Recruiting Parents--The New Headache

Meanwhile, whether the Army solicits 17-year-old recruits, who require their parents' signature before enlisting, or those who've reached the age of majority, parents--or "adult influencers," in Army parlance--are proving a serious obstacle to recruiting goals. According to a November 2004 Defense Department poll, only 25 percent of parents said they'd encourage their teens to enlist, compared with 42 percent two years ago.

"For the first time, our recruiters are having to really work not only with the applicant but with their family members to explain why enlisting is important not only for the applicant but for the country," says Army Recruiting Command spokesperson Douglas Smith. When pressed by parents about the issue of safety, Smith says, recruiters are forthright. "What they can say is, the young man or woman enlisting is going to receive very good basic and advanced training from the Army. And that Army basic training is designed to prepare every soldier with basic combat skills so they are trained to protect themselves and their fellow soldiers if they're called upon." Recruiters reassure parents that even though the nation is at war, the Army hasn't shortened training or taken any shortcuts with gear or weaponry. "But it's an emotional issue," Smith acknowledges. "And we can't give any guarantees of safety. And we can't say anything to lead someone to think there is such a thing as a truly safe occupation in the Army." In the end, a plea to patriotism seems best. "Ultimately, there is no answer to parents but 'service to country,'" says Smith.

Thus the Army Recruiting Command both tiptoes around the issue of a dangerous war in Iraq and simultaneously insists that American parents need to face the facts and to ante up their children. "What I think we've got to do is articulate to the nation that we're at war, and this is a global struggle, this is a generational struggle," Defense Department spokesperson Col. Gary Keck told the Army Times in June. "It's not going to be over in two years. It's going to be with us for many years."

Of course, this message is the opposite of the one the Bush Administration has been sending. Until his June speech at Fort Bragg--in which for the first time he pleaded for recruits by reminding "those watching tonight who are considering a military career [that] there is no higher calling than service in our armed forces"--Bush spent a lot of time downplaying the sacrifices this war would exact from Americans.

The conflict between the military, which would like Bush to turn up the volume by regularly reminding Americans that we are at war and that war requires sacrifice, and the Administration, which is concerned with the political need to minimize the war's costs, is reflected in the recent linguistic debate over whether to continuing calling the current state of affairs a "war on terror" (President Bush) or to shift to broader, less militaristic terms like the "global struggle against violent extremism" (Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld). Though the latter was clunky, it reflected Rumsfeld's response to the Iraq War's decreasing popularity: to recast it as one aspect of an international "struggle" against not just Al Qaeda but all "Islamic extremists." The use of the term "struggle" has the bonus of sounding less violent and more inclusive of nonmilitary tactics. But just as Rumsfeld hopes to fudge things--we're not "at war" per se, just "struggling"--a casualty rate of 18,745 dead and wounded makes it harder to bury the cost of this "struggle."

Historically, what has made Americans willing to sacrifice their lives--or let their children do so--has been the certainty that military action is both unavoidable and necessary to achieve some greater good. Bush tried to make this point in his Fort Bragg speech. "We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves," he said. But the current "struggle" in Iraq is a hard sell; and the current struggle to meet recruiting goals reflects that.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.