Military Recruiters Targeting Elementary Schools, Kindergarteners

Even stalwart Staff Sergeant Jonathon Brady admits that his work used to be a lot more difficult and a lot less fun. Though he’s always drawn a strong sense of fulfillment from his job as a recruiter for the Marine Corps, scouring the halls of local high schools in his stiff dress blue uniform for the few and the proud amongst the throngs of jaded students and increasingly defiant faculty was never much of a picnic.

However, two laws, one that requires all public schools receiving federal funds to allow military recruiters access to students and another inserted as a rider to the recently approved bankruptcy reform bill that entitles individuals as young as five years old to agree to future commitments with the armed forces changed everything.

“Since April I’ve been spending a lot of time hanging out with the K through five kids, talking to them about their future and informing them of the opportunities joining the Marines could afford them someday. We have a lot of fun,” said Brady.

Indeed, rather than sticking to the usual dry sales pitches, recruiters like Brady are making a strong effort to impress upon their young candidates the more fun aspects of military life, such as the frequent Hummer and tank rides, pizza lunches, free ice cream and magic acts.

Commented first grader Robby Bryson of Pensacola, Florida, “The Marines are cool! My best friend is a marine. His name is Leatherneck and he wears camouflage clothes and face paint. He came to our school in a tank and asked us where the principal’s office was. Then he got back in his tank and aimed the cannon at where we said like he was going to blow it up! He didn’t blow it up but he did run over a big stuffed horse and gave us all donuts. That was the best day at school ever.”

“I’m joining either the Marines or the Air Force,” declared Bakersfield, California six year old Dakota Gibbs, “Because I want to be a fighter pilot or a magician when I grow up and the Air Force has fighter planes but the Marine wizard said they would pay for me to go to magic school like Harry Potter where I could learn how to turn my little sister into a booger picking frog!”

Despite the enthusiasm shown by most of the children over the new recruitment campaign, some parents are less than pleased.

Spoke one annoyed parent, “We’re what you’d call a pretty liberal, anti-war family, which is why I was so shocked to find a Navy enlistment contract in my nine year old son’s book bag dated for his 18th birthday. He said that he’d gotten it from a group of break dancing sailors who came to his school and, after ascertaining that he wasn’t interested in the military, told them that they were papers he needed to sign to not join the Navy. Its an outrage.”

Despite such flack, recruiters like John Brady proudly soldier on, secure in their belief that the ends – a stronger military and a stronger nation - will justify their means.