Military recruiters across the country shouldn’t expect a tidal wave of able-bodied young Americans signing up to fight for America after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
Despite news accounts of lines snaking outside recruiting offices, details emerging from several regional recruiting offices show that enthusiasm to enlist is high, but actual recruiting increases are spotty.
For the Army, the amount of new recruits signing up has been negligible, said Doug Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command.
The topic was raised at a high-level staff meeting at recruiting headquarters at Fort Knox, Ky., the day after the attacks. “Every commander there concluded that there had been minimal impact on recruiting,” Smith said.
That’s consistent with studies of recruiting trends done after the Gulf War and the Kosovo operation, Smith said. “There were some spikes associated with those actions but, again, they were minimal.”
A browse through the command’s computer chat room seemed to bear out those conservative observations.
Fifteen minutes after the room opened for its evening shift Sept. 12, nearly 60 teens and young adults had signed on to talk live to Army cyber recruiters. A restless few exhibited a fighting spirit.
“I want to stick up for this country and I want to PUNISH,” said “proudamerican.”
And “bubba” wanted to know: “If we go to war over this terrible thing, will I, at 15, have time to get in on the action and get back at them?”
By far, however, visitors posted mundane questions typical of queries the cyber recruiters field every day:
“What is the maximum score you have to get on the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery test?” asked one. “Is basic training for the regular Army and the reserves the same?” posed another.
But if the attacks didn’t drive higher recruiting numbers, the incident certainly emboldened those already in the enlistment pipeline.
Renaldo “Reno” Gibson, of Decatur, Ga., would probably have enlisted in the Army before the tragedy, but the toll on human life put him in the mood for combat.
“If it came down to an official act of war we have to take against terrorism, they can put me right in the middle of it, send me to Afghanistan,” Gibson said.
The attack “made me want to enlist even more. I felt I really had a duty to help protect my country and keep it free,” Gibson said.
The attacks prompted another Atlanta suburbanite, Ray H. Dial II, to call his local recruiting station. “I was at the golf course and took a break after the ninth hole, then saw it on TV at the country club,” said Dial, a 32-year-old car salesman with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. “I finished the other nine holes and sat around and watched it all day on TV. The next day, I called the recruiting station.”
At 32, Dial is beyond the maximum enlistment age of 29, and hopes to get a waiver.
