• drev@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Huh, we had 7 for our school district (one for each branch, and I think the army and navy had two), but my high school alone did have just under 3000 kids.

    We had all 7 of these guys (and one woman) going from class to class every day for a month giving four 90-minute presentations per day to pander and force-feed each individual classroom of ~30-50 students a glorified recruitment ad. They even set up one of the portable classrooms as a recruitment office for that month.

    I’m curious, did the recruiters hand out forms to kids under 18 that required parent/guardian signatures?

    I’m asking because ours did, and I could swear that these forms were a sort of pre-enlistment contract that needed parent/guardian signature in order to waive the 18+ requirement for agreeing to enlist. So although we wouldn’t actually be enlisted until we turned 18, we could agree to enlist beforehand with a parent’s signature. But, as strong as that memory is, I still can’t help but doubt myself because of how insane and illegal that all sounds.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Enlistment papers are thick. Unless they were handing out packets it was probably just a permission slip. Also, while I could see one of them being shitty enough to try and trap kids into the military this way, there’s no way the other 7 wouldn’t protest and get in their way. And not even on moral grounds. They’re all competing for recruits.

      • drev@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        They’re all competing for recruits.

        Wow, I didn’t even consider that. It makes them seem so much less human to me, and so much more like a pack of hyenas.