Just got a call from a military recruiter and needed some place to vent a bit

[woodsprite]

Specifically, the one from my son's high school that he just graduated from. The guy called asking for my son at work, so I'm thinking that's the contact number my son gave him. The recruiter wanted to talk to him re: "The wonderful opportunities the military offers..." I told him he was not interested in the military and he was going off to college in the fall. Then he tried to spin the "Well we could get him set up so most of his college would be free." I told him that's why we've worked at the University for the past 35 years, so our kids could attend tuition free. He was trying to get my son's cell phone number out of me, but I just told him "Good day", and hung up.

Grrrrrr! Our son has already done the required registration for the draft.

The military already has 3 of the 5 boys in our family (one is just starting high school). They signed up voluntarily because it's a license to play with guns. It's all they've ever dreamed about. The recruiter my one nephew worked with (Coast Guard) tried to cheat him out of the higher grade level that he was able to go in as since he graduated honors, had been participating in sea bee camps, and was an Eagle Scout. I think after basic training, it allowed him to enter at 1 or 2 levels for a slightly higher pay grade. Thankfully someone he knew was retired Coast Guard and had congratulated him on his accomplishments and higher pay grade, which prompted a lot of questions. The retired CG officer intervened and reported my nephew's recruiter. Last I heard, all of his recruits files were being audited and he had been removed from the recruiting office.

When I was talking to the recruiter today, I was truthfully thinking if our elected Congressional representatives won't fight to protect this country from enemies both foreign and domestic, than how do you expect to drum up people to send to their corporate greed-driven distraction-based wars.

Glad our son gave them my number rather than his cell number.

[Laffy Kat]

1. When my boys were entering high school, the school gave me a form...

Along with all the other paperwork they give, that gives you an opt out of having the recruiters contact the kids and I used it with both boys. Of course, you have to dig to find the form and many parents never knew to look. If the parents didn't sign the form, contact by a recruiter was a given. It always made me mad that the form was an "opt out" instead of a "opt in."

[safeinOhio]

2. I got that call when I graduated from

college at age 50. I told him I would be proud to serve, when can I start. He could hardly hide his excitement until he asked my birth day. I told him 1949 and he hung up on me.

[Dave Starsky]

3. Tell them he has asthma.

They will never call again.

[woodsprite]

4. Good to know. But I would think they'd check on that if they wanted to push.

My SIL didn't know her two boys (twins) were red/green color blind until they joined the military. They were trying to talk one into being a "spotter" because they said his color blindness would be a benefit, but he really wants to be an MP. The other wanted so badly to be a gunner on a coast guard ship, but instead now he's a "fire man". Not really sure what that entails, but I think it has something to do with repair and inspection of vessels. He waiting to start his training for that.

[Dave Starsky]

5. They won't check.

They're salesmen, not cops. And that would be a flagrant HIPAA violation. They have no right to your kid's medical records unless he or she signs up and volunteers to give it to them.

It's perfectly OK to lie to recruiters to keep your kids out of the military. God knows they lie their asses off every day.

[jmowreader]

6. Even enlisting in the military is no guarantee you won't keep getting calls

In December 1983 I went on Christmas leave from Fort Campbell and my mom handed me this stack of my "mail" - a two-inch-thick stack of letters from the Marine Corps recruiter trying to convince me to come sign up. So I suited up in the ol' AG 44s with the 101st Airborne patch on the shoulder, put on my shiniest jump boots, and paid a visit to the nice gentleman at the Marine recruiting depot to ask how I could be taken off their mailing list.

Strangely enough, the Navy and Air Force recruiters got the message that I was taken.