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Bar is that low, huh?
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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Do military recruiters actually just cold call (well, text) you like that in the US?
Yes, and of course they're allowed to lie to children as well
The Army came to my highschool my senior year and put on an exhibition. They had Humvees and APCs and a massive wall of speakers that would make a passerby deaf at 40 yards. You were able to get out of class if you went to the event and listened to their pitch. I was one of like 4 kids who didn't go. Parents weren't told about this in advance, and there were recruiters there with pens waiting.
TBF, my school did have JROTC program but still... I think thats what set off my long history of being anti-that.
That's crazy but not really surprising to me anymore for the States I guess. I think I've only ever seen an army recruiter once in my life and it was a booth at a convention semi recently
From the UK and I’ve ever seen one when actively went to the recruitment office, before I wised up and noped out of that idea.
Yeah, I got a call when I was sixteen or so several years ago. They strung me along for quite a while just acting like they knew me. I was trying to figure out how I knew them and finally they said they were a recruiter and I told them I wasn't interested. I wish I told him to fuck off, but that's not the kind of kind I was.
They even come to your highschool class during lesson time to talk with everyone about why military is awesome and you should totally join.
There was also a few month duration each year where army members would setup a table in your school cafetaria and give snacks for talking about military or taking surveys etc.
Fun fact: the United States hasn't signed the international agreement banning child soldiers because the military allows 17-year-olds to enlist (although they don't actually start their service until they're 18).
I turned 18 in basic training. You can ship to basic while you're 17. And then go to a unit. You are not deployable to a contingency zone (the widest definition of "place you could be injured by enemy fire") until you're 18.
Later on we got a private who actually made it all the way to the unit and had to wait until his 18th birthday to join us on deployment.
That's actually fucking absurd wow. I was in the Canadian Air Cadets as a kid and even then I didn't see that level of recruiting. Like even when doing Cadet basic training on an actual air base, it was always just learning drill, shooting, and about how planes worked. I've never in my life been asked or had it suggested to me that I join the military
Yes. Before cell phones were common they called my parents land line asking for me.
Also like any ‘sales’ job metrics matter, so they’ll take a meeting with kids like this even if it doesn’t convert to a recruit in the end.