recruiters sell war

Recruiters Try New Tactics to Sell Wartime Army (to young people from rural areas) / June 14, 2004 / By MONICA DAVEY

Katherine Jordan, who marched self-consciously across a basketball court in a black robe and orange flip-flops the other afternoon to collect her diploma, has just a few days left to fill the high school scrapbook she keeps here on the floor of her bedroom.

Then she is off to join the Army, because, she says, she wants to be part of something bigger than herself, bigger than Lyndon High School, Home of the Tigers, and bigger than her hometown of 1,000.

Thirty miles from here, in Topeka, James Nelson, 19, got the idea of enlisting from his probation officer. He says he hopes the Army will be his chance to straighten out his life and to stop, as his mother says, doing nothing all day aside from playing CD's and smoking cigarettes.

And down the road, in Lawrence, Julie Reese mows lawns to make money but says she is still sorting out her future and feels the Army will help her find her way. Yet she has struggled with the entrance examination and hauls around two thick study guides, marked and worn, in her car trunk. She is hoping the Army will overlook her low scores and allow her to enlist on Monday.

Ms. Jordan, Mr. Nelson and Ms. Reese are a few of the people being recruited this month in an unremarkable office building in an anonymous strip mall in Kansas, just one of more than 1,600 Army recruitment stations across the country, where, every year, thousands of young people hear the sales pitch, take a test, weigh in and sign papers.

But the world of recruiting has shifted significantly. Gone, recruiters here say, are the people looking mainly for easy cash to pay for college. Gone also, they say, are those who covet signing bonuses of up to $20,000 but hope to never leave their base. And gone are those who think enlisting in the Reserve or the National Guard will mean a few weekends training in a park.

The war in Iraq has changed the implications of signing up, and these potential soldiers' families, especially some who came of age during the Vietnam War, have tougher questions when recruiters call — or do not want to hear the pitch at all.

" Parents will tell us all the time that `Johnny's not joining!' and just hang up on us," said Sgt. First Class John J. Stover, who says he has "put in" some 35 soldiers in his two years as a recruiter at the station in Topeka. "The difference," Sergeant Stover said, "is that no one has ever recruited during a sustained war."

Officials at Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky., say the Army is on pace to bring in nearly 100,000 soldiers for active duty and the Reserves by October. Army National Guard officials, meanwhile, are in the midst of reviewing whether their efforts will be sufficient to meet this year's recruiting goals, said Scott Woodham, a Guard spokesman.

Yet with the Army's presence in Iraq and Afghanistan continuing, with plans for a temporary increase of 30,000 troops in the Army's reserve, and with soldiers' tours being extended in Iraq, a top Pentagon official this month expressed concern about military recruiting in the years ahead.

On June 2, Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Congressional committee that he was "not satisfied" with what the National Guard and Reserve recruiting and retention numbers might portend. "We need to be very attentive to the way that we're using especially our Guard and Reserves," General Pace said.

But here, not far from Fort Riley, Kansas' largest Army post, the challenge is immediate.

" It has definitely gotten harder out here," Sergeant Stover said from his desk in Topeka. "I look at some of the things I used to do and say, 'Hey, this isn't working now.' I have to come up with new ways to approach them."

More than ever, recruiters are pitching a broad range of options: a shorter enlistment, of 15 months instead of 2 years; a buddy option, which lets enlistees serve alongside a friend; and a reminder that there are 211 Army jobs (euphonium player in the band, for instance) far beyond "just shooting at people" as Capt. Erik O. Hinckley said. And recruiters are spending more time with their prospects. In Topeka, that means group workout sessions on Saturdays at 8 a.m., even before the papers are signed.

Difficult Questions
For some recruits coming of age in 2004, the prospects of war and of a nation changed by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks have become powerful motivators to sign up. "I didn't sign up to sit behind a desk," said Andrew Limbocker, 18, of Eskridge, Kan., who reported to the Topeka office not long ago.

But others, like Ms. Jordan, Mr. Nelson and Ms. Reese, seem to spend little time thinking about whether they will be sent to Iraq. Although administration officials have said they will keep 135,000 troops there through 2005, these recruits worry about more immediate issues, like the five pounds Mr. Nelson still needs to drop.

" You see, according to President Bush, he's going to hand power over in Iraq on June 30," Mr. Nelson explained, as he sat on his front porch. "I expect Iraq will be over before I even get out of boot camp."

Boot camp, Ms. Jordan says, is her biggest fear. She is 18, but the freckles that cover her face make her look younger. She sat on her bed the other day, studied photographs of herself in the $20 black dress from J.C. Penney she wore to the prom and considered the vastly different future that will start in 10 days, when she flies to basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C.

" The only thing I'm really scared of is if I can't do it, can't get through basic," Ms. Jordan said. "I guess I didn't want to be a small-town girl who figures she's not going to amount to much. I may not have my name in the stars, but I'll be part of something."

" You could get shot," she added, "going to the gas station."

On Ms. Jordan's graduation day, her father, Byron, snapped pictures from the floor of the Lyndon High School gymnasium, while her recruiter, Sgt. First Class Colon Purdie Jr., in uniform, watched from a few steps away.
Between bites of raspberry cake at her graduation party, her grandmothers happily recalled her decision a few months back to learn to repair Humvees in the Army.

" All the other girls from school were talking about what college they would go to," said Grace M. Jordan, 81. "But college just wasn't her thing. Then, when she did this, it seemed like it gave her something to talk about too."

Mr. Jordan, 50, who said his own Army service was the best thing that ever happened to him, said he was thrilled with his daughter's choice. As for the possibility of danger, Mr. Jordan said: "We don't think she is going to be in a battle zone. Sergeant Purdie has kind of made us feel comfortable. Hopefully, things will have been settled down by the time her training is over."

Captain Hinckley, who commands recruiting in the 41,000 square miles that make up the northern half of Kansas, says his 22 recruiters should never lie, especially when it comes to the biggest question of late: will I be sent to Iraq?
There is no prescribed script for this, Captain Hinckley said, no official answer.

" I challenge my guys to be honest and say there is a possibility that you may be deployed," he said. "A soldier should not be told that he was never going to deploy. However, it would also be false to promise, 'You are going.' I guess the key is to say, 'You might be called up at some point, but you may not.' "

For most recruits, Captain Hinckley said, it will take six months to two years of training to even be eligible to be sent to war.

By the Numbers
He declined to comment on the number of recruits his region is assigned to find in a year. Broadly, he said, his mission calls for each recruiter to enlist one or two soldiers each month, but he preferred not to think of people as numbers.

Still, numbers are a reality in this business. A month-by-month breakdown is posted in Captain Hinckley's conference room. His recruiters swap stories of their best months and their worst, when they failed to sign up anyone, or "rolled a doughnut," in the language of recruiting. And Captain Hinckley said he has rewarded the recruiter with the most enlistees this year with use of the nicest government-issued vehicle.

He acknowledged that his goal was higher this year, and that his office had enlisted fewer people than it did a year ago. But he has fewer recruiters, he said, and their individual rates of recruiting are higher.

" There's no doubt that the dynamic is changing," he said. "Certain groups of people are no longer easy to recruit. I guess people who are afraid are less easy to recruit. Nobody nowadays can say: 'Oh, I just came in for the college money. I never expected to get called up.' "

Even in wartime, Captain Hinckley said, the Army has not lowered its standards. All recruits must take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery examination, a standardized test like the SAT; a physical test; and a criminal background check. They must not have tattoos that show outside their uniform. Drug use is barred.

Mr. Nelson, the 19-year-old recruit from Topeka, does not look much like a soldier. He has a thin, shaggy shadow of a goatee. He wears a wristband blooming with sharp metal spikes.

" Basically, I got kicked out of every school I ever went to," he said. "I slept through summer school. To be honest, I'm surprised I even graduated." He said he used to smoke dope nearly every day but quit entirely about a year ago.

Mr. Nelson was convicted of misdemeanor battery last August, sent to jail for two days and put on probation for a year. He said he fought with someone who tried to attack his girlfriend. "I punched him in the kidneys like 20 times," he said.
His probation officer suggested the Army, Mr. Nelson said, and sent him to Sgt. First Class Grover Q. Quick, a recruiter at the Topeka station.

Mr. Nelson's misdemeanor should not prevent him from enlisting, Sergeant Quick said, but the "softness around his midsection" might. Mr. Nelson is 6'3" and weighs 205, and according to the Army needs to drop five pounds.

" I've told him, 'Hey, I'm taking my time out to work out with you, and I'm not going to do it unless you're serious about it," ' Sergeant Quick said.

Mr. Nelson says he is. "I want to do something with my life other than just sit around," he said. His mother, Betty, who works nights stocking grocery shelves at Wal-Mart, said she was not sure what to think.
A Surprise for Mom

Ms. Nelson, 43, says she is not worried about her son going to Iraq and believes, as her son does, that the conflict will be over before he finishes basic training. "But if he has to go, he has to go," she said.

Ms. Nelson seemed more concerned about whether he would follow through with his plans. She has trouble imagining her son in a uniform - his shirt tucked in, his pants no longer hanging low.

" I don't want to sit here and downgrade him, but he freaked me out by saying he wanted to do this," Ms. Nelson said. "Mything with him is that he doesn't like to walk. How is he going to march?"

Every day this spring, Ms. Reese, 23, has diligently exercised, and she has lost 45 pounds. The intellectual requirements, though, have slowed her. Four times, she said, she scored below the generally required 31 points on the Army's entrance test. Ms. Reese vowed to study harder to overcome what she describes as a learning disability. "I think I'll be ready this time," she said a few weeks ago. "I really want this so much."

Then, for a fifth time, she missed the cutoff.

On Monday, which for Captain Hinckley's recruiters is "Mission Day," their last chance to meet their monthly goal to sign up new soldiers, she will learn whether higher-level officials in Kansas City will let her enlist despite the low score, as is done in a small number of cases.

A friend of Ms. Reese's returned from Iraq a weekend ago. He advised her to be prepared for what may lie ahead, if she is sent to Iraq, for seeing things she has never seen before.

But Ms. Reese said she has spent little time weighing his warning. "To be honest,'' she said, "I really haven't thought about going over." For now, it is all about getting in.