COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: General
Documentary Informs Students, Combats Army Recruitment Efforts
Margo Hennet, blackandwhiteonline.net
May 21, 2006
After the U.S. suffered over 2,000 troop casualties in Iraq, 52 percentunder the age of 25, moviemaker Dick Rolfsen could not believe the
military still managed to meet recruitment goals. Reports of students joining
the military under false assumptions or out of desperation came each month
as Iraq war veterans clamored for "anti-recruitment" efforts. In Oct.
2005, Rolfsen met with colleagues Dan Preston and Scott Neilson to find a
solution.
Together they created "Before You Enlist," a 12-minute documentary to
inform high school students about the realities of recruitment and
alternatives to joining the military. In partnership with non-profit
organizations Veterans for Peace and The American Friends Service,
Rolfsen, Preston and Neilsen will offer 20,000 DVDs to high schools and
community centers across the country after its debut in New Jersey in June. The
video features interviews with Vietnam and Iraq war veterans.
Rolfsen says he and his colleagues created the documentary out of
concern for students recruited by the military. "The premise of the
documentary is simple. A prospective enlistee should know all options available
before enlisting in the military. Recruiters are basically going to give them
a sales pitch that doesn't encompass the whole picture. We're making
this movie to help kids make informed decisions."
Iraq veteran Thomas Powers, who Rolfsen interviewed for the
documentary, says a film such as "Before You Enlist" would have influenced his
decision to enter military service. "I hope it [the documentary] makes kids
think. I'm not saying the military is bad, it's just a rough road.
Like I said in my interview, It's really important to be informed. When I was
a kid, I was going anywhere but up. I didn't have a lot of choices and I
had no money, so the military seemed like a good place to go. If I knew
what I knew now, I'd be picking up soda cans on the highway instead of
enlisting."
Current events demand a new level of caution for students contemplating
military service, Preston says. "The inspiration for making this movie
comes in part from being skeptical of the war in Iraq. It also came
out of our discovery that there isn't any up-to-date counter-recruitment video
available to adolescents. 'Before You Enlist' isn't really
counter-recruitment, but it does dispel some of the myths that the
military perpetrates in its recruitment of students, which is especially
important considering the war in Iraq."
Rolfsen says recruiters have to reconcile the "don't ask, don't tell"
policy regarding homosexuality with the students' right to know whether
they belong in the military. "The problem is, recruiters can be very
aggressive, and they're getting to be more so. But the military,
because of 'Don't ask, don't tell," does discriminate. If a student doesn't
fit what the military is looking for, they won't know until after they've
enlisted, due to pressure from and the withholding of information by
the recruiter."
"Before You Enlist" includes first-person accounts of war and life in
the military, Preston says. "We purposely populated the movie with
veterans and their family members who went through the post-war experience first
hand, instead of interviewing experts. Veterans' messages come from
the heart and are living proof of the after-effects of war."
Preston says veterans willingly volunteered to be interviewed for the
movie. "Veterans for Peace referred us to some veterans to interview.
We also have a website and some people contacted us through that with
their stories. Once or twice we found people by complete coincidence at
poetry readings or other events."
Financial restrictions did not undermine the message of the
documentary, Preston says. "We started filming about six months ago. Our travel
has been limited by budget, but we went to New York, Trenton, North
Carolina and Washington to interview people."
Rolfsen says the producers undertook the project without thought of
profit. "The main costs in making movies like these are our time,
because this is what we do for a living. For this movie, we donated most of
our time and we're hoping to be able to give the movies away for free."
For the most part, "Before You Enlist" has avoided political criticisms
despite its controversial nature, Preston says. "Occasionally we do
get emails wishing us all kinds of awful consequences. But, to be
completely fair, these are people who haven't seen the movie yet. Most of our
feedback is pretty positive"
Preston says "Before You Enlist" offers viewers an objective and
realistic view of military recruitment and military service. "The movie is
pretty respectable. It doesn't infer that all recruiters lie or that the
military is evil. Some will see and some will disagree, and that's the way it
is. I hope no one perceives it to be unfair in any way."
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