Growing up, the joke was “Join the Army. Travel to distant, exotic lands. Meet interesting people. And kill them.” ‘Course, my father was an Infantry officer in the Army Reserve, so that particular joke didn’t get a lot of play in our house. Strangely enough, though, the Army’s basic recruiting idea seems to have changed little over the years. It’s all about the marketing: sell jobs, opportunities, the chance to travel…anything but the reality that this job can get you killed in those far-off, exotic lands. Nowhere in the military’s recruiting pitch will you hear or see anything about fighting or dying, about being wounded and/or maimed- in short, ANYTHING about the risks of the job.
Of course, anyone with half a brain understands that enlisting in the Army is NOT the same as going to work for WalMart. Yes, both are huge bureaucracies, but at least at WalMart, the customers aren’t shooting at you or trying to blow you up with an IED…except perhaps around Christmas.
How awesome is the Army? You really have no idea until you send away for the “Stand Ready: Being a Soldier in the Army Reserve” DVD, as advertised on MTV. Because “learning more” is usually not enough incentive to get the kids on the phone ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ especially the kinds of kids who sit around watching MTV all the time ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ the Army was throwing in a free camo hat, the way Sports Illustrated might offer a free sneaker phone with your subscription, to sweeten the deal, if you call now.
I called then. Actually, I went to the Go Army! Web site and filled out an online form. Three e-mail requests; a brief but terrifying phone conversation with a recruiter; and six to eight weeks of anticipation, then patience, then the total loss of hope later, the DVD arrived. There was no hat in the package — the gift had been upgraded to a sports watch. Does that sound weird? Well, watch the DVD and learn — the Army is all about giving.
Produced by Leo Burnett USA, whose Army contracts totaled about $350 million this year, and directed by Hank Vincent of Avalon Films, “Stand Ready: Be a Soldier in the Army Reserve” opens on a video loop of supermacho, sepia-toned, high-contrast images of modern soldiering. A square-jawed soldier glistens in profile, a chopper flies low overhead, a soldier in a helmet raises a flag. It’s very retro, very now. And that’s just the menu screen.
“We are the men and women of the Army Reserve,” a deep voice intones, as a series of Rockwellian “tableaux vivants” flashes in front of your eyes to some extremely heartfelt John Mellencamp-ish acoustic strumming. “We live in big cities and small towns. We are regular people who have taken an oath.” The soldiers stand proudly amid the kind of real estate beloved by the makers of breakfast-cereal commercials. The burnished, bucolic beauty ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ so clean, calm, old-fashioned, benign ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ is almost unbearable. Ain’t that America?
Not if you what you call home happens to be a slum or a barrio, or even an east Texas trailer. Of course, can you fault a kid (and their parents) for wanting a better life? So why not present him or her with an image of one? That the reality depicted may be of questionable validity is just another recruiting tool.
Not to worry if you don’t recognize it. Perhaps you’re at a crossroads, in a financial jam, unsure of your next move. Maybe you’ve thought about college but can’t foot the bill. Maybe you’ve screwed up your life so far. Well, here, at last, is a way to have it all. Everything your parents couldn’t give you. Everything you ever wanted….
As the benefits tally up on the screen, video-game-graphics style, it becomes clear that this is no mere informational tool, it’s a portal to an alternative universe ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ a universe that kicks the butt of your civilian universe up and down. That’s how clear-cut the benefits, how negligible the sacrifices, how jealous all your friends, with their regular jobs, will be “when they realize,” as one soldier’s did, “that they don’t have nearly as many experiences as I do.”
Never mind that the Army has increasingly relied on the National Guard and Army Reserve to help maintain troop fulfillment in Iraq, or that part-timers now represent 50 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq. According to “Stand Ready,” joining the Army Reserve means you get to go to college. You get to go to law school. You get a sense of accomplishment. You get to “stay close to home, continue your education and raise a family at the same time you serve your country.”
Educational benefits include “up to $22,000 for college while you serve, up to $20,000 payback for qualifying existing student loans (One young woman mentions her degree from George Washington University, “a degree that would have cost me $40,000”), up to an $8,000 enlistment bonus and up to a $3,000 quick-ship enlistment bonus.” Quick-ship to the sorority quad, right?
No doubt there are people for whom this bucolic scenario pans out. By and large, though, especially in this day and age, the reality is far different. During my time in the Army Reserve, serving meant one weekend a month and two weeks during the summer. It was incovenient, but it was manageable, and it gave me a reason to shave and get a haircut at least once a month. Being deployed to far-off lands where people wanted to kill me was virtually unimaginable. Of course, we all understood what it was that we had signed up for, but realistically we knew we weren’t going anywhere…and even if we did, we knew we’d be coming back.
Now, though, joining the Army Reserve is a far riskier proposition. Those joining for the college money may not in the end have to worry about going to college, because they may not live to see the inside of a classroom. They may in fact fall victim to a policy that seems to view the life of an American soldier as merely a means to an end…not that anyone in the Bush Administration has adequately defined just what that end is.
Imagine a world in which getting an education doesn’t leave you mired in debt, then adrift in a soft job market. A world in which you can pursue any of 120 exciting careers and actually even catch one. “Advanced Individual Training is where you learn your specific job,” says a cute blonde in a jaunty red beret. For instance, you can be an operating-room technician, alongside “some of the best surgeons in the world.” Or, like Tiffany, the blonde in the beret, an “interrogator, Spanish linguist.” What’s that? “Being an interrogator is a complicated thing,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I can’t really tell you a lot about the job because it’s secret.” Sure it is. But the camera pans so lovingly over her faraway blue eyes that I’m momentarily distracted from this thought. How bad can it be to be interrogated in Spanish by Tiffany?
The not-secret jobs sound great too. You could operate a battlefield vehicle and send instant messages from one vehicle to another, “just like a video game.” You could be in field artillery and “get to go out and blow things up.” It’s not all Army-style jobs in the Army Reserve, either. You can be a graphic designer. Or a broadcast journalist. Or a saxophone player. “You get your horns given to you, all brand-new stuff,” says a soldier with a delighted chuckle. “All this and a paycheck!” But the broadest smile is a girl’s. “It’s a lot of fun. Heck, what other kind of job can you fire weapons in?”
Left unaddressed is the reality that sometimes when you fire weapons in the course of your job, most of the time people shoot back. People bleed. People die. None of this is news, nor should it be, but wouldn’t it be nice if these slick recruiting tools didn’t completely ignore the reality of what the Army is all about. The Army is not about peace and love and fabulous job opportunities. It’s, to paraphrase Gen. George Patton, to make the other poor, dumb son-of-a-bitch die for his (or her) country. It’s a messy, deadly business, though you’d never know it if all you ever saw was the Army’s recruiting materials.
How about a little truth in advertising? How about at least a glimpse of the reality of the life of a soldier in wartime? Or do you really think that the only way you can get people to enlist is to deceive them into signing up for something that they may never live to enjoy? Aren’t the lives of our children worth at least that much?
