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re: "Army Targets, Misleads U.S. Youth"
imadork
Member Posts: 147 ✭✭✭
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/db/articles.asp?ID=20025
Ms. Vossoughi,
This message is in response to your Viewpoint article "Army Targets, Misleads U.S. Youth" published on May 28.
The "America's Army" game is indeed part of the Army's larger recruitment campaign. While it may be tempting to criticize the Army and other branches of the Department of Defense for their new advertising campaigns on the basis of cost, an analysis of the current trends in this country will show that the "Army of One" campaign and the new video game are justifiable efforts at increasing the strength and quality of the U.S. Army.
For years now, recruitment numbers have declined in all of the armed services. The Army has not escaped the fact that fewer people are joining each year, and those who do sign up seem to be motivated more by personal gain than patriotism. Ask any recruiter how difficult his or her job is, and chances are that you'll hear how recruits these days are not in the service for national service, but to get experience for the business world, to receive scholarship money for education, or even to improve a barren resume. The possibility of citizens signing on out of a sense of patriotism has become much more remote.
Can anyone deny the importance of a well-equipped, well-trained army to the security of a free state? Shirin clearly feels that pacifism and apathy are more effective at maintaining a country's sovereignty. While it must be admitted that the Department of Defense sometimes engages in actions or operations that deserve ridicule, on balance it is painfully obvious through more than two centuries and many wars that a military force is a necessary tool to maintain this country's existence. Today's military must therefore be the strongest, best-trained, and best-equipped force in the world, and if the new "Army of One" campaign and "America's Army" video game give the United States any advantage, the country's purposes have been served. Apparently, today's citizen-politicians agree because they fund the Department of Defense quite well, especially programs like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which concentrates on developing future technology for tomorrow's battlefields. One might recall that DARPA developed the Internet many years ago, partnering with UCLA and contractors to make the revolutionary network.
If Vossoughi is concerned with taxpayer expense of the campaign, let us remember that the balance of powers in this country serves as a check on wasteful spending; Congress must approve the President's budget each year, and the fact that our representatives are popularly elected and have approved the 2002 budget should indicate that there is money in the budget for such a program. Furthermore, multi-billion dollar U.S. operations in Afghanistan and other countries make television advertising and the development of a video game almost insignificant in the yearly expenditures of the Department of Defense.
Shirin criticizes the Army in particular for the fact that "the majority of characters are men of color" in its new America's Army video game. She claims that recruitment efforts today are racially slanted and are predominantly present in "mostly non-white, non-affluent schools," which "are crawling with Army recruitment officers ready to snatch [high school graduates] up." Shirin even criticizes the highly successful JROTC program because it "promotes authoritarian values, gun use, and a version of history that looks at...soldiers rather than...citizens." Such arguments are clearly designed to make out the Army and other services as a racist establishment preying on the non-white inner city youth of this country.
In retrospect, the Army's new advertising techniques contain the same messages, the same people, and the same styles as many contemporary advertising campaigns from the heavy hitters: Nike, Gatorade, Sprite, Sony, and so on. Take a look at how many "people of color" are in these ads, and you'll see the same trend reflected in the Army of One campaign. If we are to believe Shirin's argument that blaxploitation and "perverted" racial awareness are part of the new recruitment efforts, we must extend her argument to encompass much of today's "urban" or "ethnic" advertising.
Quite naturally, including ethnic characters in a game or in a TV spot isn't the result of a kinder, gentler Army. Of course it's designed to appeal to an ethnic audience. Today's Marine Corps, for example, has leaflets centered around its well-known desire to recruit black female officers. Part of the issue is that the officer corps in all of the armed services are largely white and male, though with an increasing percentage of blacks and women as a result of previous recruitment campaigns, while the enlisted corps have a higher percentage of ethnic and female troops. The problem with Shirin's article is that she suggests through her criticism that recruiting increased numbers of ethnic soldiers and officers is somehow an insidious result of ulterior motives. The Army is not trying "to draw America's kids into an institution geared toward violence and obedience instead of pushing them to pursue...higher education;" the Army's main selling point today is that it offers money for college. If the Army can successfully recruit more ethnic high school graduates to obtain college education through the Montgomery "GI Bill" and other incentives, it will successfully increase the proportion of ethnic officers in its forces, and increase the percentage of ethnic enlisted personnel with those who decide against college. Can anyone really claim that this is a bad thing? An increase in ethnic membership in the military parallels the increase of ethnic membership in police departments across our own state that has occurred in recent decades. A survey of cadets at the L.A. Police Department Academy would certainly show a higher percentage of ethnic recruits today than 30 years ago, for instance. The critical question one must ask is whether the recruitment efforts in the present are an evil attempt to coerce ethnic high schoolers into some sort of terrible mind-numbing institution, or are merely a reflection of societal trends that all advertisers appeal to. The answer, I would suggest, lies in recruitment numbers and comparisons with other advertising campaigns today. If in fact the Army of One and America's Army devices succeed in increasing the percentage of ethnic members toward the proportions in the rest of society, their expense and use remains justified, and criticizing people for joining one of the only means of national self-defense is misguided.
Shirin claims that "cuts in education have subsidized a ballooning military budget." In response, it is clear that the military budget is much lower today than during the Cold War, and that federal grant programs from the Department of Education have allowed great numbers of students to obtain college education at reasonable cost since their inception. The suggestion that cuts in education are the cause of today's military spending is absurd, and shows that the article is yet another attempt to demonize the Department of Defense for doing its legally mandated job: to defend the United States from all of its enemies. While we must never lose sight of a perfect society, let us always remember that there are in fact enemies of this country who don't respond to friendly negotiations, and we must meet those who are forceful with force.
Shirin suggests that giving video cameras to children in war-torn Afghanistan, among others, would show the "death and destruction, sexual abuse and displacement caused by the U.S. military." Perhaps she should give cameras to the people of Somalia as well, to show how warlords and racketeers control the food supply and perpetuate the injustice that their society suffers. Perhaps she should give video cameras to the people of Iraq, who have suffered chemical weapons and other tragedies at the hands of Sadaam Hussein's regime. Perhaps after seeing documentation of the evils in other countries, Shirin will realize that a military force is capable of doing some good in this world, however much we would like to argue that diplomacy is the ultimate solution. In the meantime, it may prove difficult to see the need for a well-equipped, capable military with well-balanced ethnic numbers, but something tells me that the Army of One and the rest of the campaign are not simply designed to lead kids astray. And no, the military forces are not rosy. It is only with a balance of trust and criticism that we can hope to maintain the Army and other forces as tools of this country. We must acknowledge that recruiting people with an ad campaign is the least of our worries with a standing army; we must ensure that those who are in the military remain accountable to America's justice system, and we must also ensure that the military has enough quality people to remain an effective force. Such ends can only be accomplished through solid recruitment efforts, and punishment and deterrence of crime. The recruitment techniques of today therefore remain justified.
I'm not really a dork...I just play one on TV.
Edited by - imadork on 05/28/2002 19:18:05
Ms. Vossoughi,
This message is in response to your Viewpoint article "Army Targets, Misleads U.S. Youth" published on May 28.
The "America's Army" game is indeed part of the Army's larger recruitment campaign. While it may be tempting to criticize the Army and other branches of the Department of Defense for their new advertising campaigns on the basis of cost, an analysis of the current trends in this country will show that the "Army of One" campaign and the new video game are justifiable efforts at increasing the strength and quality of the U.S. Army.
For years now, recruitment numbers have declined in all of the armed services. The Army has not escaped the fact that fewer people are joining each year, and those who do sign up seem to be motivated more by personal gain than patriotism. Ask any recruiter how difficult his or her job is, and chances are that you'll hear how recruits these days are not in the service for national service, but to get experience for the business world, to receive scholarship money for education, or even to improve a barren resume. The possibility of citizens signing on out of a sense of patriotism has become much more remote.
Can anyone deny the importance of a well-equipped, well-trained army to the security of a free state? Shirin clearly feels that pacifism and apathy are more effective at maintaining a country's sovereignty. While it must be admitted that the Department of Defense sometimes engages in actions or operations that deserve ridicule, on balance it is painfully obvious through more than two centuries and many wars that a military force is a necessary tool to maintain this country's existence. Today's military must therefore be the strongest, best-trained, and best-equipped force in the world, and if the new "Army of One" campaign and "America's Army" video game give the United States any advantage, the country's purposes have been served. Apparently, today's citizen-politicians agree because they fund the Department of Defense quite well, especially programs like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which concentrates on developing future technology for tomorrow's battlefields. One might recall that DARPA developed the Internet many years ago, partnering with UCLA and contractors to make the revolutionary network.
If Vossoughi is concerned with taxpayer expense of the campaign, let us remember that the balance of powers in this country serves as a check on wasteful spending; Congress must approve the President's budget each year, and the fact that our representatives are popularly elected and have approved the 2002 budget should indicate that there is money in the budget for such a program. Furthermore, multi-billion dollar U.S. operations in Afghanistan and other countries make television advertising and the development of a video game almost insignificant in the yearly expenditures of the Department of Defense.
Shirin criticizes the Army in particular for the fact that "the majority of characters are men of color" in its new America's Army video game. She claims that recruitment efforts today are racially slanted and are predominantly present in "mostly non-white, non-affluent schools," which "are crawling with Army recruitment officers ready to snatch [high school graduates] up." Shirin even criticizes the highly successful JROTC program because it "promotes authoritarian values, gun use, and a version of history that looks at...soldiers rather than...citizens." Such arguments are clearly designed to make out the Army and other services as a racist establishment preying on the non-white inner city youth of this country.
In retrospect, the Army's new advertising techniques contain the same messages, the same people, and the same styles as many contemporary advertising campaigns from the heavy hitters: Nike, Gatorade, Sprite, Sony, and so on. Take a look at how many "people of color" are in these ads, and you'll see the same trend reflected in the Army of One campaign. If we are to believe Shirin's argument that blaxploitation and "perverted" racial awareness are part of the new recruitment efforts, we must extend her argument to encompass much of today's "urban" or "ethnic" advertising.
Quite naturally, including ethnic characters in a game or in a TV spot isn't the result of a kinder, gentler Army. Of course it's designed to appeal to an ethnic audience. Today's Marine Corps, for example, has leaflets centered around its well-known desire to recruit black female officers. Part of the issue is that the officer corps in all of the armed services are largely white and male, though with an increasing percentage of blacks and women as a result of previous recruitment campaigns, while the enlisted corps have a higher percentage of ethnic and female troops. The problem with Shirin's article is that she suggests through her criticism that recruiting increased numbers of ethnic soldiers and officers is somehow an insidious result of ulterior motives. The Army is not trying "to draw America's kids into an institution geared toward violence and obedience instead of pushing them to pursue...higher education;" the Army's main selling point today is that it offers money for college. If the Army can successfully recruit more ethnic high school graduates to obtain college education through the Montgomery "GI Bill" and other incentives, it will successfully increase the proportion of ethnic officers in its forces, and increase the percentage of ethnic enlisted personnel with those who decide against college. Can anyone really claim that this is a bad thing? An increase in ethnic membership in the military parallels the increase of ethnic membership in police departments across our own state that has occurred in recent decades. A survey of cadets at the L.A. Police Department Academy would certainly show a higher percentage of ethnic recruits today than 30 years ago, for instance. The critical question one must ask is whether the recruitment efforts in the present are an evil attempt to coerce ethnic high schoolers into some sort of terrible mind-numbing institution, or are merely a reflection of societal trends that all advertisers appeal to. The answer, I would suggest, lies in recruitment numbers and comparisons with other advertising campaigns today. If in fact the Army of One and America's Army devices succeed in increasing the percentage of ethnic members toward the proportions in the rest of society, their expense and use remains justified, and criticizing people for joining one of the only means of national self-defense is misguided.
Shirin claims that "cuts in education have subsidized a ballooning military budget." In response, it is clear that the military budget is much lower today than during the Cold War, and that federal grant programs from the Department of Education have allowed great numbers of students to obtain college education at reasonable cost since their inception. The suggestion that cuts in education are the cause of today's military spending is absurd, and shows that the article is yet another attempt to demonize the Department of Defense for doing its legally mandated job: to defend the United States from all of its enemies. While we must never lose sight of a perfect society, let us always remember that there are in fact enemies of this country who don't respond to friendly negotiations, and we must meet those who are forceful with force.
Shirin suggests that giving video cameras to children in war-torn Afghanistan, among others, would show the "death and destruction, sexual abuse and displacement caused by the U.S. military." Perhaps she should give cameras to the people of Somalia as well, to show how warlords and racketeers control the food supply and perpetuate the injustice that their society suffers. Perhaps she should give video cameras to the people of Iraq, who have suffered chemical weapons and other tragedies at the hands of Sadaam Hussein's regime. Perhaps after seeing documentation of the evils in other countries, Shirin will realize that a military force is capable of doing some good in this world, however much we would like to argue that diplomacy is the ultimate solution. In the meantime, it may prove difficult to see the need for a well-equipped, capable military with well-balanced ethnic numbers, but something tells me that the Army of One and the rest of the campaign are not simply designed to lead kids astray. And no, the military forces are not rosy. It is only with a balance of trust and criticism that we can hope to maintain the Army and other forces as tools of this country. We must acknowledge that recruiting people with an ad campaign is the least of our worries with a standing army; we must ensure that those who are in the military remain accountable to America's justice system, and we must also ensure that the military has enough quality people to remain an effective force. Such ends can only be accomplished through solid recruitment efforts, and punishment and deterrence of crime. The recruitment techniques of today therefore remain justified.
I'm not really a dork...I just play one on TV.
Edited by - imadork on 05/28/2002 19:18:05
Comments
She claims that recruitment efforts today are racially slanted and are predominantly present in "mostly non-white, non-affluent schools," which "are crawling with Army recruitment officers ready to snatch [high school graduates] up."
Take a look at any major military installation and its enlisted leaders. The vast majority of Command Sergeants Major are of "minority" ethnicities. Why is it such a surprise that a disproportionate percentage of minorities choose to make the Army a career in comparison to their caucasian counterparts? It's simple. They perceive that society treats them in a manner that is based upon their skin color and not their job performance. The Armed Forces are pioneers in the area of equal opportunity employment and the development of equal opportunity policies. You're damn skippy recruiters are going to recruit heavily in the minority markets. First of all, regardless of skin color, you have to pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. There are plenty of predominantly "white" schools where the average score is 10 points below failing. Schools that are predominantly attended by members of minority ethnicities are more receptive to the opportunity for good pay, an education and a chance to be judged for one's job performance--not one's skin color. The disadvantaged are less likely to snub a recruiter out of arrogance because they don't have a silver spoon from which to be weaned. The liberals want it both ways. They want people to receive preference for the color of their skin but they don't want the military to be the one hiring. Are they secretly afraid that these stereotypically liberal constituents may someday vote conservatively out of sheer self-preservation because they work for an employer that depends upon the conservative vote? Where is the finger of blame when the liberal system of higher education does the exact same thing in college catalogs and free informational videos about their schools?
The auther properly points out the fallacy regarding the subidization of the military through education budget cuts. It is laughable how many people that barely pass (and sometimes don't) the ASVAB but claim to have their education completely paid for with federal grants. Having a child or two out of wedlock apparently helps one get a free education as well. It works where I live.
20% of my recruits, at this point, have been of Native American Decent. I return to the community in which I was born and where my family name is well-known and even respected only to have rude comments and doors pushed in my face. I go to poverty-stricken reservations and find that one high-achiever who would rather fight for his country than pay for college by virtue of grants that are given due the color of his or her skin. You damn well better believe I'm going to go where I am welcome and where our freedoms are appreciated.
SSG idsman75, U.S. ARMY
Edited by - idsman75 on 05/29/2002 00:04:14
Edited by - idsman75 on 05/29/2002 00:06:15
well-said idsman; the whole "being judged on your accomplishments" and rank is another good argument against this Shirin character.