How the Pentagon targets teens (for recruiting)

[Barrett808]

How the Pentagon targets teens
By Nick Turse

It's been a tough year for the US military. But you wouldn't know it from the Internet, now increasingly packed with slick, non-military looking websites of every sort that are lying in wait for curious teens (or their exasperated parents) who might be surfing by. On the ground, the military may be bogged down in a seemingly interminable mission that was supposedly "accomplished" back on May 1, 2003, but on the Internet it's still a be-all-that-you-can-be world of advanced career choices, peaceful pursuits and risk-free excitement.

While there has been a wave of news reports recently on the Pentagon's problems putting together an all-volunteer military, or even a functioning officer corps, from an increasingly reluctant public, military officials are ahead of the media in one regard. They know where the future troops they need are. Hint: they're not reading newspapers or watching the nightly prime-time news, they are surfing the Web, looking for entertainment, information, fun and perhaps even a future.

In addition to raising the maximum enlistment age, no longer dismissing new recruits out of hand for "drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy", allowing those with criminal records in, and employing such measures as hefty US$20,000 sign-up bonuses (with talk of proposed future bonuses of up to $40,000, along with $50,000 worth of "mortgage assistance") to coerce the cash-strapped to enlist in the all-volunteer military, one of the military's favorite methods of bolstering the rolls is targeting the young - specifically teens - to fill the ranks.

What the military truly values is green teens. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon pays companies like Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), which claims it offers its "clients virtually unlimited methods for researching teens" to get inside kids' heads. It was also recently revealed that the Department of Defense, with the aid of a private marketing firm, BeNow, had created a database of 12 million youngsters, some only 16 years of age, as part of a program to identify potential recruits. Armed with "names, birth dates, addresses, Social Security numbers, individuals' email addresses, ethnicity, telephone numbers, students' grade-point averages, field of academic study and other data", the Pentagon now has far better ways and means of accurately targeting teens.

(more)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG14Ak01.html

[Mari333]

1. Mothers dont let your children grow up to be neocon pawns

I work at a job where there are lots of kids in their late teens and early twenties..they work their butts off for tips..when I mention the war they roll their eyes..no way, they say, will they enlist for what they consider an illegal war..hopefully, parents are telling their kids the truth..they would rather work for shit money at a crappy job then die in *s war..

[Barrett808]

2. But would they enlist for $40,000 and "mortgage assistance"? n/t

[Voltaire99]

3. The price of hiring mercenaries is rising.

$40k and a mortgage payoff, hm?

Uncle Sam isn't accustomed to having to pay dearly for his mercenaries.

Generally, they're the ones left paying dearly for his mistakes.

[TrogL]

4. I'm not sure I'd want a "green teen" in my foxhole

I'd rather have soldier with a career in mind than somebody in it for the money and because he can't find anything else.

[DanCa]

5. I love the scene in f911 when they tried to recruit the kids in the band.

Has shaggy sued yet?