Saved by the Army

"The chance of you getting hurt in the Army is probably less than your getting shot or killed in your own neighborhood."

by Bruce Schimmel

I heard a pitch to enlist in the Army recently that was so good, even I was tempted. And the recruiters certainly weren't aiming at me.

They were pitching at the 10 boys sitting around me. On the brink of manhood, these juvenile offenders are students in a class I teach on journalism.

Dressed in drab prison garb, their bodies scribed with tags, each student came with a history of which the Army might reasonably be chary.

But that didn't stop the four recruiters — two black men, an Asian guy and a black woman — who said the Army was ready to overlook certain youthful indiscretions. "We can bend some rules, a little," they said.

Sure, I know, it sounds pernicious for military recruiters to be trolling lockups for wayward juveniles. I might have thought so, too, if these smartly dressed and well-spoken soldiers hadn't offered just what these so-called "throwaway" children really needed.

In our journalism class before the recruiters arrived, we had recorded some brief messages intended for the incoming president. Audio letters, if you will, from kids on the skids, on their way to becoming lifers.

My question for these cub reporters was: "What should Obama do for your community?"

What popped out first, believe it or not, was to keep public libraries open. "That's how you get on the Internet. How you learn stuff, get jobs," they said.

Also high on their wish list was restraining the police — especially in the use of Tasers, which one student said are being used as a form of torture.

"I'd rather be bitten by a police dog, or even shot, than be Tasered," said one boy, offering himself as evidence. Bites and bullet holes marked his calves. From this shoulders, welts from Taser barbs had swollen to the size of black widows.

Still, for these kids on the brink, the best thing that Obama could do for their community would be to create jobs.

And, so, here were four young adults, dressed in crisp camo, offering good jobs and a chance at self-respect — soldiers, who knew where these kids came from, and where they could wind up.

The woman recruiter, herself, said she'd grown up in West Philly. Looking young for her age, she'd already served for 14 years. "Seven more, and I'm retired," she said. "And then I'll be chillin' out in the country, or something."

She'd done a couple of tours in combat zones, though as an HR person, she wasn't shot at. Another recruiter, a black man, also said he had a desk job, fixing computers.

The trim Asian, however, had seen plenty of action. As an elite Ranger, "you kick in a lot of doors." And if you want that, he said, it's your choice.

The Army gives you lots of options, the recruiters repeated, with 250 jobs to choose from. Good jobs, of which they said some 88 percent have civilian counterparts. So, people who enlisted would have marketable skills, when they returned to civilian life.

"If we returned," the students shot back. "If we didn't get killed."

The recruiters didn't flinch. Yes, they said, if your unit goes to war, so will you. Soldiers fight and some die. There is definitely that chance, they said.

But then they dropped a bomb that sealed the deal: "The chance of you getting hurt in the Army is probably less than your getting shot or killed in your own neighborhood."

Whether that's true, I don't know. Given how much violence these children had already seen, they might well be safer in the Army.

Regardless, it was enough to persuade these young offenders to fill out a form, which they traded in for beanie caps with Army emblems. And bidding them good luck, the recruiters went on to the next class, in search of a few more children to save.

Visit Bruce online at schimmel.com.