The Washington Post
March 20. 2005 11:12PM
WASHINGTON - Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts.
The unexpectedly heavy demands of sustained ground combat are depleting military manpower and gear faster than they can be fully replenished. Shortfalls in recruiting and backlogs in needed equipment are taking a toll, and growing numbers of units have been broken apart or taxed by repeated deployments, particularly in the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.
"What keeps me awake at night is, what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?" Gen. Richard Cody, Army vice chief of staff, said at a Senate hearing last week.
The Iraq war has also led to a drop in the overall readiness of U.S. ground forces to handle threats at home and abroad, forcing the Pentagon to accept new risks - even as military planners prepare for a global anti-terrorism campaign that administration officials say could last for a generation.
Stretched by Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States lacks a sufficiently robust ability to put large numbers of "boots on the ground" in case of a major emergency elsewhere, such as the Korean Peninsula, in the view of some Republican and Democratic lawmakers and some military leaders.
.....snipped
Moreover, military leaders are taking steps to ease stress on the troops by temporarily boosting ranks; rebalancing forces to add badly needed infantry, military police and civil affairs troops; and employing civilians where possible. Friday, defense officials worried about recruiting announced that they will raise the age limit, from 34 to 40, for enlistment in the Army Guard and Reserve. The Pentagon is spending billions to repair and replace battle-worn equipment and buy extra armor, radios, weapons and other gear.
Yet such remedies take time, and no one, including senior officials, can predict how long the all-volunteer force can sustain this accelerated wartime pace. Recruiting troubles, especially, threaten the force at its core. But with a return to the draft widely viewed as economically and politically untenable, senior military leaders say the nation's security depends on drumming up broader public support for service.
"If we don't get this thing right, the risk is off the scale," said Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, the military's most stressed branch.
....snipped
Growing demands
As the military struggles to find fresh recruits, there is unprecedented strain on service members and their families.
Since 2001, the U.S. military has deployed more than 1 million troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 341,000, or nearly a third, serving two or more overseas tours.
Today, an entrenched insurgency in Iraq ties down 150,000 U.S. troops, inflicting upwards of 1,500 deaths so far - more than 10 times the number killed in the major combat operations that President Bush declared ended on May 1, 2003.
Because of the spreading violence from the insurgency, coupled with a smaller foreign coalition than was hoped for, the U.S. Army and Marines in particular have scrambled to keep a force of roughly 17 brigades in Iraq until now, rather than draw down to eight brigades or even be out altogether, according to previous military projections.
...snippped
As it rounds up troops for deployments, the Army has had to allocate limited equipment. It has shuffled thousands of items from radios to rifles between units, geared up new industrial production, and depleted the Army's pre-positioned stocks of tanks, Humvees and other assets to outfit units for combat.
Army stocks in Southwest Asia are exhausted, and those in Europe have also been "picked over," one U.S. official said. Roughly half of the Army and Marine equipment stored afloat on ships has been used up, the official said. Refilling the stocks must wait until the Iraq war winds down, Army officials say.
Meanwhile, a sizable portion of Marine and Army gear is in Iraq, wearing out at up to six times the normal rate. Battle losses are mounting; the Army has lost 79 aircraft and scores of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. "We are equip-stretched, let there be no doubt about it. . . . This Army started this war not fully equipped," Cody said in recent congressional testimony.
The priority on allocating scarce resources to deployed units means that forces rotating back home -especially reserve units - are dropping in readiness. In many cases, they are being rated at the lowest level, C4, because of a lack of functioning equipment, required training or manpower.
"The Army in the aggregate is reporting readiness levels that are less today than they have been in the past," said Paul Mayberry, deputy to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
.....snipped
Feeling the strain
Of all the military branches, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are suffering the most, as they provide between a third and half of the troops in Iraq, despite a legacy of chronic shortages in their manning and equipment.
"The real stress on the system was the fact that no one envisioned that we would have this level of commitment for the National Guard," which shipped seven combat brigades to Iraq and Afghanistan for the most recent rotation, Cody said.
Because the Army traditionally undersupplies Guard and reserve units, few had the troops or gear needed when mobilized. As a result, large numbers of soldiers and equipment were shifted from one unit to another, or "cross-leveled," to cobble together a force to deploy.
"We were woefully underequipped before the war started. That situation hasn't gotten any better. As a matter of fact, it gets a little bit worse every day, because we continue to cross-level," Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told Congress this month.
The widespread fracturing of units is making it increasingly difficult for the Army to assemble viable forces from the remaining hodgepodge - most of which have low readiness ratings, Army figures show. "It's a little bit like Swiss cheese. We've taken out holes in the units," Lovelace said. "Those holes are a lot of times leaders, and they are hard to grow."
Already, the Guard and Reserve have deployed the vast majority of their forces most needed for fighting counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan - such as military intelligence, civil affairs, infantry and military police - bringing into question whether the Pentagon's two-year limit on reserve mobilizations is sustainable.
"Can we do this forever? No. We can't do this forever at current levels," the Army National Guard's Schultz said in an interview.
In a sign of deeper problems, career citizen-soldiers frustrated by broken units and long, grueling war-zone duties are increasingly leaving the Guard. Attrition among career guardsmen is running at nearly 20 percent, said Schultz, who expects that as many as a third of the members of some units rotating back from Iraq will quit.
Recruitment is sluggish, reaching just 75 percent of the target for the first quarter of fiscal 2005 - meaning that the Guard is unlikely to reach its desired strength of 350,000 soldiers this year.
The viability of the Army Guard and Reserve will prove decisive, senior Army leaders say, as they consider in 2006 whether to permanently increase the size of the active-duty Army, and if so by how much. It also marks a critical test of the military's ability to appeal to the civilian population, not only with bonuses and education benefits, but also with an ethos of self-sacrifice that it considers the bedrock of the all-volunteer force.
"For the all-volunteer force to work, it has to work all the time, not just in peacetime," Schultz said. "It's now time to answer the call to serve, to assemble on the village green."
read entire article at Concord Monitor Online
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents
Parent Alert. Mom Alert. They really do want your kids and no matter how they spin it, those kids Will wind up in Iraq.
Ask this Mom who knows; our two young loved ones are under orders for 2nd deployment to Iraq in just a few short months. And they have already been told they are 'Stop Lossed' (means they are required to serve with their unit beyond their contracted time, and until the military says otherwise). And both were to make re-enlistment decision last month to sign on for another 6 years (it used to be 3-4 years, now it's 6 years).
Faced with orders back to Iraq and Stop Lossed in the concluding year of their original enlistment, this is not much of a choice. Options; don't re-enlist and they are back in Iraq anyway + stop lossed less the re-enlist bonus. Re-enlist; give up another 6 years and have the nifty re-enlist bonus and do rotation deployments to Iraq or whatever is the next country that will be invaded to spread democracy. Then it could be said that they willingly re-enlisted knowing the consequences and gee, aren't they valiant soldiers.
It's a double-bind entrapment; conscription and draft. Think the military isn't having problems with retention? Think our country isn't already engaged in a draft? Think aggressive and creative marketing to recruit doesn't point to a real problem with the support for all this carnage and destruction in Iraq in .... what were the reasons we went into Iraq? Oh yeah, terrorism, wmd, Saddam Hussein the brutal dictator, (oil ) and what is the reason now? Stabilizing the Middle East and spreading democracy and Freedom.
Of course, it must be concluded that the general American populace would not have supported an invasion if the real reasons to invade were the original marketing message. Instead the fear-based message was marketed to get us into a war from which this Administration has no intention of withdrawing. Wouldn't you think if the Adminstration thought the American public could stomach the political reasons for taking us into war that message would have been the marketing message? So why are we still there and how long can one dupe themselves into believing the daily deaths and extreme maiming of our young is worthwhile?
They are coming for your young now, be warned and be aware. Fool yourself into believing your own should give up life and limb in this ignoble war. And while you are protecting your own young, please bring mine home.
Article; Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents
USA TODAY
April 5, 2005
WASHINGTON - Faced with wilting recruitment and ongoing violence in Iraq, Army and Marine Corps recruiters are turning their attention to those most likely to oppose them: parents.
The two branches are shifting from a strategy that focused first on wooing potential recruits to one aimed at gaining the trust and attention of their parents by using grass-roots initiatives and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns.
The public relations push comes as the Army and Marines, which absorb the brunt of the casualties in Iraq, encounter one of their worst periods in recruitment.
Among their initiatives:
* Four new "influencer" TV ads by the Army, aimed at moms, dads, coaches and ministers. The ads air this month.
* A decision to pair Army recruiters with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on visits to the homes of potential recruits. The idea: Tell parents "the Army story," says Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Pamela Hart. * A nine-minute video, "Parents Speak," in which parents of Marines say the Corps has been good for their children.
* A direct-mail campaign by the Marines to parents of high school juniors and seniors. The Marines highlight the benefits of joining and ask for an opportunity to talk to the students' parents about a military career.
Studies for the Army show parents are the top obstacles to recruiting. "Opposition to . . . military service is increasing significantly among both moms and dads," says a study of 1,200 potential recruits by the firm Millward Brown.
Another look at potential recruits, by GfK Custom Research, found that the biggest influences in candidates' decisions to join were mothers, named by 81% of respondents, followed by fathers, at 70%.
"Reach the parents with the Army's new message, particularly moms," the study urges.
Both branches are trying to convince parents their children will be instilled with integrity and job skills and that service in Iraq is not a death sentence.
Still, recruitment numbers sag. In February, the Army missed its recruiting goal for the first time in nearly five years. The Army missed its March goal by 32%.
Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents
Read more
Ask this Mom who knows; our two young loved ones are under orders for 2nd deployment to Iraq in just a few short months. And they have already been told they are 'Stop Lossed' (means they are required to serve with their unit beyond their contracted time, and until the military says otherwise). And both were to make re-enlistment decision last month to sign on for another 6 years (it used to be 3-4 years, now it's 6 years).
Faced with orders back to Iraq and Stop Lossed in the concluding year of their original enlistment, this is not much of a choice. Options; don't re-enlist and they are back in Iraq anyway + stop lossed less the re-enlist bonus. Re-enlist; give up another 6 years and have the nifty re-enlist bonus and do rotation deployments to Iraq or whatever is the next country that will be invaded to spread democracy. Then it could be said that they willingly re-enlisted knowing the consequences and gee, aren't they valiant soldiers.
It's a double-bind entrapment; conscription and draft. Think the military isn't having problems with retention? Think our country isn't already engaged in a draft? Think aggressive and creative marketing to recruit doesn't point to a real problem with the support for all this carnage and destruction in Iraq in .... what were the reasons we went into Iraq? Oh yeah, terrorism, wmd, Saddam Hussein the brutal dictator, (oil ) and what is the reason now? Stabilizing the Middle East and spreading democracy and Freedom.
Of course, it must be concluded that the general American populace would not have supported an invasion if the real reasons to invade were the original marketing message. Instead the fear-based message was marketed to get us into a war from which this Administration has no intention of withdrawing. Wouldn't you think if the Adminstration thought the American public could stomach the political reasons for taking us into war that message would have been the marketing message? So why are we still there and how long can one dupe themselves into believing the daily deaths and extreme maiming of our young is worthwhile?
They are coming for your young now, be warned and be aware. Fool yourself into believing your own should give up life and limb in this ignoble war. And while you are protecting your own young, please bring mine home.
Article; Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents
USA TODAY
April 5, 2005
WASHINGTON - Faced with wilting recruitment and ongoing violence in Iraq, Army and Marine Corps recruiters are turning their attention to those most likely to oppose them: parents.
The two branches are shifting from a strategy that focused first on wooing potential recruits to one aimed at gaining the trust and attention of their parents by using grass-roots initiatives and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns.
The public relations push comes as the Army and Marines, which absorb the brunt of the casualties in Iraq, encounter one of their worst periods in recruitment.
Among their initiatives:
* Four new "influencer" TV ads by the Army, aimed at moms, dads, coaches and ministers. The ads air this month.
* A decision to pair Army recruiters with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on visits to the homes of potential recruits. The idea: Tell parents "the Army story," says Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Pamela Hart. * A nine-minute video, "Parents Speak," in which parents of Marines say the Corps has been good for their children.
* A direct-mail campaign by the Marines to parents of high school juniors and seniors. The Marines highlight the benefits of joining and ask for an opportunity to talk to the students' parents about a military career.
Studies for the Army show parents are the top obstacles to recruiting. "Opposition to . . . military service is increasing significantly among both moms and dads," says a study of 1,200 potential recruits by the firm Millward Brown.
Another look at potential recruits, by GfK Custom Research, found that the biggest influences in candidates' decisions to join were mothers, named by 81% of respondents, followed by fathers, at 70%.
"Reach the parents with the Army's new message, particularly moms," the study urges.
Both branches are trying to convince parents their children will be instilled with integrity and job skills and that service in Iraq is not a death sentence.
Still, recruitment numbers sag. In February, the Army missed its recruiting goal for the first time in nearly five years. The Army missed its March goal by 32%.
Recruiters Shift Focus To Parents
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets
Much as I'd like to find a way to make those neat and tidy short entries to this blog; equally it concerns me how information on the troops has tendency to 'disappear' fairly quickly after it comes to light. Here is another article, comprehensive and worth reading if you are among those concerned about the very distinct possibility of something resembling a more 'official' draft in the near offing.
As for me, of course I don't want to see a draft, ie, 1960's, as I've already lived that history, having my own then young husband drafted and sent to Vietnam. And no I don't want to see more young sent into carnage and destruction in Iraq. Yet, equally, what of the troops already there stretched thin beyond human limits? Who will give them relief? How will they perform their impossible assigned missions with troop shortages? How efficient is a military command without the 'bodies' to deploy?
And this same nation who voted for war in re-electing this President, using all the shallow patriotism slogans....maybe it's your turn now to step up to the plate....send yours, bring mine home. Mine already served, mine are up for 2nd deployments to Iraq in a few short months.
Let's spread the wealth, redistribute the call to patriotic duty to the wider masses, and where are all those republican families who believe we need this war in Iraq when it comes time to send their own young? These are my sarcastic thoughts, which goes to my sense of anger, hurt and betrayal at how the troops are being so badly misused and left to carry the burden of combat without the support of the nation they are supposedly defending. Support the troops; send your own. No? God forbid; then decide, America, are we in a war and at war and a 'just war' or are we jockeying position to save face for all the empty political rhetoric and posturing that took this nation into war and an Administration that has acknowledged it will be a war to go on for years and years?
Who will fight this ongoing years and years war if recruitment continues to be on the decline....seriously in decline? Our dwindling assigned troops who have been conscripted through back door draft policies using 'under the radar' strategies to avoid a publicly known need for something to ameliorate the troop shortage won't live on to fight another day indefinitely. Is the philosophy to fight on till the last man is left standing?
What are the solutions? What are the questions? Where is the authentic dialogue to address the realities of assigning our country and their young to years and years of war in Iraq, in the Middle East? You tell me; I really want to know as our family endures yet another 2nd deployment of our young loved ones to Iraq. Answer to this military family and challenge my patriotism for daring to speak in concern for our troops and loved ones; will you put your own where you have mouthed the platitudes? Will you slap a yellow magnet on your vehicle and march your youngsters down to the recuriting stations? Will you turn a blind eye as the schools make your student a potential target to recruitment? No!?
Then why should my loved ones still be there?
Lietta Ruger, military brat, military family of Vietnam-era, military family in this questionable war in Iraq.
Read the Article here Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets
Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets
Read more
As for me, of course I don't want to see a draft, ie, 1960's, as I've already lived that history, having my own then young husband drafted and sent to Vietnam. And no I don't want to see more young sent into carnage and destruction in Iraq. Yet, equally, what of the troops already there stretched thin beyond human limits? Who will give them relief? How will they perform their impossible assigned missions with troop shortages? How efficient is a military command without the 'bodies' to deploy?
And this same nation who voted for war in re-electing this President, using all the shallow patriotism slogans....maybe it's your turn now to step up to the plate....send yours, bring mine home. Mine already served, mine are up for 2nd deployments to Iraq in a few short months.
Let's spread the wealth, redistribute the call to patriotic duty to the wider masses, and where are all those republican families who believe we need this war in Iraq when it comes time to send their own young? These are my sarcastic thoughts, which goes to my sense of anger, hurt and betrayal at how the troops are being so badly misused and left to carry the burden of combat without the support of the nation they are supposedly defending. Support the troops; send your own. No? God forbid; then decide, America, are we in a war and at war and a 'just war' or are we jockeying position to save face for all the empty political rhetoric and posturing that took this nation into war and an Administration that has acknowledged it will be a war to go on for years and years?
Who will fight this ongoing years and years war if recruitment continues to be on the decline....seriously in decline? Our dwindling assigned troops who have been conscripted through back door draft policies using 'under the radar' strategies to avoid a publicly known need for something to ameliorate the troop shortage won't live on to fight another day indefinitely. Is the philosophy to fight on till the last man is left standing?
What are the solutions? What are the questions? Where is the authentic dialogue to address the realities of assigning our country and their young to years and years of war in Iraq, in the Middle East? You tell me; I really want to know as our family endures yet another 2nd deployment of our young loved ones to Iraq. Answer to this military family and challenge my patriotism for daring to speak in concern for our troops and loved ones; will you put your own where you have mouthed the platitudes? Will you slap a yellow magnet on your vehicle and march your youngsters down to the recuriting stations? Will you turn a blind eye as the schools make your student a potential target to recruitment? No!?
Then why should my loved ones still be there?
Lietta Ruger, military brat, military family of Vietnam-era, military family in this questionable war in Iraq.
Read the Article here Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets
Army Still Misses Recruiting Targets
Thursday, February 17, 2005
5 Units Of Military Reserve Miss Recruiting Goals
In a sign of continued stress on the armed forces from operations in Iraq, five of the six military reserve components have failed to meet their recruiting goals for the first four months of the current fiscal year, the military's top officer said on Wednesday. The officer, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee that only the Marine Corps Reserve had achieved its recruiting quota through January. General Myers said the Army Reserve and the National Guard had been particularly hard hit because the Army was retaining more soldiers on active duty instead of letting them retire and join the reserve. A spokesman for the Army's Recruiting Command, S. Douglas Smith, said the Army Reserve was increasing the number of recruiters to 1,524 by April, from 981 in January. He also said the Reserve was offering new bonuses of $15,000 for recruits with military experience and $10,000 for those without.
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