I am a Military Recruiter and would like to clear up some misconceptions.

My experience with the recruiters was not good. So I was going to get everything "in line" in case I wanted to join after I graduated college and I had made this more than clear, they just didn't listen and kept on making their "moves" always focused on me signing the contract NOW. I grew up with my father always telling me he thought everyone should serve at least 2 years. I was going to get a physical and all that stuff and think about it some more. Thing is you can't just go get checked out, you have to stay in a hotel the night before and they tell you that you can't leave the hotel. Well they found out how much authority that whole idea had come next morning (and only cause they didn't answer their phone that night).

After meeting some other people that were going to join (and not being impressed in the least, all they talked about was money, had nothing to do with serving their country) and finding out I'd have to sleep in a hotel room alone with a total stranger who they probably know as much about as they do me (close to nothing), I decided to leave.

So I try to call the recruiter and tell her I'm going to leave. No answer, 6 oclock in the evening I guess her work was done. I leave a voicemail telling her that there is no way I'm joining, all bets are off, no chance I'm out.

And ultimately it was the recruitment process that decided this for me. They want to treat you like cattle and act like they own you far before you sign the dotted line.

So my parents come to get me. Next morning I get a call from a lieutenant. She says why didn't you report to sgt. whover. I said, well I did I left her a voicemail. BTW I don't have to report to her, she doesn't own me. I owe her COURTESY, yes, common courtesy. And I've never heard from this lieutenant lady before who seemed to specialize in false authority and guilt trips. I owed my recruiter the same courtesy that you would owe a saleswoman of any type. And once I know that the contract is a no-go, what else am I to do but call her and say it's over. No need to waste more time.

You don't owe them anything for their "time." You owe them courtesy and respect for their time which I did.

I scored a 99 on the ASVAB. It's asking me questions about carpentry and car motors. I don't know jack about that. I couldn't even identify the tools and there I am in the 99.x percentile... righto. Based on this she says I have a great future with the military. How can you not see through this BS. They aren't going by that test, they aren't THAT dumb. It has nothing to do with that score, it would have everything with what you were willing to "put into it" including your very soul and ability to think for yourself.

So the lieutenant goes on to belittle my town. Saying what's xxx town going to do for you. You will have no life. The military can give you "a life." Make you somebody worthwhile. Insinuating that I have no life and am worthless. Maybe she picked up on that on her own, but on paper at my age I was a college graduate etc. so... wow, I guess you are a nobody unless you are military.

Anyway it's a total guilt trip, they act on false authority, they think they are better than you so they can just tell you what to do.

reply to post by Novise

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Scoring a 99 on the asvab isn't difficult. All it says is that your over all scores put you at the top of the heap in that testing session. You could have bombed one or two sections, but aced the ones you were good at. While the rest struggled through the whole thing.

This can better explain it.

www.army.com...

As for being set up in a hotel. I only know what you told me, but when I was put up in a hotel is was the night before I was being sent to basic. After all the contracts had been signed, processed, raised my hand and had a destination.

I knew exactly what, when and where.

i guess my response would be: I have been out of the army for a year. i was active duty, infantry, who was deployed in OIF 06-08. pretty sure i know what im talking about too, on the combat parts more than you, im sure.
1. the military most certainly will lie to get you in. documented fact. read pretty much any paper from 2003, all the recruiters did was lie. i was told to lie at MEPS. pretty much everyone i served with was advised to lie about something or another to get in. my recruiter falsified college documents for my packet, covered up the fact that i have a chronic disease in my intestines, and that one of my ankles was messed up. so there went that point.
2. disinfo....ever seen a military commercial? lots of fast roping, zodiac boats and camo paint. never once have i see red cycle set to music, ive never seen a video of a 2 hour safety brief on fridays, or picking weeds out of a motor pool when its 110 degrees out. in short, they appeal to your machoness and how cool itd be, then you get there and....its not like that at all. which doesnt even bring up the shady stuff theyre willing to do to get you to reenlist.
3. my PSG, section, line and first sergeants were all recruiters. ive heard firsthand what they are willing to do to 'meet mission'. recruiting is HOW my section sergeant got his 6.

reply to post by matthewiz

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If you are replying to me then all I can say is.

I'm not going to get into who knows more about what. If you want to believe you know more about combat than I do then go ahead. I've seen enough to know that it isn't something to brag about or butt heads with someone else about who did what.

reply to post by secretagent woooman

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Arrogance? Arrogance that such a YOUNG country can think it is invincible and is unable to be corrupted by any means (inside or out) and it's assumption that through sheer firepower it can or will destroy any other country in its path.

Explains why many have to slap a Canadian flag on their lapels to get respect anywhere in Europe.

reply to post by jd140

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it was a reply to juston. the only thing i was trying to say with that segment of my post was that IMHO someone who has never served in combat shouldnt be in the position of advising others to go to it. i know i didnt explain that at all, and thats my mistake. my mind moving faster than my fingers. apologies.
more to the point is the fact that focusing on a small portion of what ive written in no way refutes any of the three points ive made. although i see your point, and im sorry for having not explained myself fully, it would be more constructive to address the actual topics instead of dissecting a single comment made, even if it was (which i will admit) in poor taste on my part. its a touchy subject for me. for the record, i served 4 years active and got an honorable. so please dont think this is the ramblings of someone who 'couldnt hack it;' although considering the army in particulars disconcerting new trend of diagnosing PTSD as EPTS "personality disorder", i suppose i very well could have been.
thank you for pointing out my error, but im interested to see a reaction to the rest of the post.

reply to post by jd140

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All the other guys at the hotel were already sure they were joining. I had told the recruiters I was still unsure, but wanted to be "All set" because I had the time to go ahead and do all this stuff, then make the decision after graduating. And it's better to know if I'll be accepted as I am trying to decide what to do, instead of having that variable floating around. Then make a final decision next month.

It was obvious that most there were already a "sure bet." That being at the hotel implied you were going to sign up w/o a doubt. I was not in that category, and my inclusion was for their part a false hope.

Frankly I think they thought I was spacey, out there, and from a small town and would be easily talked into signing something. Maybe they thought my self-esteem was so low that if I made some "new friends" that night I would be more likely to join.

I agree, it takes practically nothing to "do well" on the ASVAB. I know I missed over half the questions.

My personality and my unique situation really allowed me to see through their "We are so cool, you can be like us act." See I was in the town of my college, not my home. And all their "leave home and make something of yourself nonsense," was disrespectful toward just about every meaningful role-model I grew up around. And my town itself. The lieutenant's call only reinforced my suspicions.

edit: and you know, it really betrays their lack of respect for the places they were brought up, you know the places they are "fighting for."

[edit on 25-6-2009 by Novise]

reply to post by matthewiz

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My reaction? I only know what you posted, so I guess my reaction would be.

That sucks that you had to perform details and you didn't get to do some of the cool things you saw on television.

As for the recruiter. That sucks as well.

I personally read my contract before I signed it, so I knew what was going on. I don't feel bad for those who just signed because they thought they were going to rappel from a blackhawk like they saw on television.

reply to post by Novise

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So you was going in the DEP program.

You was in the hotel and left. Of course they are going to call you and ask why you didn't show up. When they asked why you didn't report to so and so you took it the wrong way. In the military, when you are scedule to meet someone you report to them.

You wrongly took that as an insult.

From there on out you had a bad taste in your mouth towards them and made your mind up accordingly.

reply to post by jd140

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i read my contract too. this isnt a matter of illiteracy, its a matter of false advertisement. did i think id be jumping from airplanes all the time? no, of course not. and where exactly in your contract does it say that sick call is going to call you a liar every time you go in? or that your CO reserves the right to give you a field grade if you get a sunburn? mine didnt even mention 'health and welfare inspections', but they still got to tear apart my room just for poo poos and ha has. maybe i shouldve brought it to a lawyer, and he couldve explained to me that while it SAID i had airborne in my contract, they didnt HAVE to send me to the school until the day before my ETS. (actually about a week and a half before; this falls under the 'shady stuff theyll do to get you to reenlist.') either way, its great that you hold such loyalty to the military; you mustve been in a great unit. i wasnt. not the recruiters fault, and certainly not mine. but to insinuate that all fault lies with the enlistee for being too retarded to read the contract that signs his life away and absolving the military of all blame is pretty silly. or are you suggesting that before one enlists, they read all the current post policies for every post (cause you never know where youll end up), plus any and all books on all facets of military culture, every volume of the UCMJ, etc? hell, even if not, the simple fact is recruiters lie. read your contract, or take the recruiter at face value, doesnt matter. the contract states in no uncertain terms that they can rewrite the contract as they see fit and youre stuck either way. youve never heard a recruiter talk to a kid about a "nondeployable MOS?" even their commercial say "when you get deployed, it doesnt necessarily mean that youre going to be in the middle east or iraq." true, but how likely? and you can call them, and me, naive, stupid, whatever youd like. but if you cant take them at their word, and you cant trust the contract, exactly where are you supposed to GET this information that made you so well informed?

Ist comment. Let the buyer beware and anyone joining the military is a buyer. Second comment. Most people joinging the military are NOT doing it for their country but doing it for the money, college, sign on bonus, whatever. Same with the guards. They don't EXPECT to do what they really sign up for. Fight for their country. They expect money, free education while in the military, and money for college after. Not having to pay the price for what they get. Their is no such thing as a free lunch. Never has been one. Problem with people today is they are taught their is. SOMEONE ALWAYS HAS TO PAY. Way it is. So they cry foul when it is their turn, I didn't expect to have to do this. It was just for college.
I am tired of hearing people cry about what they have signed up to do whether it be the military or a mortgage. You signed the contract. You should have read it. It doesn't matter what you are told what is in print? If you didn't read the contract you shouldn't have signed it. PERIOD!

reply to post by Jerk_Idiot

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Not necessarily true....I was in the Army for 4 years, and had a buddy at Ft. Hood that was in for 2 years. He lucked out and got a job as the base lifeguard and worked at the pool his entire hitch (and then got college money when he got out)! some guys have all the luck!

reply to post by matthewiz

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Yep its just as silly to blame the recruiter or the way the army advertises itself for your "misforturnes". You had a bad unit. Get over it, it happens to everyone. So far all you have done is belly ache over your experiance after the recruiter. So what if you had to do details. So what if they dumped your mattress and threw your locker contents on the ground during an inspection.

You asked for my reaction. I gave it, if you don't like it then don't ask again.

I never said anything about a internacional tribunal or the Geneva convention but you used that against my statements, selective interpretation?
You have to be very dumb to think a cook would be prosecuted for war crimes in the same terms as the grunt firing in the front lines, and guilty by association is not an actual legal term, it's just a term that implies guilt if you know or are with someone who's guilty of a crime. Only for those who have a conscience in the first place.



I didn't change my story i'm just responding to your posts.
There are conflicting informations on the net for the Iraq deaths since the war began, the site Iraq Body Count gives a maximum of 100 thousand, laughable, more people die in 2 years here in Brazil from car crashes than that. But hey choose your info as you please, here are the two sources:
www.jhsph.edu...
www.iraqbodycount.org...

The first reasarch is from 2006 btw, there are other sites claiming that it's well over 1 million now. (www.justforeignpolicy.org...)



Again you fail at seeing the logic here, the world is not black and white, the same thing applies to the american army, they have good people in there that truly believe they are doing a fine job in Iraq, of bringing democracy and prosperity to a once opressed people, that's the humanitarians. Try to look at the big picture, just search the net it's easy to find the reasons for this war. (www.thedebate.org...)
(www.independent.co.uk... )



When you drop a freaking bomb in the middle of a populated city you can bet there will be civillian casualties, the army may not want that but even they know it will happen.
I'm not defending the insurgents, i just gave you a reason why there are so many of them there, it's just one big "maybe" and i think they are as wrong as your government when they invaded.

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King Jr.


[edit on 25-6-2009 by JesusBorba]

[edit on 25-6-2009 by JesusBorba]

Here are a few sources for you, too:

www.abcnews.go.com...

www.timesonline.co.uk...

hotair.com...

The last source is the blog where I got the first two.



Oh, yeah, the ol' "blood for oil" slogan from the anti-war crowded. That's getting a bit old. If we were there just for the oil, we'd have stopped after overrunning the oil fields.



That's what happens when the insurgents decide to take cover with the population. You know, using the civilians as a shield. They know that the civilians will be killed in any attack, and they can parade the dead out as a show of how the big, mean US Army is killing innocents.

No one seems to care about that little piece of the puzzle, tho. The insurgents are always given a pass on that.

OK here is what i see. I have not read the whole thing, but the first three pages i have read are constant attacks on the op, who is posting his thoughts and ideas in a way that isnt attacking anybody.

People that attack others harshly are the cause of fights and misunderstandings. Sure he may be wrong, but this isnt high school. Nobody called you a "mama's boy" or "idiot" or anything harsher. So if you dont like what the op is saying, post in a polite and informative way, why you think he is wrong or why you dont like it.

upon reading further, this thread turned into a military-bashing area. not even close to what the op was saying.

reply to post by Juston

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Hmmm. Interesting. I am a former member of the US Army and dealt with several recruiters who spoke a number of... um, truths.

Now given, this was a long time ago and today's army doesn't ride dinosaurs anymore. But still and all... can it all have changed that much?

In retrospect... no, I couldn't keep my hair that length and no, the food wasn't catered from S&S Cafeteria. Also... no, I couldn't wear bell bottom fatigues and finally, no... I couldn't quit anytime I wanted to.

As far as the rest of it? Well, it never really bothered me that there really wasn't people who came in to make our beds or that having my own private bathroom was actually a crock of... bathroom droppings.

Besides that, I had a great time!

(I have been wanting to clear that up for 35 years now. Thank you for stopping in!)

Yeah as always the info on the net is confusing, but we have to agree to disagree on this one, because i thing that info coming from mainstream media sources are as biased as The Lancet research is, as you showed me.
I still cannot believe that a war that has being going for 5/6 years now can kill less than the car crashes for the same period in Brazil.



Yeah the same "slogan" because the truth doesn't change with time, and you have to keep the ocupation going until your army can reach the stability necessary for the puppet government installed in Iraq to keep the oil flowing. The insurgents are attacking the pipelines too, they seen to know what is your government's goal afterall. I still think they need Iraq for whatever they plan to do with Iran to work, but that's another issue.



The civilian casualties would be lower if you go after the insurgents with ground troops instead of leveling a block to achieve the same objective.
Of course more soldiers will die but at least they know what they are in for, that civilian had no choice.
Again i will say that i'm not defending the insurgents, in my eyes they are much worse then the army, because in there twisted minds the civilian population are as much a valid target as the U.S. soldiers (all that Alah crap trying to justify their cowardly actions).



I clearly stated that the OP is at the "root of the problem", the recruiters are necessary to keep the war machine going, how can you debate this issue without adressing the consequences of his job.

Actually the world you speak of is the world of politicians..the ones you vote into office... Any sound minded military person would not think the same for we truly understand the dire consequences on both sides.

I do need to ask you a question though, what enlightenment do you have that suggests humans do not act as we see them do daily around the world?

I never agreed with the Iraq war for I saw how it doesn't work in Somalia, and I was right. But I do agree with the protection and care of the Kurds we did for 8 plus years, I also agree with the countless humanitarian missions we consistently do around the world.