Last week, my mom and I were sitting in a coffee shop, talking and trying to keep her mind off of her husband's recent six-month deployment to Middle East, when we overheard a military recruiter talking to some kids that couldn't have been older than high school seniors.
What these young people weren't told was that one in six soldiers who are deployed to Iraq return with mentalhealth problems. And according to the Department of Veteran Affairs, around 90 percent of all recent women veterans have reported experiencing sexual harassment, and one-third of them claimed to have been raped.
I'm sure the recruiters didn't shed any light on these facts.
One of the kids naively asked, "Is there a good chance I'll die over there?" To which the recruiter confidently replied, "Nope. You have a better chance of walking outside here and getting shot in the parking lot than you would in Iraq."
My mom's head spun in my direction, and she asked me incredulously if I had heard what he just said. I had, indeed.
Did this recruiter not realize that over 2,000 American soldiers have been killed so far in Iraq, and nearly 14,000 had been wounded? In the few years that the shopping center has been around, there haven't been any shootings outside of it.
Another one of the kids asked the recruiter, "Is there a good chance I'd get deployed if I enlisted?" To which the recruiter replied, "Chances are very slim. In my entire career I've never been deployed yet."
How about just being honest and upfront with the potential recruits? What I'm sure these naive youngsters don't realize is that if they enlist, there's a chance they will be deployed not once, but two or three times.
Second and third Middle East tours have become all too familiar with military families in the recent years. This deployment will be my stepfather's second to the region within a two-year time-span.
Is the military really that desperate, that it would lie to young recruits? Apparently so. They've resorted to some creative ways of recruiting young people.
The Air Force launched their own MySpace profile last week, the Navy and the Army repeatedly play their commercials on channels that young people are more likely to watch, and nearly all branches of the military are promising "free travel" to those who enlist now.
Some of their recruitment ideas get a bit unrealistic. For example, on the Navy Web site they even go as far as to say, "Check out some of your Navy perks, including discounts at numerous theme parks."
Who joins the Navy for a discount at a theme park?
The recruiters are salesmen, and military recruitment is definitely lagging. None of the military's branches are meeting their goals, but they're trying extra hard.
There are definitely some positive aspects to being in the military.
The life-insurance policies are fabulous, you get full medical and dental coverage, they say they'll pay your college tuition, and you get some pretty cool stripes and shiny medals sometimes. But I'll let you in on a few secrets: I can tell you from experience that the Air Force hospitals aren't up to snuff. Two-thirds of all people enlisted receive no funding from the military for tuition, and less than 15 ever get a four-year degree. And most of the time, you only get those shiny medals if you get shot (but then, you don't get any medals if you get shot in the parking lot outside).
I'm not attempting to deter any eager individual from enlisting. I'm simply saying that young people should completely understand all the aspects of a career in the military before devoting their lives to it. If you're sure that you can handle it, then by all means, enlist! The military needs you desperately, and I'm all for supporting our troops.
Megan Wadding is a film studies junior, and can be reached at: megan.wadding@asu.edu.
