New GoArmy.com Strategy Targets Kids Who Seriously Thought They Could Go Pro
By: Brad Bison
Tags: Sports, Foreign Policy, Strategy, Recruiting, Military

Photo By OSTILL is Franck Camhi & CreativeCommons.com

GoArmy.com released its new recruiting plan last week— take advantage of high school athletes who laughably thought they were good enough to play in college then the big leagues.

According to the head of Army Recruiters, Jocko Willink, “It’s pretty easy to get these kinds to join. Get them at their lowest point, when all the kids who focused on school finally move on with their lives and the disillusionment hits when they have to stay in town and take classes at community college. Seeing all these nerds go to college and party while you stay at home, go nowhere, and never receive that call from a team recruiter — thats when we strike, when the iron is hot with despair. Its very effective.”

According to Jocko, “The best targets: high school quarterbacks in small towns. The lack of talent and competition really lets delusions of NFL grandeur get to their heads. In small towns mediocre QB’s think they’re good, but would be fourth string in a major city. The post-senior year season depression is our advantage: they can be a star again. Our posters have soldiers shooting terrorists with villagers cheering for the American heroes from Fallujah alleyways. We have a recruitment video where a bombed out Afghan village is decorated like a homecoming game with a faceless soldier getting his homecoming crown with message “You’re still the King”.

We asked recently enlisted high school athletes why they joined: “Honestly I just want to serve my country. They need more heroes, like me. I took my team to state. They need people with a winning mentality over there.”

A mother of one of the recruits told us “We are so proud, now he won’t have to face the death of his hopes, dreams and aspirations, just regular death.”

A long time small town football coach weighed in, “I really wish they would just accept that its ok to study. He could still work in athletics somewhere like Dick’s or Big 5. They blame me for not shopping them to schools. This is small town, you were good players HERE — not anywhere else. These kids man. STAY IN SCHOOL”.

Drill Sargents “love these kids, you scream at them and they work so hard. In the end if you just show up, you’ll pass basic. But we tell them they have to fight to “start”. Its a hoot”.

US Citizens, when asked on a national survey their opinions on the recruitment strategy, almost unanimously checked the “We’re at war?” response option.

“For these kids, high school sports was the peak of their lives and they don’t realize not playing at higher levels isn’t the end of the world. But we don’t tell them that. In fact we make them think that it is indeed the end of the world” Jocko explained. “We promise another peak. I mean we know it sucks to enlist in the army and its nothing like how we promised, but we’ve been doing that for years and they don’t know that, so its really not our problem or responsibility.”

The changes have even trickled into the design of basic training, with barracks being renovated to look like a dugout, combat armor that looks like football pads complete with jersey numbers, and orange rifles that have the Spalding logo on them.

The recruiter corp shared other previous innovation strategies, such as targeting kids “that get bullied a lot. That was not nearly as successful as this. Though we did get a dedicated future recruit named Kyle Ridgehouse or something like that, but we haven’t heard from him in a while”.

“We make small adjustments to our language too: “Where will you be ‘drafted to?’, ‘Commit’ to the cause, meet our ‘D1’ shooting ‘Coach’, Let your purple heart be your ‘Heisman’. What do you call a successful bomb crater? ‘Super bowl’. Its fun thinking of all these stupid patronizing ways to pander to them.”

“We started calling the special forces “Varsity” and they all will do whatever they can to ’start’ on varsity. Its pretty funny lol” Jocko whispered to us as we watched recruits do a ropes course.

“We we’re originally targeting economically disenfranchised groups, who are in abundant supply thanks to the military-industrial complex — but the problem with them is they are just using us for the GI bill and steady employment. Whereas we can gas up ex-athletes by promising the thrill of throwing a game winning pass or world series grand slam by claiming drone bombing some mountain goats gives the same exhilarating hero feeling.”