Does the military really show up to high schools to recruit?

26 comments

1. Yeah, not exclusive to America though.

   Hand out pamphlets, talk about education opportunities, that sort of thing

2. Yes, at public schools at least, they usually set up a table in the cafeteria a few times a year or at career day and talk to anyone who stops by.

3. Yeah, I think you are probably exaggerating all that’s involved. They put up a card table and people can talk to them if they want.

4. Definitely not every single high school, there’s not enough recruiters for that. It’s a pretty common thing but I didn’t experience it personally when I went to high school in the late 2000s (public school in a fairly affluent area).

   As someone who later joined the army, I can tell you that a solid chunk of my group in basic training was joining right after high school, largely for education benefits. I’d say that was around 50% who were 18 or 19 years old, and the rest of us were spread out from ages 20 to 35.

5. Yes.

6. Yup. We had a guy from the Air Force and a guy from the army come and talk about the options and what you could do. (We also had a guy from one of those Diploma mills which also seems problematic) I have no idea if every school does this, but they did at mine.

7. They were at career day in my kids high school, but they don’t just
   “show up” to recruit at our schools (meaning my town) no.

   They did not come to my high school at all when I was a kid.

8. Yeah lol. I’m in college and some of them still recruit from universities and community colleges.

9. At my school they didn’t walk around soliciting kids, but they had a table or a booth or a room they were loaned for kids who wanted to ask about it.

10. They show up at public high schools

11. They came to mine. They set up tables and we could go talk to them. My experience with friends who joined the military is that recruiters will say whatever it takes to get you to sign up. A close friend was promised the sun and the moon and once he left Fort Benning he was driving heavy equipment through Iraq, *not* doing cyber security.

12. It was a big deal at the school I graduated from, they were around all the time. They also brought all kinds of things to give away, posters, pens, keychains, etc. The recruiters were super popular. We also had recruiting assemblies that were mandatory. This was a small rural school btw. The high school I went to in salt lake hardly had this stuff, not sure why urban vs rural made such a difference.

13. Yes, they came to my son’s Junior class one day to present. Two guys, both with completely different approaches. One was all laid back and was like, “here’s info if you’re interested.” The other was all jacked up and talked about driving big trucks and firing machine guns. They didn’t talk my son into it, but he said it was entertaining.

14. Yes, I can remember my senior year of high school two soldiers probably in their early to mid-twenties came to talk to our class about it. They mainly talked about the benefits, but you could tell they probably just got stuck with that job and neither of them wanted to be there.

    Everyone got quiet towards the end of their presentation and one soldier says “anyone have any questions?” and no one said anything. So then he said “Who here thinks the United States is the most free country in the world? ….It’s not”

    I still laugh thinking about that

15. They do. When there is a job fair or career day type event at school, they will have a booth similar to all the other local companies that are recruiting.

16. Yep, we even had a recruiter come into my civics class one day and talk about how he got to do skydiving lol.

17. Yeah I’d do pull-ups for free pizza all the time, easiest way to get free food

18. Yes. In junior year we took the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) and if you score high the recruiters would contact you. They’d also be at the school if anyone wanted to talk. I enlisted in the Army right before my senior year on a delayed basis, in Aug ‘01 then went to basic after graduation. My recruiter was pretty much honest in what they told me. I did have to deal with the Air Force calling me throughout the year and not understanding I had already went with the Army.

19. I’d say almost every high school will have a recruiter visit at least once per year. Just because you might not have ran into the recruiter when you were in high school doesn’t mean they never visited. I guarantee if your school did a job fair a recruiter showed up.

    They socialize w/ students, talk about serving your country, and cool stuff the military can offer. They’ll have pamphlets and take information from people that are interested so they can go through the enlistment process.

    Not really. They are the used car salesmen of the military. I don’t want to say they outright intentionally lie to recruits. Sometimes I think it’s more omission of truths, or they don’t actually have accurate information. Lots of people going in don’t get an accurate idea of what it’s like to serve from the recruiter. They get paid to get people to sign up not based on satisfaction of those who sign up.

20. I graduated HS in the mid 90s. They would come and do a presentation and ask is anyone wanted to take the ASVAB test. You got out of class to take the test so all of my friends did. After the test they’d try to talk to you but once you told them you’re going to college and didn’t need help paying for it that was pretty much it. I think maybe one or two kids enlisted that I knew.

21. the military will practically show up at your door if you do very well on the ASVAB tests that are administered. within weeks of doing the test, I had the army knocking at my door wanting me to leave ASAP. I was 18 when I was a junior in high school due to failing a grade when I was a lil kid. so I wouldn’t have got to finish high school. I let a girl I was dating at the time talk me out of going in the military tho.

22. Yep, they set up tables at fairs, and talk to kids, as 18 is the age of recruitment.

    They also work with teachers to identify potential candidates and convince them of the viability of a military career. I was part of a trip that the Marines do every year, where they fly a group of teachers out to San Diego to see the recruitment center (boot camp).

23. Yes, they do. Having an all-volunteer military as a superpower requires a lot of *recruitment*.

    Of course they’re going to sugar coat it and focus on the positives and not the negatives, but military service really does have amazing benefits compared to a lot of other countries. Pushing young veterans to take advantage of those benefits is a whole other challenge…

24. I don’t remember any recruiting at my high school. If I recall correctly, the city of San Francisco explicitly banned this.

25. Yes. Thats where I met my AF recruiter. Honestly it was a super pleasant experience. I went up to him and started asking questions. He was super polite and friendly and didn’t lie to me a single time. I’ve been in the AF for 2 years now.

26. We always had two or three mandatory classes every year in my poor-ass rural Arizona school. They’d take a history class, so rather than teaching us about the fall of the Soviet Union or the Iraq War or whatever, they’d have some hungover noncom paint is a very honest and totally-not-self-serving-at-all picture of life in the service. As others have said I did super well on the ASVAB (military aptitude test, everyone in my school was required to take it), and I must have made the mistake of giving real contact info because recruiters desperately called, texted, mailed, and Facebook messaged me for years trying to convince me to enlist.