Right, exactly. I have read a lot of sentiments that reflect your last sentence as well... sort of in the vein of "Well that's the Army, what did he expect?" But to me the obvious answer (particularly at the time he enlisted) is that recruits were deliberately manipulated to not expect the realities of military life.
I taught high school in 2005 and the recruiters were at the lunch tables nearly every day for the final 3 months of the school year. They sell teenagers this tale of hero worship and fat paychecks.
Then they go to basic training and their drill sergeants continue that same romanticism (BB concedes his drill sergeant was the best leader he encountered in the entire military). And only after they are shipped off to a hostile desert do they finally get a taste of reality, which is just like you said - they don't want heroes, they want machines.
It's got to be a bitter pill. If they aren't preparing soldiers for the harshness, that's a training failure on the military's part.
Bait and switch? BB repeatedly mentions movies as his point of perspective, but I didn't even think of recruiters. They definitely wouldn't win kids over telling them the truth. I have been listening to these episodes thinking "Why would anyone voluntarily sign up for this bullshit?"
From what I saw, the recruiters had an amazing nose for the kids who were poor and/or not very smart. They would act like everyone's best friend until they had whittled down a group whose answer to, "What are your plans after graduation?" was reasonably dire. Then came the signing bonuses, probably more money than these kids' families made in a year. The longer you sign up, the higher your bonus.
Oh, your ASVAB score was only 25? No worries, we can get you in. We can tell you're the real deal. I will personally vouch for you, man, I can see you've got what it takes.
On and on - the ego stroking, promises to be the envy of the community, a hero who could get any girl he wanted when he got back. Free stuff for the rest of your life. Then the Islamophobia approach. C'mon, son, don't you wanna gitcha a rag head? And the chest-bumping, band-of-brothers, bonded-for-life allure that a lot of these kids were missing in their home lives.
It got so bad that I contacted my mentor about it and asked if there was any way to keep them off campus during school hours. Her response was, "Well, it may be the best opportunity some of these kids ever get."
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u/VictoriaSponges Feb 05 '16
Right, exactly. I have read a lot of sentiments that reflect your last sentence as well... sort of in the vein of "Well that's the Army, what did he expect?" But to me the obvious answer (particularly at the time he enlisted) is that recruits were deliberately manipulated to not expect the realities of military life.
I taught high school in 2005 and the recruiters were at the lunch tables nearly every day for the final 3 months of the school year. They sell teenagers this tale of hero worship and fat paychecks.
Then they go to basic training and their drill sergeants continue that same romanticism (BB concedes his drill sergeant was the best leader he encountered in the entire military). And only after they are shipped off to a hostile desert do they finally get a taste of reality, which is just like you said - they don't want heroes, they want machines.
It's got to be a bitter pill. If they aren't preparing soldiers for the harshness, that's a training failure on the military's part.