Pandering to the Desperate, Unemployed and Insecure

Oh, God.
The Army's new recruiting campaign includes some TV spots that are carefully designed to appeal to people who'll eat cat turds if you wrap them in American flags and tell them the nutrients in the shit will make them seem less like aimless losers.

In one, a blue collar-type father tells his uniformed son, "There were two things you did when you got off the train I never saw you do, at least not at the same time."
"What's that, Dad?"
"You shook my hand and then you looked me square in the eye. Where'd that come from?"
The son gives him a proud, knowing, yet modest smile.
The Army evidentally taught him what his father could not. How splendid for the son to have risked his ass in Iraq in order to learn invaluable job skills like hand shaking and eye contact.
Is the kid a Collie, or what?

Yes, folks, with the meager promise to parents that junior will come back from the war with the maturity to start respecting his father, the Army is banking on the same morons who reelected Bush to drink more of the grape Koolade and encourage their kids to enlist and go to Iraq.
How stupid do they think people are? Oh wait- the people who reelected Bush *are* stupid.

In another Army recruitment ad, a nice looking young Caucasian lad is telling his skeptical mother that he's joining the reserves, not the Army.
He tells her he's joining because the reserves will train him for a good paying career, "...and they'll train me around here until I'm needed."
The mother nods approvingly and asks him to "tell her more."

Please.
A segment on "60 Minutes" last Sunday described Bush's increasingly desperate backdoor draft, where ready-reservists like a tiny, 55-year-old female with physical disabilities who went off active duty 20+ years ago was forced to fight like hell not to be reactivated and shipped to the front lines in Iraq.
In the ad, the kid saying he wouldn't be deployed until he was needed implied that he wouldn't be shipped off the nanosecond his training in the exciting field of grenade launching was complete.
If Rumsfeld's henchmen in the DoD are trying to force the reactivation of tiny old WACS with disabilities to fill their woefully depleted troop-count, why would anyone think they'd let a strong young stud, new in the reserves, sit around stateside and earn while he learns?
How stupid are these people?
Oh, right. They still think Iraq was connected to the Saudi Terrorist attack on 9/11 because Bush told us so, and he has his very own flight suit.

In another ad, a young black man is politely implying that his mother's reticence about him enlisting in the Army is basically her, trying to keep him a codependent, emasculated mama's boy without any plans for his life.
He says, "It's time for me to become a man."
Then she smiles at him, nods approvingly at his lofty goal, and says, "Okay, tell me more."
Then he says he's thinking of becoming an engineer.
Yeah, right.
When an unskilled minority enlists for this boondoggle of a fucked-up mess Bush created, I somehow doubt the drill sergeant sits with the new recruit and discusses which civilian university will accept his GED and offer him the best undergraduate engineering program, as soon as possible.

If anyone falls for these ham-handed attempts to lure more hapless human targets for the ever-increasing throng of insurgents to shoot and car bomb, it just goes to illustrate how dimwitted this latest round of recruits will be.

The DoD ought to be honest and run an ad campaign that would attract the right kind of troops to sacrifice to Bush's version of the Viet Nam war. Imagine this ad:

Deep voiced announcer:
"Dude, how'd would like to smoke all the free crack and weed you want, without getting busted by The Man? Join the mofo Army and we'll hook you up with all the rock and bud you want, plus we'll pay you so you can have the funds to get you some prime Iraqi pussy when you be's off duty."

Headline, superimposed over GI smoking crack from a glass pipe:

"Operation Freedom Krunk--
Smoke crack, fuck hos, kill some rag-head motherfuckers with the free guns and ammo we give you."


Now THAT would be an honest ad that would attract the right kind of soldier for a Commander in Chief like Bush.