The NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT has a military recruitment provision. I knew military recruiters were free to wander the halls of high schools, because I’ve witnessed it. I did not know part of the NCLB Act provisioned for military recruitment. Learn something new every day!

I do know that in the past, military recruiters have gone over the border into Mexico to recruit withe promise of citizenship. (If they live through it!) Recruiting requires salesmanship. They do have “sales tools.” By 2002, more than 500,000 copies of a computer game “America’s Army, aimed at recruiting computer savvy teenagers, had been downloaded at americasarmy.com and recruiters had a 2CD set of the game to give away. In the game, bullet hits would appear as little red puffs instead of blood gushing and body parts flying off…..because the army wanted to avoid any suggestion that combat is unpleasant. The government, as of 2002, had spent $7.6 million to develop the game. Updates were budgeted at 2.5 million a year and another 1.5 million per year to maintain a multiplayer infrastructure. The military has sponsored drag racing. It owns a 6,000 horsepower dragster called “The Sarge.” “GO ARMY” is emblazened on it’s side. They would then set up recruitment tables at the race track, and have helicopters and assault vehichles for the boys to climb on. It cost the army approximately $5.5 million to participate in 23 races in 2002.

Then there’s the National Guard’s offer of 3…..YES! 3…… free ITune downloads if you sign up to be contacted by a recruiter!!!

The list of recruitment techniques goes on and on. If you are a parent, you should KNOW about them, and know who’s talking to your kids. A couple great sites for parents of recruitment age kids is Working For Change and Leave My Child Alone.

And then, there’s this…….