Why Are Military Recruiters Killing Themselves?

Finally, after countless nights and faces, which have all run together, the time comes for you to go home. You have watched friends die and you have taken life that never attacked you or your country. When you arrive back home you find yourself behind a desk trying to recruit young men to fill the very position you have just returned from. There are bonuses for signing these young men up, and massive pressure from above to keep the fresh bodies coming...

To say that a soldier's duty is to fight a war, any war, without asking questions or considering the rightness of the cause is both ludicrous and immoral on its face. It is both ignorance of the laws of human nature and an egregious insult to the young Americans who have fought and bled for this country. To consider recruits as bricks in a wall which will perform a duty believed to be unjust just as well as one felt to be just seems quite naive. There was a reason the soldiers of our founding fought so fiercely and so passionately; there was a reason the American Indian fought so bravely and intensely; there is a reason that any man whose country and family has been attacked can fight with such abandon. To know that your cause is just and justifiable, and that should you not fight, those you love will surely die is to know what it means to be an enraged citizen soldier.

When a people's focus shifts from self-preservation to empire-building, however, volunteer soldier numbers begin to evaporate and mercenaries begin to take their place; when the Department of Defense comes to deserve the title of Department of Offense, citizen soldiers quietly walk away, leaving only henchmen. So plainly, it is in the empire's best interest to keep up appearances, to have wars of empire appear to be wars of self-defense. But to keep any war going, the state must have warm bodies, and therein lies the issue.

The going rate for mercenaries in America is up to $40,000 cash as a signing bonus, and $65,000 earmarked for education later; that is roughly what one can expect to receive for enlisting. This is a huge bounty to an eighteen year old with recruiter-painted stars and stripes in his eyes, but a revolting pittance to a returning soldier who can't even talk to his own father about what he did in the desert...

With volunteers becoming increasingly disenchanted with America's two wars, a recruiter's job becomes increasingly harder. If that recruiter has actually been there, and knows what he is sending these young men to do, he is truly in the pressure-cooker. Trying to sell a product that no one wants is a lonely, depressing vocation. Ultimately, the recruiter is impaled by the horns of his own dilemma; will he ignore his enlistment quota and jeopardize his own career, or will he for money endanger young men's lives in questionable wars. The product of this dilemma is not pretty, and recounted in recent headlines, here, and here.

When a man enters into a war situation under false pretenses he may initially be unaware. But, as he realizes what is happening around him, although he still has to follow orders and perform duties, his heart is no longer in the battle, and he effectively becomes a paid mercenary. History is decorated with the stories of courageously motivated citizens soldiers defending their home without fear of danger and indeed, in relish of the danger. Mercenaries, however, are notorious for performing at minimal levels, having little incentive to unnecessarily endanger their lives, and becoming mutinous at the first sign of defeat. There is a reason the Spartans were such dangerous warriors, outside of their training; they were directly defending their home and family in a way that even the dullest among them could grasp and take fully to heart. Feeling all of this in his heart if not knowing it in his mind, the recruiter seems reduced to the same recruiting mantra as the drug lord; "Hey dude, wanna make a lot of money? Then I've got a job for you! Sure you might have to kill or be killed, man; such is the nature of the beast!"

How many times can a man, raised by his mother and father with good morals and virtues, make such a sales pitch? Worse yet, how many nightmares about the young men who bought his sales pitch can he have before he fully realizes just what it is he is selling? Finally, when his true dilemma is revealed to him, the rational, moral man within him feels he has few options, and more often seems to be taking a drastic one.

Do you know how many Iraqis where on the planes of September 11^th? Do you know how many WMD's capable of attacking our shores were found in Iraq? Do you know of any connections between Iraq's former leadership and Al-Qaeda? Do you know if our new administration is actively working to end this unjust war, or only smiling for the cameras? Do your friends and neighbors know?

Only an educated citizenry can stop current unjust wars being fought in their (your) name, and prevent future ones from occurring via silent consent. What will you do? What will you do?

No part of this article is meant to besmirch our enlisted men. Indeed, my point is exactly that we should have more respect for them than we evidently do.