Tougher sell for recruiters: Dad

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0514/p01s03-usmi.html

Tougher sell for recruiters: Dad
The percentage of fathers who would support military service for their kids dropped from 77 percent in 2003 to 59 percent by last August, according to defense officials.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor


BELLE VERNON, PA. - Here among the rolling hills of southwestern Pennsylvania, where the effects of the shuttered steel industry still linger and some single-family homes go for under $25,000, Marine recruiter Gunnery Sgt. Brian Bensen has a lot going for him: a love for his Marine Corps, a sense of compassion, and what many military recruiters call "the gift of gab."

But even a successful recruiter like Sergeant Bensen can find it difficult to convince a wary public that enlisting in the military, and maybe deploying to a war zone, is the way to go. That's especially true when it comes to convincing many would-be recruits, as well as their mothers – and now, increasingly, their fathers, too.

It's a sign of the new difficulties in selling Americans on the tradition of service to one's country at a time when the military is growing and the public's patience for the war in Iraq is on the wane.

Parents are more involved than ever in their children's life decisions, and in recent years their approval has emerged as a key factor when it comes to signing on the military's dotted line. Mothers have always tended to be skeptical. But when the Pentagon polled these so-called influencers last year, it found a troubling new trend: Now fathers are expressing more concern.

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That's a lot of fathers who don't follow the news.

I know a father who is hostile toward his three teenage daughters. (He has full custody after a divorce and his ex-wife has been thwarted from seeing her children.) The middle daughter was entering her freshman year in college. She had a trust fund set aside by her grandfather to pay for her education, but this man squandered the money on himself and his new wife and thus could not pay for the tuition. In order to cover his tracks, he secretly enlisted his daughter in the military in order that they pay for the tuition. I am serious. When she found out, she freaked and understood that Iraq was a real possibility. She was able to get out of the enlistment by the fact that she herself did not sign up with her signature. Her father wanted her to do this, but she outright refused. She is now on scholarship and just finished her junior year. I don't know what happened after that.

male or female. And how did her dad get his paws on her trust fund? That's sick; I'm glad she got out of it.

fiduciary as a parent and raided the money for "preliminary expenses" which was NEVER accounted for by the Trustee. Yeah, it's a safe opinion to conclude he hates his child and she has nothing to do with him now.

i've never heard of such a thing.

She found out when she got her "Welcome Letter" after it was processed.