I did not request any information from anyone; that was five years ago when I was looking for undergrad scholarships online. FastWeb, at least then, would sometimes hide a box down at the bottom saying, “Check this box if you don’t want to be contacted by the military”, and I missed it once. That’s not the source of these calls, because that was halfway across the country at a different phone number five years ago. So they’re not calling with any particular offer in mind; they’re calling to see if they can talk me into joining the army if they tell me some nonsense about repaying my loans (which they won’t, anyway).
No, those who know my (tiny) school would not expect it to be a prime recruiting ground, because we’re a bunch of dirty hippies and a horrifying number of people were Ron Paul supporters in the election. That said, one of my friends is in the reserves or guard, and another guy graduated last year and trotted off to the army, and is well on his way to being Special Forces Commando Guy (which, if you know the typical student from my school, is kind of hilarious). So it’s not unthinkable, but I will grant it’s extremely unlikely that they would ever cold-call someone from my school and get “hmm, tell me more” as the response.
There are a couple of wars going on. Some people jump to their deaths out of burning buildings, some lose their legs, some have their family wiped out. Some get unwanted calls from recruiters.
Personally, I think the people who lose their legs ought to suck it up, since other people jump out of burning buildings. Those burning-building-jumpers ought to suck it up, since other people jump out of burning buildings while zombie George Carlin kicks them in the heads.
There’s only one person on earth who’s currently suffering the most. Everyone else? Suck it up!
I don’t recall ever seeing a contract including my own that said that in the army. I 've also never seen anyone being told they can’t urinate, even in basic training, where they pretty much tell you what to do all of the time. BCT stories are abound with wild stories of things they do to you though, so I don’t doubt that you’ve heard that.
You’re equating “joining the army” with “bullet sponge”. If a person joins up to be a multimedia technician for example, the chances that they’ll be in direct harms way is fantastically reduced. Heck, I’ve had a charmed life in that regards and I’ve requested to be deployed in the past. My job is mainly support so if they call me to the front lines we’re all in trouble, like if the entire brigade had been wiped out. Not every single MOS or job puts a person on the front lines. You may not believe me, and I am no longer a recruiter, but it is the truth.
For some it isn’t. I’ve met people that could not afford college through loans or financial aid or afford to pay them back once they finished schooling. Corny as it sounds I am proud to have put a few people in knowing that I helped them get to where they wanted to be in life.
From what I gather, Ninjachick was called three or four times. I could be wrong and I don’t want to plow through the thread right now. I did explain earlier how she might be getting called after saying “not interested.”. It is either an honest mistake on the recruiters part or the command scrabbling to get a person to join and rolling the dice on her changing her mind. That happens sometimes, and the cpommand knows it. I’m not talking about military law, either. Recruiting is not subject to “do not call” lists like civilian enterprises. Even if say, a private school does not release the records of their students, the military can use the numbers if they acquire them by another means. Whether its selective service cards or public records or whatever.
If someone is being harrassed on the phone by recruiters then civilian law comes into play, but you’d have to getting called ten times a day every day for that to probably happen. Most likely a call to the station/battalion command would get it to stop, even if its only two calls. They do not purposely waste the time of their recruiters on calling people they know won’t join. Recruiters have to log what they do for every single minute of the day. Thats not a joke either. Ask **Schwartz **what he has to write in his planning guide. I still have mine, though I beat it with a hammer when I left recruiting…I needed to get some of the rage out.
If you live off or on post and are getting out you see the retention NCO while outprocessing. they will see if you want to go into the reserves. If you didn’t request to reenlist they may offer you a bonus or something depending on the need for people in “indefinite status”. I can get the ball rolling on retirement or stay in for a set number of years until I reach my Retention Control Point. But if I decide to retire they are not going to call me and ask me if I want to reconsider until I see the retention NCO.
Some areas are harder to recruit in than others. I’ve heard wild stories of stations where they have applicants have to pick a number like in a barber shop. I know it wasn’t easy where I was at. I’d suspect that even the Air Force has a hard time in some areas, too.
Heres is what should happen. You cal the station and aask for the station commander. You say *“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from your recruiter, I don’t want to join, please stop calling me”. *
The SC is going to get your number from whatever source they are using and cross it out, writing “DO NOT CALL” and all that. Its not like they’re going to say "Haw! Haw! Haw! We’re going to call you even MORE now!". They don’t have time to waste in harrassing anyone, and the SC doesn’t want the 1st Sergeant and company commander calling him because you called them. Recruiters are always under a time crunch. When i was one I’d prefer someone say “not interested” point blank rather than give an ambiguous response like “I thought about it, but not right now”. Then I don’t have to bother with them anymore.
Now if the SC or anyone else is ordering the recruiter to call even after being asked not to, thats a complaint that can go up the chain and probably get some people in trouble. The SC and the recruiter are under a lot of pressure, and the higher ups at the BN and higher don’t really realize how much pressure it is at times. The officers at that level are just reading the numbers, they’ve never had to go out and recruit. I personally always resented them getting upset at not making a quota because they don’t have to hit the streets and phones and get all of the shit from people.
I never said there weren’t quotas. In fact i believe I said upthread that there are quotas. I know who is cracking the whip, btw…I was the one picking the cotton for four years.
Have they called you or your kids? If not he isn’t really going to care. He’ll probably tell you the scripted answer of informing people about the army, see if you or your family is in the books and cross your name out. Its best not to rant at him though, he’ll only hang up or rant back. Remember, the SC (though a full time volunteer recruiter…ugh) is a human being too. He’s not going be polite if you aren’t.
I once had an irate parent call me and go berserk because her daughter, who had joined, hadn’t written her for 2 weeks from Korea. Repeatedly she called, too. I tried really hard to be nice, but I don’t have to take abuse more than anyone else. The SC got on the phone and basically cursed her out. It wasn’t funny nor preferable, but all I’m saying is if you start accussing the recruiters of something unjustly (how the hell was I supposed to make her daughter write her from Korea? Shit, I’d have rather been in Korea than recruit. Once a person ships out their recruiter has no further official business with them) they’ll be a bit ticked off.
I’d be surprised if you get slammed, since the SC usually wants to have an amiable relationship with the public, even the public that doesn’t like the military. But as I said, if you’re going to be confrontational, so is he. And really, unless you can prove a law has been broken theres nothing you can do to him and he isn’t obligated to answer your question, though he probably will.
Blago has nothing to do with this. Thats way out of left field and doesn’t apply to recruiters calling you.
Just a guess, but the recruiting station is probably just shy of quota in january or very far away from it. So they’ve started mining old numbers of people that may be interested even if its a longshot. Especially after five years. I’d still ask the SC to cease calling if they do again, but my guess is after “mission day” (the last day of the recruiting month) they’ll stop because they either made quota or missed it, but its a new month so they have 30 days to find more likely applicants. (mission day may not be the last day of the month. It used to be for us, but it was mission day for the navy, marines AF and the coast guard! So the MEPs got ridiculously crowded. They started moving it around to avoid a large crowd. Your area may vary though.)
Well, the recruiters themselves have little choice in where they recruit. We had a community college near us that was a poor place for recruiting but we had to attempt to recruit there. (it wasn’t full of hippies, but it was full of really overweight and I have to say stupid people) This place would accept students that had no diploma or GED. I don’t know how that works, but I do know the few that even tested for the military got scores in the teens or single digits on the ASVAB. Pathetic. When I had to go to the campus I didn’t even bother to speak to anyone. It was a waste of timne IMO, but I was ordered to go there. Its not like I wouldn’t have rather been at Fort Whatever doing my primary MOS.
I’m not saying your school is a bad one, Ninjachick. I’m just saying that the station is there and some poor SOB was assigned to it. Very little the average recruiter can do about it.
As I said, call the SC if they call again and tell him or her to stop calling you. That should be enough, honestly. If they’re trying to make mission they aren’t going to want to waste time calling you if you aren’t going to join at all.
Just to be clear: I know getting calls from recruiters is a pain. I didn’t like it before i joined myself. I never really got that upset about it, and neither did my parents, though they didn’t want me to sign up. they even tell you at recruiting school that calling a person at home is a bit of an intrusion into their home. but its a part of the job.
that does not mean excessive calls are okay. They aren’t. But the line between excessive and not is blurry. If you never answer your phone and the recruiter leaves a message every day its because they haven’t spoken with you to hear “no thanks”, so to them you’re still a possible applicant.
Just a guess, but I think Toon’s reference to an inabilty to urinate when one wants to relates to the risk of a combat-related injury, just like his references to missing limbs, head pars, and brain functions.
Cartooniverse, I know you’re not a Bush lover, or in favor of his damn fool war, but I don’t recall you being this vehement about the subject of military recruiting during the past seven years. I concede that this might be because I haven’t been paying close attention to your posts. Still, I hope everything is all right with you and yours, or at least improving if they’re not.
This does not really jibe with what SSG Schwartz said about your O.P. Are you really sure that is what you did? I mean… you know. Are you sure?
Jolly Roger, it didn’t occur to me to call up some stranger and rant at them. I planned to call and simply ask, " I have a son who is 18 1/2 and a daughter who is 17 and I would like to know what happens if we get calls from your recruiting station, and both I and my children ask not to be called back. How do we make sure we’re not? What do we do if we keep getting recruiting calls? " Does that sound reasonable?
Loach, thanks for the props. It certainly seemed to be a timely and valid analogy ! Blago of course has nothing to do with the military. The analogy perhaps was not so obvious for all. He used the telephone to commit a crime, allegedly. He is employed by the Illinois government. He feels he acted properly. Time will tell. The analogy arose in response to, well, the quote seen in my response !
ETA: Thank you for the kind thoughts. Um- this isn’t about the Army, though the idea that a government employee has ANY more right than anyone else to use a phone to harass is beyond me- and was the genesis of my replies. I am not overly fond of telemarketers of any type.
I could not agree with this more. Recruiters aren’t mind-readers. They’re doing their jobs- I know that. Anyone who rants, and yet has not taken the time to call and get the full name, rank and ID of the person they are talking to when asking not to be called back, really has no leg to stand on.
Not quite. The school/college is required to give information to the military unless the student (or parent) tells them not too. They’re also required to allow recruiting on campus. Religious colleges can decline to do either if it would violate their beliefs (eg at Quaker schools). Not all school districts make an effort to inform parents or students of the opt out clause or have an all or nothing approach that would excluded colleges and scholarships as well as the military. Somehow recruiters still got all my info anyway, before I even filled out anything remotely releated to financail aid or the SSS. Technically I never even registered for SSS; I just got a letter saying I did and a registration card.
There was nothing, nothing at all about opt-outs in my HS handbook; I only learned them from counter-recruitment sites. I was also the only person in my entire class who didn’t take the ASVAB. We were simply told that it’s mandatory for everyone and given a bunch of bull about it helping decide careers and not being a recruitment tool. My guidence counselor was totally bewildred went I handed her a not from home excusing me. Most of my friends just filled in cirlces at random.
Ironically recruiters were the first people I actually came out to, but then again I guess alot of straight boys (& girls) trying saying “I’m gay” just to shut them up too.
I’m sorry if I came off the wrong way in saying that. i guess it still smarts, the memory of being called everything but a child of god by strangers over the phone.
recruiters will introduce themselves on the phone when they call. usually its something like “Hi there, Mitch, this is SGT Jones, your local Army recruiter…”
i’ll have to check on that, but I was told if the school recieves any federal money, they have to give up the list. The list does not have to have phone numbers, I believe. Its been a few years and things may have changed since i went to recruiting school. Not that it matters. I’ll shovel shit before i recruit again.
Yea I was actually interested in the Coast Guard for a bit, but no go. Oh well C’est le vi. The Army around here advertises fast track programs to help you earn your Diploma. So figured they had the same requirements.
I guess I should know some of what recruiting is doing, but really, the experience was so hellish for me, that it took me a year or so just to get over it. I’m not making this up, my friends all were afraid to even mention recruiting to me because they said i’d just go nuclear and start cursing and screaming. (i didn’t realize I was acting so crazy, blinded by anger I guess). I had to have a few sessions with the chaplain after I left recruiting because I was afraid I’d go off and hurt someone.
I only keep in touch with one guy from my old station, he was infantry. He went to Iraq in 05 when he left recruiting and told me its better than recruiting.
I was jealous of the coast guard recruiter in my area…this guy had a real easy life. They didn’t even get mad if he put no one in! He was pretty old, too, so he was only doing the recruiting thing to keep himself busy. (he admitted that to me once over a few beers).
They’d never do it, but what the army should try is letting HS students spend time with soldiers on loacal bases. It would help alleviate the myths of what army life is like. Its no picnic, but its not the nightmare people think it is either.
Blago calling to sell a Senate seat: crime. Blago calling a state senator about bill: not a crime.
Recruiter calling OP three times for a date: maybe a crime. Recruiter calling and being abusive because you don’t want to join: maybe a crime. Recruiter calling to recruit: not a crime.
I’m sorry the world does not work the way you want it to. I have gotten past that.
I have the same problem too. Almost 3 years ago I went to a recruiter for information on the Warrant Officer program and gave them my contact info sice at the time I was seriously giving thought about enlisting even if I couldn’t get into the program. In the end I decided to go to college outside the US but the aunt I was living with back then says she still gets calls from recruiters asking for me and brochures sent to her address.
