Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit links to this StrategyPage report on army retention. Apparently the army is having a much easier time retaining soldiers than attracting new ones. Glenn opines:
It's interesting that retention seems to be going much better than recruitment. Perhaps the view of what's going on that the troops get in the field is more positive than the view that potential recruits get from the media.
Gee, Glenn, you think?
2 comments:
This may be a little of topic, but I don't yet have my own blog to write it in. What's sad with the Army is that they have to use deceiving and irresponsible recruiting methods.
At our school they have recruiters, and I'm perfectly fine with that. In fact, I'm happy they are there, but when they bring a Hummer and fill it full of TV screens and Halo 2 that I start to think they might be crossing the line. At the Dixon May Fair I saw the same setup with a bunch of kids playing Halo 2.
In my Chemistry class we had someone from the Navy come and talk about their nuclear submarine program. Do you know what his amazing talking points for joining were?, Food, Ice Cream, and Video Games. We all laughed afterward going "I can't believe he just did that." But yet, we were all saddened by the fact that it had actually happened.
On the inside of the back of video game magazine guess who advertises? The Army. "FIND OUT WHAT IT TAKES TO BEAT YOUR OPPONENT IN THE DARK OF NIGHT.", Game Informer Jan 2005. That's their message; not your country needs you, we have a war on and need to give the soldiers who have been there for over a year a break.
These tactics may work on the weaker minded young people of America, which is a shame to the Army for taking advantage of them, but most see right through it and have even more reason to not sign up.
I think they should go back to concentrating on what the military stands for instead of the thrill arbitrary luxuries that I'm sure are far and few between. Hopefully they see that the loss of recruits might have something to do with their recruiting methods.
Ronnie
This "Army of One" campaign is horrendous. I don't think the army will ever get a better slogan than "Be All You Can Be." What an empowering statement!
I've addressed recruiting deception in other posts.
As for video games there's America's Army, created for the DoD and is (still, I think) a free download. Apparently it's quite well done and rather popular.
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