I hated the recruitment texts and calls. The high school and university apparently just give your information to recruiters.
Wait, this a real thing? That’s so… American I guess.
one of them tried to corner me into agreeing to let him come pick me up and talk in person. probably because he felt it would make me more compliant if alone with him. like a child predator.
Yeah, but if you go to a good high school they send recruiters who may tell you to commission instead of only to enlist
And no they don’t take “ineligible” for an answer. I didn’t want to die for oil, but even if I did they wouldn’t let me, but they also wouldn’t leave me alone.
I hear one can take the ASFAB, book the follow-up interviews, etc., but drop the mic on the pre-boot questionnaire that tries to suss out your “conscientious objector” leanings and never have to worry about another spam call/email (barring a draft). Or, so I hear. It’s been decades, now. 😜🤌🏼
Can’t you just block the number? Or do they use a lot of different numbers.
I’ve heard of kids who have had them follow them home from school or even stop them in the middle of the school hallway.
I never had to deal with them, but they apparently can just walk into school in the middle of the day.
People really don’t understand just how dystopian the US is and how much of it we take for granted because we grew up in a place where it’s normal for elementary students to pledge their undying loyalty to a flag every morning before class starts.
did you take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery? One day “off” of classes in exchange for taking the military test. In exchange, you give the military your contact information yourself.
i did not take the test. i got way fewer recruitment letters and calls than my friends.
Nope I did not take it nor was I involved in anything like ROTC either.
Calls started being sent to our landline and my parents cellphones which were listed with the high school. After going to university is when they began coming to my cell phone.
It would be really funny if they did it based on grades
You mean high grade is more recruiters… right?
Why would people with job prospects join the army?
family tradition is one. You can potentially start as an officer is another. They tried to recruit me to start as a captain given my prior vocational training.
I did not know that. Interesting, I guess my own feelings on it didn’t let me consider that
I got a 99 on the asvab (everyone at our school took it) and was getting recruiting calls all the way through my PhD program.
My condolences
“No senpaiii, don’t become a doctor we really need bullet sponge infantrymen 👉👈🥺”
“so i understand you take men in your military. did you have to be born that way?” got them to stop calling me altogether back during DADT.
I told them I was a conscientious objector in 2001 and never heard from any of them ever again.
when “I am not going to join, please stop calling” doesn’t work, you have to know the actual magic words.
unfortunately I fear that gets you put on a list you dont want to be on
We’re already on all the lists.
Oldest child was contacted via text by a recruiter. We told them to waste their time. Say “yes, I’ll talk to you about it if you treat ME to a meal at [local restaurant].” (emphasis mine)
The recruiter ghosted them after that.
We had an army recruiter come talk to our history class in high school (this was in the '80s). After the guy’s talk he said “any questions”?" My friend Rob said “yeah, I have a question: does napalm still stick to kids?”
Ironically that’s a good recruiter. Anything that looks like fraternizing with potential recruits outside official activities is a huge no no.
Buy me dinner before you fuck me.
“I mean, I wanna—I wanna kill. Kill. I wan—I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill. Kill. Kill! Kill!” And I started jumpin’ up and down yelling, “Kill! Kill!” and he started jumpin’ up and down with me and we was both jumpin’ up and down yelling, “Kill! Kill!” And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, and said, "You’re our boy." Didn’t feel too good about it.
I bet b he’s good buddies with SSG Leaudrag.
Is that Barbados Slim?
Holy internal hip rotation.
Do military recruiters actually just cold call (well, text) you like that in the US?
Yeah, I got a call when I was sixteen or so several years ago. They strung me along for quite a while just acting like they knew me. I was trying to figure out how I knew them and finally they said they were a recruiter and I told them I wasn’t interested. I wish I told him to fuck off, but that’s not the kind of kind I was.
They even come to your highschool class during lesson time to talk with everyone about why military is awesome and you should totally join.
There was also a few month duration each year where army members would setup a table in your school cafetaria and give snacks for talking about military or taking surveys etc.
That’s actually fucking absurd wow. I was in the Canadian Air Cadets as a kid and even then I didn’t see that level of recruiting. Like even when doing Cadet basic training on an actual air base, it was always just learning drill, shooting, and about how planes worked. I’ve never in my life been asked or had it suggested to me that I join the military
Fun fact: the United States hasn’t signed the international agreement banning child soldiers because the military allows 17-year-olds to enlist (although they don’t actually start their service until they’re 18).
I turned 18 in basic training. You can ship to basic while you’re 17. And then go to a unit. You are not deployable to a contingency zone (the widest definition of “place you could be injured by enemy fire”) until you’re 18.
Later on we got a private who actually made it all the way to the unit and had to wait until his 18th birthday to join us on deployment.
Yes. Before cell phones were common they called my parents land line asking for me.
Also like any ‘sales’ job metrics matter, so they’ll take a meeting with kids like this even if it doesn’t convert to a recruit in the end.
I actually wanted to join the military fresh out of high school but I was informed by my recruiter that they don’t take autistic people
It’s a loss to their logistics supply corps.
Same, but my out was a sleep disorder that I grew out of about 5 years prior, before I finished middle school.
“Have you considered applying for ICE?”
“Sure! How big is the ICE machine? Oh, you mean that ICE?”
Can I drive a Zamboni? Or or … do I get free icees?
So you have a heartbeat? Please meet me outside
incels and military have a lot in common!
The joke about incels is that they’ll blow up your phone with red flags, then freak out if they get anywhere near first base.
Join the army, see the world, meet interesting people, kill them
Join the army,
see the world, meet interesting people, kill themclean toilets for 4 years.
When I was working retail, stocking shelves, one of those scumbags walked up to me and asked “so is this what you want to do for your life, are you happy here?”
Like what the fuck.
I hope you told them to go pound sand. Scumbags.
It was so long ago, I don’t remember.
I do remember that they were saying that bullshit to every employee in sight
Soooooo, at what day do you get your own grenades?
Sooner than you’d think.
And they’ll remove the shipping pin for you before handing it over.
I only need one
The bar has been low for at least 30 years. Marine recruiter wouldn’t leave me alone even after I started hitting on him.
If you’d have joined then you’d realize your mistake. They just assumed you already had the same sense of humor somehow.
It was during DADT and I wasn’t joking. Though since then I have met more gay marines than any other branch (I guess if you want to prove your manliness to the world…).
Yeah. The humor in the military back then and now is best described as “It’s not gay if you say no homo!” And yet somehow also very homophobic. (Less so now than when I was in the army) It wouldn’t be hard at all to find a private flirting as a joke.
The bar has been low for at least 30 years.
It was comically easy to get enlisted during Korea if you were under 18. You could just walk up to the office and lie. They’d take you.
