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The Dirty Dark Side of Uncle Sam
May 1, 2008
All of us back in high school got solicited by at least one branch of the armed forces, oftentimes all of them at once. And if you showed even the SLIGHTEST sliver of interest, they would pounce and harass you until bloody murder.
What follows is one such story of yours truly, and what happened when I went to the recruitment office… just to see what it was like…
I arrive on the scene about 30 minutes early, so I decide to walk around the front and then visit some of the nearby stores until it was time for the meeting. As I’m walking around the back of the building, I notice a uniformed man is following me.
“Hi!” he said pleasantly.
“…..Hi…” I hesitated.
“I saw you were looking at some of our posters out front.”
“…Yeah.”
“You think the Army is something you’d be interested in?”
Geezus! How do they train these guys? I couldn’t believe it. I was standing in a dim alleyway talking to an Army recruitment officer, and caught totally off guard. I had to think fast.
“Well, actually I had an appointment with Seargeant Hatten, but I got here early.” I figured that ought to divert the conversation, and at least provide some revelance to my cause for being there in the first place. The fact that I actually remembered the guy’s name surprised me as I blurted out the words. No use lying. Embarassment would be inevitable. At least with telling the truth, I was saving myself in the long run.
“Well, you’re in luck! He’s in the office right now and isn’t working with anyone, so why don’t you just come on in and we can get started?”
Damnit. Damn me and my overachieving punctuality. This wasn’t good. I backed myself into a corner and there was no way out. I had no choice but to do as the man said. As I follow him into the recruitment office, I make a mental note to never directly tell the truth to anyone in uniform again. Sounds bad, maybe, but a guy’s gotta have standards.
So I just get in the door and see that everyone that works there is all clumped together in one big room, with their desks spread out at various points. There are a couple side rooms, but nothing major. I am immediately introduced to Seargeant Hatten, a man whom I had only known since he called me two days ago in what can only be described as a marketing-cold-call-pressure-trip from hell.
We get started with the “talk”, initially promised as a way to “get to know each other so that ‘we’ can see if a choosing a career in the armed forces would be something I might be interested in.” In reality, the “talk” ends up amounting to his total dominaton of the conversation in an Army Sales Pitch that would surely make Uncle Sam proud; use of scare tactics regarding college tuition, several different forms of almost timeshare-like sales strategies, and brute intimidation were the norm. My occasional “Yeah” or, in special cases, “Uh huh” accompanied with an “understanding” nod of the head, were requested… but of course never required.
After the first 5 minutes, I was totally dazed and blocked out my surroundings almost completely. I was in a complete trance, eyes glazed and all. I might as well have been high as a kite dancing around the desks to Iron Butterfly.
I don’t remember a thing until apparently about thirty minutes later, they somehow got me taking the ASVAB, a test the military gives to potential recruits to see how well they can distinguish between a hammer and a screw. The first thing I notice when I enter the small test-taking room, is that their computer in the corner is running Windows 3.1 (from the old, old days of computing), and can’t be any faster than feeding punch cards into a mainframe. Our wonderful Department of Defense budget dollars at work.
The good seargeant then leaves the room (door open), and goes back to his desk while I’m left to complete the test. I finish the English part with no problem. The math was a little more difficult, but still not anything you’ll find on a normal test that actually complements my right to exist as a human being. I wasn’t allowed a calculator, only a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. These were rather simple calculations within themselves, but there were a ton of them, and most was stuff I hadn’t done since 6th grade (yes, I can solve a triangle using Trignometry functions, but I have trouble dividing two whole numbers evenly).
But then about three quarters through the test, it happened. The whole scene was like something out of a movie. As I was sitting there finishing up my math, I hear this other seargeant walk into the office, just outside the open door to my little room. He was in the middle of a conversation with another officer.
“Man, I don’t know about you, but I hate the fuckin’ Army.” he said very loudly.
The other man sat down at his desk and said nothing as the seargeant continued.
“Man, they call you up at home and say they care about you and your family, but the truth is they don’t give a FLYING FUCK about your family! FUCK the army, man, I HATE my job!…damnit!!”
I heard the other man speak in a quiet tone, “Well, you have to understand; the Army isn’t for everyone.”
“Fuck that shit, man, I hate my whole fuckin’ life now! They say they care about your family, but they don’t give a shit about ‘em!! I’ve been here almost 10 years; hell and now they got me on recruiting duty. Convincing kids to shack up with this shit-for-brains operation! Damnit, I can’t do that! I hate this job! I hate my life! I’d quit RIGHT NOW if I could, but I got another 3 years on my fuckin’ contract!”
Veins bulging, the man sounded like he was about to kill the C.O. I put down the final answer on my test and slowly poked my head out the doorway.
“Uhh….I’m done with the test.” I stuttered.
The guy that had been creatively ‘expressing himself’ took off like a jackrabbit. I never saw him again. As for Seargeant Hatten, he took a look at my results and immediately concluded that I was eligable for the military’s full scholarship. Yes! I knew that one of these days, 1st grade would pay off. However at this point, somehow the general feel of the military didn’t seem to suit me very well. I wonder why. The conversation droned out for another 10 minutes of meaningless courtesy wrap-up.
On my way out of the recruitment office, I took a couple of their little books and pamphlets just to be considerate. Once I was sure I was out of view from their window, I broke into a run all the way back to my office, threw the crap into the waste basket and sighed with relief…
“Ah, back to reality…”
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