As the world grapples with the deadly spread of the coronavirus, there are signs that the job of recruiting for military units has become more complicated.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Army recruiter Matthew O. Wilson, who worked in the Middle East for more than a decade before heading to the United States in 2014, said he was aware of some military recruiters’ reluctance to answer questions about recruitment and the quality of training offered to recruits.
“You need to be aware of the military recruiter’s response,” he said.
“They have a lot of opinions, and they’re not always right.”
Army recruiters are also less likely to share personal information about prospective soldiers, said Wilson, now an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
And recruiters may not be aware that the U.S. Army has its own version of a recruiteur.
According to a 2012 Department of Defense policy, all recruits who have been on active duty in the United Sates Military Forces for a minimum of three years must complete a military recruitment and education course.
The course, known as a boot camp, is conducted by the Army’s recruiting and education office, the Army Recruiting Command and the Military Specialty Education Command.
The recruiter will sit down with recruits and work on a curriculum designed to help them identify their strengths, the recruiter said.
The recruiter is also expected to share the training offered and the recruitee’s general knowledge about the United State military.
For some recruiters, however, the process can be a little more challenging.
“There are a lot fewer questions about what’s going on behind the scenes,” said Wilson.
“It’s easier for recruiters to be silent about the process because you’re not really exposed to it.”
“If you are a soldier, you want to know what you are getting into,” said another recruit.
“If you want a job, you should know how to do it.”
The process of recruiting military recruits has long been an awkward one for recruitiers, who often struggle to gauge how much time has passed between when recruits are assigned to military units and when they get on the battlefield.
The process is complicated by a lack of transparency, the difficulty of tracking down and vetting a recruitee, and the fact that recruiters often use a range of different methods to assess their candidates.
A recruit who has enlisted in the U-18 military is assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment in Fort Carson, Colorado.
The recruit, who will remain anonymous, was interviewed by a recruitor while stationed in Jordan.
This photo was provided to Bloomberg by the recruitor.
“It’s pretty tough, because you don’t want to be on the wrong side of a recruit,” said recruit Wilson.
“They’ll be a military recruitor for a long time, so they’ll go through a lot,” said one recruiter.
“There’s a lot that they can say to you.”
