How Far Will The Army Go?

ARVADA, Colo. (CBS4) -- Last month the U.S. Army failed to meet its goal of 6,800 new troops.

Aware of this trend, David McSwane, a local high school student, decided he wanted to find out to what extent some recruiters would go to sign up soldiers who were not up to grade.

McSwane, 17, is actually just the kind of teenager the military would like. He's a high school journalist and honor student at Arvada West High School. But McSwane decided he wanted to see "how far the Army would go during a war to get one more solider."

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When the TV station contacted the recruiting battalion commander, the commander stopped the two unethical recruiters from recruiting. And they brought the one guy who PCSed back to the area for "action"--which usually involves three-pound sledgehammers, anvils and penises.

they do this all the time. If your kids do not know they are talking to used car salemen then they need to know that.

The rules only apply when they need them. They will pull people in, any way they can when they feel like it. It's a numbers game, according to my husband who served in the first gulf war, "rules are flexible" when you need warm bodies, you are told to do whatever it takes.

You remember that scene in Private Benjamin where the recruiter showed her a picture of Fort Ord? Recruiters used to actually do that.

My recruiter was slightly different. He had a buddy who was a drill sergeant. He got the DS to send him a lot of pictures of drill sergeants "correcting" trainees by yelling at them, making them do pushups, flutter kicks, mountainclimbers, all that fun stuff. He had a picture of trainees crawling through a mudhole while three DSes were pointing at them and laughing. Then he had a bunch of pictures of guys at advanced individual training digging ditches and pulling weeds instead of being advanced individually trained. Next, he had a whole photo album from such garden spots as Fort Benning, Georgia, and Fort Hood, Texas. And finally, he had a picture of one of the military cemeteries in France so you could see what might happen to you if war broke out.

Why would he have such a thing? It weeded out the people who were just looking for college money. After you got done looking at Sergeant Yasenak's photo album, if you hadn't run screaming out the door then he'd tell you about the good parts of being in the army--and yes, there are good parts to being in the army.

While I was in AIT, I got a letter from my mom. In it was a picture of Sergeant Yasenak cut out of Newsweek. He had been chosen Army recruiter of the year, and what sealed it for him was percentage of enlistees who graduate from training and move to the active force. Apparently, telling prospects how bad the Army sucks gets you recruits who actually want to be in the Army.

Unfortunately, Sergeant Yasenak's approach wouldn't work today; he'd tell his prospects the current US body count from Iraq and they'd be out the door.

Every salesman at the Cadillac dealer was under pressure to make maximum sales by the month end deadline. They were going to terminate the several weaker salesmen. Robin Williams was one of the salesmen and there were some funny scenes of him trying to hook a customer, like the bereaved widow at her husband's funera. Also starred antiwar activist hero Tim Robbins.

You vote for the guy, you rah-rah his war, but you can't get up off your lazy cowardly asses and go fight it.

There are THOUSANDS of College Republicans and I don't see them cramming into recruiting stations, now do I?

Hmmm.

And seeing how both warm and cold body counts have been quota driven, I can see why many people oppose quotas--only they do it in the wrong context.

I've been out for 18 yrs and I see they still haven't changed. Must be that "Tradition" they like to talk about.