Ho Hum

As promised folks,

This post by SFC B got me thinking about this tonight. There is so much wrong with this site it's not even funny. I've become somewhat of a connoisseur of the anti-war/recruiting movement's websites since I got into this business. You almost have to. If you pay enough attention to them you will find that the negative (read - call me a baby killer) things people say about you will almost always be right out of the anti-war/recruiting talking points on these websites. For instance watch the news or read a story on RECRUITING and you will almost always hear them refer to it as RECRUITMENT. Maybe it's just me but that word has a much more negative ring to it than "Recruiting."

But anyway what I was getting to was that almost all of their arguments are selfish. You may die. You might not get the college money they promised you. You might not get the job they said you would. etc. etc. etc. Me. Me. Me. Isn't the most important thing about service just that. SERVICE. In my experience as a recruiter most of the people that join do so mainly for that reason. Sure they like the idea of the college money or the skill training but those almost seem like justifications to their parents or even to themselves to go ahead and serve. You other recruiters out there. How many people who actually joined and shipped joined just to get a cash bonus. It seems to me that the college fund and the bonuses more often than not just get someone to either sign a longer contract or pick a job they might otherwise not have or pick the Army over another service (the last one very rarely.)

There is a reason for all of that. All of the top sales people in America will tell you that very few people buy for logical reasons. The vast majority of people buy for emotional reasons. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a salesman nor do I think recruiters should be. The point is they make this big life decision to serve based off of emotional reasons. Which is also why the anti-war crowd choose not to serve and why they base their decision on such flimsy arguments as this.

Sometimes I just wish there was a way to get to these people and explain why their arguments are just plain wrong and sometimes based completely on outright lies. Like if I could just bust through the wall of their organization like The Incredible Hulk or something and re-educate them and then hijack their servers that publish this crap. But then I remember that logic means so little when it comes to this issue. I think it's almost like the last presidential election. The media kept telling us there were all of these "undecided" people out there. I don't know about you but I couldn't find one person who intended to vote yet didn't know who they were going to vote for. I think this issue is such a polarizing one that for me to even try to convince someone that there opinion might be wrong would be a futile waste of oxygen. Just like it would be for them to try and convince me that I'm wrong.

So where does that leave me? In the same place I started when I began this thought. I guess I just have to chalk it up that there are a whole lot of selfish people out there who have no qualms about being selfish and intend to pass that ideal off to their children. Then there are people like this who intend to pass it on to as many other peoples children as they can.

So what can we do? There are organizations like the Joe Foss Institute that try to encourage young people to serve their country. We can support them. If you know someone of military age then you can let them know that it is a noble and worthy profession. Aside from that I think I am doing all that I can.


"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" Henry V - Shakespeare