It’s one thing to entice folks to sign up for the military based on appeals to patriotism and honor. Some folks have a problem with that; I don’t.
It’s another thing to do it by selling the benefits, the training, the education credits, etc. And that’s fine, too — some people respond better to that.
It’s a whole other ball of wax to outright (and outrageously) lie to get people to sign on the dotted line.
An ABC News undercover investigation showed Army recruiters telling students that the war in Iraq was over, in an effort to get them to enlist. ABC News and New York affiliate WABC equipped students with hidden video cameras before they visited 10 Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
“Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?” one student asks a recruiter.
“No, we’re bringing people back,” he replies.
“We’re not at war. War ended a long time ago,” another recruiter says.
Now, I’ll confess to a bit of “Well, if the kids are idiots enough to not know what’s going on, or to accept such a blatant mis-truth without checking first before they sign up for military service, they deserve whatever they get” reaction. Caveat enlistor. But that doesn’t excuse in any way this sort of out-and-out deception on the part of the recruiters.
ABC News found one recruiter who even claimed if you didn’t like the Army, you could just quit.
“It’s called a ‘Failure to Adapt’ discharge,” the recruiter said. “It’s an entry-level discharge so it won’t affect anything on your record. It’ll just be like it never happened.”
ABC did interview the colonel in charge of recruitment for the Army in the Northeast, and he made it clear these were not correct or acceptable answers. He did characterize them as “exceptions,” though, not the rule.
To me, the way to prove that would be to determine whether the folks assigned to that duty (and caught on tape dishonoring their uniform and the service) had their asses royally busted for it. Or, better yet, were themselves reassigned off to that place where “we’re not at war” to serve out the rest of their term of enlistment …
(via Scott)
Um, how come a botched joke about the President’s education (or lack thereof) can cause so much outrage, but explicitly assuming that the folks you’re trying to recruit into the army are clueless–and preying on that assumption–is seen as just a normal recruitment tactic?