Recruiters play Hardball - the follow-up article

[KurtNYC]

There was a thread a couple weeks back about a mother whose son was threatened, goaded, and manipulated into an overnight trip with the recruiters (the term "kidnap" was used). The story of this one mother's struggle with recruiters was written up in an article in the Seattle Port-Intelligencer.

The article provoked quite a bit of reaction (including plenty from Freeps) so the author has written a follow-up.

"Wasn't this akin to kidnapping?" asked Don Carter and at least two dozen more who said that constantly berating a kid to "be a man" and accusing him of being "a burden" to his low-income single mom smacked of Gitmo-style "psy-ops."

It wasn't kidnapping. The kid is 18 and admittedly passive, eager to please and reluctant to argue. And he wasn't taken against his will. He just didn't know where he was going, that he'd end up in a Seattle motel room overnight. Or face a barrage of tests with little sleep or food in a center where the military seemed too daunting to resist.
...
And, after 12 years as a U.S. Army recruiter, Lonnie Dotson offered these tips (assuming that the teen truly does not want to join):
- Call the recruiting station commander, the recruiters' commanding officer and/or the command sergeant major and complain.
- Call or write your elected official -- the military will drop everything to respond.
- Fail the written test on purpose.
- Fail the physical, tell the recruiters you take mind-altering drugs, or that you're a convicted felon waiting for your parole to finish.
- And lastly, call a reporter."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/paynter/227879_paynter10.html

[TlalocW]

1. Some of those don't work...

... According to some reports.

A high schooler pretending to be interested in joining the military "admitted" to having a record, a drug user, and had no high school diploma. The recruiter suggested ways around all of those excuses from ordering a diploma online to a kit they could get him to help him pass a drug test.

TlalocW

[KurtNYC]

2. Well they sure won't work if you ARE interested in

joining the military but I hear you. I wouldn't count on failing the written test - it didn't keep * out of the TANG.