The Chattanooga shooting leads me to wonder if it would make sense to change the way that we do military recruiting. Most U.S. government installations these days are fortress-like due to a fear that U.S. citizens (or recently welcomed immigrants) will walk in and start killing federal workers. Since the purpose of the center is to meet with the public, there is no way to make a military recruitment center as secure as a military base (surrounded by fences, open grass, and accessible only through one or two gates). For a U.S. citizen, such as Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, the easiest soldiers to find and kill will be the ones who work in a recruiting center.
Why not then use civilian contractors to handle recruiting? Bring in veterans to speak from time to time about what it was like in the military (let’s assume that a veteran is not as attractive target to guys like Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez). Bring in veterans who are collecting disability benefits so that potential recruits can see what 45 percent of outcomes are like (Boston Globe).
What is the evidence that a private company couldn’t do as well or better at recruiting compared to using active-duty military personnel?
Related:
I support what president-elect Trump is calling for: end ‘gun free zones’ on military bases, mandate that all soldiers remain armed and on alert while on duty wherever they are.
Since recruiting centers are apparently terrorist targets, how about getting rid of the “gun free” designation and allowing those who work there (either military or civilian) to carry guns for defensive purposes? What is the point of making a military installation “gun free”?
Changing the centers from military to civilian would not make them any less of a target.
I talked with a marine recruiter. He said “here fill out this information form and then we can have a talk.” It was an induction form. I was dumb enough to fill out my details but not so dumb to sign it at the bottom. There’s a lot of nefarious stuff that goes on in military recruiting. I don’t know you get a civilian to do those kinds of things, not if they could quit and get a better job.
@Izzie L.
How about giving the soon-to-be enlistees a taste of the military mindset at the very outset by processing them at a gunpoint right after entering the premises of the recruitment centers – preferably in crossfire configuration using the latest, meanest, handheld hardware (think Animal Mother in “Full Metal Jacket”). After all, they have walked the walk (-in), now let’s them talk themselves out of it! (A gain for the military, too, as it can but profit from enlisting only the fully motivated/ consciously committed individuals).
@bjk
Lying to recruits is only half of a recruiters job. Lying to the government is the other half of the job. “Oh, you had asthma as a child, don’t mention that on the medical forms”; “Oh you had an arrest as a juvenile, we won’t put that on the paperwork; don’t tell anyone else about it”. It might be possible to set up a system where contracted recruiters are still able to lie to recruits, but the lying to the government part would be tricky in a contracted environment.
Like a lot of jobs in the military, recruiting duties are sometimes a necessary assignment for enlisted non-commissioned officers to obtain promotion. The main advantages of the assignment are bonus payments, stable geographic location and no deployments. The main disadvantages are a sales climate where the product quality can change with the next administration or military crisis and long hours, meeting potential recruits at home and going to school career events. You are a sales rep for the military with a territory to service.
The storefront approach–recruiting offices in strip malls–provides visibility but but also exposure. If you enclose the offices behind electronically locked doors and bulletproof glass, the message that the military is part of normal American public life, and a normal individual’s life, is diminished. If there were a draft, the trouble and expense, and now risk, wouldn’t be necessary.
Civilian recruiters would miss the objective (even if proposed tongue-in-cheek.) Potential high school age recruits want to talk to someone in uniform who isn’t too much older than themselves. A 45-year-old civilian employee who went to boot camp when the recruit’s father was in high school, and who is double-dipping on pension and disability benefits with no apparent disability is not the person they want.
Anything would be better than this…
USA Today 01/18/15 – The Army paid a Texas couple nearly $4 million for supplying it with names of recruits who may have enlisted without their help, part of a bonus program blasted by a leading senator as a “mind-blowing” waste of taxpayer money, according to interviews and documents…
USA Today 02/03/14 – More than 800 soldiers are under criminal investigation for gaming a National Guard program that paid hundreds of millions in bonuses to soldiers who persuaded friends to sign up during the darkest years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, USA TODAY has learned.
Fraudulent payments total in the “tens of millions,” with one soldier allegedly pocketing $275,000 in illegal kickbacks, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY. At least four others made more than $100,000 each.
WaPo, 05/12/13 – Military recruiters across the country have been caught in a string of sex-crime scandals over the past year…
ianf – I think there is a lot of room between subjecting recruits to crossfire and “gun free zones” (apparently terrorists can’t read signs, so they aren’t really gun free – maybe they should be more accurately called “free fire zones” ). I don’t think it would send the wrong message if recruiters were to wear side arms as police officers (and some airline pilots) already do. If this freaked out the delicate transexual flowers who are being recruited to join the military, they could carry concealed. It has to be better than being a defenseless target. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
What is the rationale for a “gun free” military installation? I understand why you might want to make, say a high school gun free, but why would you forbid active duty military personnel from being armed?
Izzie L: until recently, terrorism in the U.S. was very rare, and the military as targets, even rarer (the odd few Plowshares protestors never threatened people.)
I suspect force protection–which is a part of operational doctrine in a deployed force–may become reconsidered as a necessity in non-deployed duties. When Nidal Hasan attacked his fellow Army soldiers at the pre-deployment health screening center, the only armed response came from civilian police officers who neutralized the shooter as well as suffered casualties themselves. That was on an enormous Army base. Most recruiting offices have tiny staffs, with the NCOs who work there doing all of their own clerical work as well as their meet-and -greet duties. Who will be the force protection there? Rent-a-cops? If you arm the service members, how much protection will that offer? The Chattanooga attack was done with long arms if I read the story right, which is difficult to defend against in an ordinary civilian office setting. Should they be wearing BDUs and body armor? Should they be sitting behind ballistic glass panels waiting for their prospective recruits to walk in? From the story, it seems that no typical building security measures–metal detectors and bag searches– would have made a difference as the attacks were drive-by shootings.
Why need recruiters when it has more soldiers then it needs? http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/07/09/army-outlines-40000-cuts/29923339/
“If you arm the service members, how much protection will that offer?”
Better than nothing, I suppose. There have been a number of cases where shooters have been stopped by people who happened to be carrying weapons.