COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: General
An Inside Look at the Military's Internet Recruiting War
Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com
July 13, 2005
It's
been a tough year for the U.S. military. But you wouldn't know it from
the Internet, now increasingly packed with slick, non-military looking
websites of every sort that are lying in wait for curious teens (or
their exasperated parents) who might be surfing by. On the ground, the
military may be bogged down in a seemingly interminable mission that
was supposedly "accomplished" back on May 1, 2003, but on the Web it's
still a be-all-that-you-can-be world of advanced career choices,
peaceful pursuits, and risk-free excitement.
While there has been a wave of news reports recently on the Pentagon's
problems putting together an all-volunteer military, or even a
functioning officer corps, from an increasingly reluctant public,
military officials are ahead of the media in one regard. They know
where the future troops they need are. Hint: They're not reading
newspapers or watching the nightly prime-time news, but they are
surfing the web, looking for entertainment, information, fun, and
perhaps even a future.
In addition to raising the maximum enlistment age, no longer dismissing
new recruits out of hand for "drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and
pregnancy," allowing those with criminal records in, and employing such
measures as hefty $20,000 sign-up bonuses (with talk of proposed future
bonuses of up to $40,000, along with $50,000 worth of "mortgage
assistance") to coerce the cash-strapped to enlist in the all-volunteer
military, one of the military's favorite methods of bolstering the
rolls is targeting the young -- specifically teens -- to fill the ranks.
What the military truly values is green teens. Not surprisingly, the
Pentagon pays companies like Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), which
claims it offers its "clients virtually unlimited methods for
researching teens," to get inside kids' heads. It was also recently
revealed that the Department of Defense (DoD), with the aid of a
private marketing firm, BeNow, has created a database of twelve million
youngsters, some only 16 years of age, as part of a program to identify
potential recruits. Armed with "names, birth dates, addresses, Social
Security numbers, individuals' e-mail addresses, ethnicity, telephone
numbers, students' grade-point averages, field of academic study and
other data," the Pentagon now has far better ways and means of
accurately targeting teens.
(Military) Culture JAMRS
BeNow and TRU, however, are just two of a number of private contractors
working through JAMRS -- the Pentagon's "program for joint marketing
communications and market research and studies" -- to fill the ranks of
our increasingly-less-eager-to-volunteer military. JAMRS claims that
it's only developing "public programs [to] help broaden people's
understanding of Military Service as a career option." However, it also
hires firms to engage in all sorts of not-for-public-consumption
studies that are meant to "help bolster the effectiveness of all the
Services' recruiting and retention efforts." Put another way, behind
the scenes the military is in a frantic search for weak points in the
public's growing resistance to joining the armed services. Some of this
is impossible to learn about because access to the studies via the
JAMRS web portal is restricted. Should you visit and inquire about
examining their research, you are told in no uncertain terms that
"access is currently limited to certain types of users" -- none of
which are you.
What we do know, however, is that JAMRS is currently focusing on the
following areas of interest in an attempt to bolster the all-volunteer
military:
*Hispanic Barriers to Enlistment: a project to "identify the factors
contributing to under-representation of Hispanic youth among military
accessions" and "inform future strategies for increasing Hispanic
representation among the branches of the Military."
*College Drop Outs/Stop Outs Study: a project "aimed to gain a better
understanding of what drives college students to… ‘drop
out' and determine how the Services can capitalize on this group of
individuals (ages 18-24)."
*Mothers' Attitude Study: "This study gauges the target audience's (270
mothers of 10th- and 11th-grade youth) attitudes toward the Military
and enlistment."
During the Vietnam War, Hispanics took disproportionate numbers of
casualties and similar disparities have been reported in Iraq. JAMRS,
apparently, is looking to make certain that this military tradition is
maintained. Additionally, eyebrows ought to be raised over a Pentagon
that is looking at ways to influence the mothers of teens to send their
sons and daughters off to war and at a military eager to study what it
takes to get kids to "drop out" of school and how the military might
then scoop them up. Perhaps the most intriguing line of research,
however, is the "Moral Waiver Study" whose seemingly benign goal is "to
better define relationships between pre-Service behaviors and
subsequent Service success." What the JAMRS informational page doesn't
make clear, but what might be better explained in the
password-protected section of the site, is that a "moral character
waiver" is the means by which potential recruits with criminal records
are allowed to enlist in the U.S. military.
Future Shock
Another of JAMRS' partners is Mullen Advertising which "works with
JAMRS on an array of marketing communications, planning, and strategic
initiatives. This work includes public-facing, influencer-focused joint
offline and online advertising campaigns." One Mullen effort is the
very unmilitary-sounding MyFuture.com. It's a slick website with
information on such topics as living on your own, writing a cover
letter, or finding a job and includes tips on dressing for success.
("Take extra time to look great.") Without the usual tell-tale ".mil"
domain name, MyFuture offers what seems like civilian career advice
(albeit with some military images sprinkled throughout). You can, for
instance, take its Work Interest Quiz in order to discover if you
should "go to college or look for a job." However, the more you
explore, the more you see that the site is really about steering
youngsters towards the armed forces. For example, when you take that
quiz, you are prompted to ask your school guidance counselor "about
taking the ASVAB Career Exploration Program if you'd like to know more
about your aptitudes, values, and interests…" Not mentioned is
that the ASVAB is actually the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude
Battery -- a test developed during the Vietnam War as "the admissions
and placement test for the US military."
When I took the quiz I was told: "Based on your responses to the
activities listed, here are the work styles that may be appropriate for
you: Investigative [and] Artistic." To follow up on my investigative
aptitude, MyFuture.com offered eight civilian career suggestions,
ranging from veterinarian to meteorologist. It also recommended eight
military counterparts including Law Enforcement and Security
Specialist. For my artistic aptitude, MyFuture suggested that I "may
like activities that: ‘Allow [me] to be creative [and] Let [me]
work according to [my] own rules.'" Apparently, there are eight
military jobs that will allow me to stretch my imagination and do just
what I want, artistically speaking. Who knew, for example, that the
perfect move for an artistic, freethinker would be joining an
organization based on authority and conformity -- and then becoming a
"Food Service Specialist"?
MyFuture.com claims that its "website is provided as a public service,"
while the JAMRS site refers to it as a "public site for potential
military candidates to discover more about career opportunities
appropriate for their interests." Of course, it's really an effort to
recruit kids.
Tomorrow's Military, Today?
Another Mullen Advertising-created site is aimed at a different
population. Like MyFuture, Today'sMilitary.com is a polished-looking
site that lacks a ".mil" in its web address, but instead of targeting
teens, the website announces that it "seeks to educate parents and
other adults about the opportunities and benefits available to young
people in the Military today." In JAMRS-speak that means it's a "public
site targeted at influencers."
Today'sMilitary.com is filled with information on financial incentives
available to those who join the military and webpages devoted to "what
it's like" to be in the armed forces and how the military can "turn
young diamonds in the rough into the finest force on the face of the
earth." We learn that Army basic training is "[m]ore than just pushups
and mess halls." In fact, quite the opposite of a torture test, it's
actually a "nine-week-long journey of self-discovery." The Marines'
boot camp comes across as an even more routine, though less
introspective, affair with nary a mention of its rigors aside from "a
final endurance test of teamwork." Scanning through the pages, we even
learn that life in the military is not just "exciting, challenging and
hugely rewarding," but that in their off-time, military folk "go for
walks… and they even shop for antiques" (which may account for
some of the antiquities that seem to go missing from Iraq).
Today's Military even takes the time to dispel "myths" like: "People in
the Military are not compensated as well as private sector workers."
According to Today's Military they are -- just don't tell it to the
Marines who recently roughed up their highly-paid mercenary
counterparts in Iraq. "One Marine gets me on the ground and puts his
knee in my back. Then I hear another Marine say, ‘How does it
feel to make that contractor money now?'" So reported a former Marine
now working in the war zone as a "private security contractor."
Mercenaries in Iraq generally rake in $100,000 to $200,000 per year.
Earlier this year, under pressure from Congress, the Pentagon announced
that it, too, would start paying out this type of cash. One caveat --
you've got to be dead.
Such unpleasantries as death and combat go largely unmentioned on
Today'sMilitary.com (or on any of the other sites mentioned in this
article). In fact, the only such allusion is on a webpage that coaches
parents on ways to push their children to consider the military. It
instructs parents to "[e]ncourage them with subtle hints" to foster
conversation on the subject and offers talking points to refute the
possible trepidations of your own little potential enlistee about the
armed forces. Among the "tough questions" a child might raise is a
simple fact, driven home nightly on the news: "It's dangerous." Today's
Military offers the following answer:
"There's no doubt that a military career isn't for everyone. But you
and your young person may be surprised to learn that over 80% of
military jobs are in non-combat operations… A military career is
often what you make of it."
Tell that to non-combat troops like Jessica Lynch, the late Corporal
Holly Charette (seen here delivering mail for the Marines) and her
fellow fourteen casualties from a recent suicide car-bomb attack on a
Marine Corps Civil Affairs team in Fallujah, or the large number of
other troops in support roles who have found themselves directly in
harm's way. As a Voice of America article recently put it,
"Increasingly, there is a fine line between combat and non-combat jobs,
especially in a place like Iraq, where there is no front line, and any
unit can find itself in a firefight at any moment."
Assault and (Aptitude) Battery
Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, head of the Army Recruiting Command,
recently stated, "Having access to 17- to 24-year-olds is very key to
us. We would hope that every high school administrator would provide
those lists [of student phone numbers and addresses] to us. They're
terribly important for what we're trying to do." In the wake of the
revelation of the Pentagon's massive new database of America's youth,
Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita claimed, "We are trying to
use appropriate methods to make ourselves competitive in the
marketplace for these kids who have a lot of choices." But as Nation
magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel recently wrote in her Editor's
Cut blog, it isn't just choices keeping the kids away:
"The debacle in Iraq has made recruiting an impossibly difficult job
and recruiters are sinking to new lows in the face of growing pressure
to fulfill monthly quotas as well as fierce opposition from parents who
don't support the President's botched Iraq war mission."
One of the military's new lows brings us back to the subject of ASVAB
and the methods of the Vietnam-era. Faced then with the need for
expendable troops, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara instituted an
unholy coupling of the War on Poverty and the War in Vietnam -- Project
100,000. Project 100,000 called for the military, each year, to admit
into service 100,000 men who had failed its qualifying exam. The
program claimed that it would outfit those who failed to meet mental
standards, men McNamara called the "subterranean poor," with an
education and training that would be useful upon their return to
civilian life. Instead of acquiring skills useful for the civilian job
market, however, "McNamara's moron corps," as they came to be known
within the military, were trained for combat at markedly elevated
levels, were disproportionately sent to Vietnam, and had double the
death rate of American forces as a whole.
Today, a desperate Pentagon seems to be following a strikingly similar
path. As Eric Schmitt of the New York Times has written, the Army is
increasingly turning to high-school dropouts, has already almost
doubled last year's number of recruits scoring in the lowest level on
the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and is "accepting
hundreds of recruits in recent months who would have been rejected a
year ago." Meanwhile, those who happen upon the Pentagon's ASVAB
website will find another slick design, with few military trappings, no
".mil" web-address, and lots of objective career counseling. You have
to troll around the site to discover in the fine print that it's
offered as a "public service by the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense
Manpower Data Center."
Like Today'sMilitary.com, the ASVAB site makes a pitch to parents,
exhorting them to "[e]ncourage your teen to take the ASVAB." It also
tries to influence teachers to "[i]ntegrat[e] the ASVAB Program Into
the Classroom," even recommending that portions be "assigned as
homework" to students.
Strapped for bodies, the Pentagon is putting on a full court press to
fill the ranks. Its new package of promotion includes: big signing
bonuses and drastically lowered standards; NASCAR, professional
bull-riding, and Arena Football sponsorships; video games that double
as recruiting tools; TV commercials that drip with seductive scenes of
military glory or feature The Apprentice host Donald Trump;
disingenuous career counseling websites; and an integrated "joint
marketing communications and market research and studies" program
actively engaged in measures to target Hispanics, "drop outs," and
those with criminal records for military service. The Department of
Defense, in short, is pulling out all the stops, sparing no expense,
and spending at least $16,000 in promotional costs alone for each
single soldier signed up.
Obviously the Pentagon wants recruits badly and cash-strapped teens
represent one of the best chances to fill uniforms. The military
clearly thinks that America's youth couldn't really pass your basic
intelligence test. Its websites downplay danger and its slick TV
commercials show bloodless scenes of adventure and heroism that don't
square with images (and news) now coming home from Iraq to anybody's
neighborhood. From hiccupping recruitment rates, it's clear, however,
that America's teens already know these ads and websites are missing a
few critical elements -- scenes of American troops acting as foreign
occupiers, killing civilians, torturing detainees, fanning the flames
of discontent, and failing to deliver basic safety or security not just
for Iraqis but for their own troops.
Nick Turse works in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia
University. He writes for the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice and
regularly for Tomdispatch on the military-corporate complex and the
homeland security state.
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of