Chris Dugan decided he wanted to be a Marine when he was still in middle school. "I had always thought of the military as an opportunity to get discipline, to improve my life." Raised in Hazlet, New Jersey, he entered Raritan High School in 1991, and remembers a regular recruiter presence there. "At least once a month they would be walking around in my school."
Chris first met with recruiters when he was 15. They told him he was too young, but loaded him up with promotional posters, stickers, and literature, and told him to stay in touch.
Right after turning 17, they came back to his school and got him out of class to begin the recruitment process. He took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) and entered the Poole program, where he and other potential recruits from the area who had expressed interest in the Marines would get together on a weekly basis. They watched promotional videos, ran laps with a Marine Corps flag, and talked about the military. Chris describes it as having been sort of a family unit, with the frequent activities designed to reinforce the potential recruits' interest and commitment. Then Chris entered the Delayed Entry Program by taking an oath. This oath isn't legally binding (see DEP, p. 14) , but as Chris cautions, "The recruiters tell people this, but they really downplay it. And I'm sure some don't even mention it."
During his first week of boot camp, Chris was looking after someone on suicide watch and was left with the impression that if something happened, it wouldn't be his fault.
"It was like 'watch him, but don't watch him too hard.' That's not a direct quote, but it was like…life really didn't mean that much. It was more like 'you're a man, so you make your own decisions'." Almost immediately, he began to recognize the hypocrisy of the situation—how certain people were allowed into the military who were obviously physically or mentally incapable of going through training. He realized the recruits were just numbers to meet recruitment quotas.
Chris became a squad leader within a few months of training, a corporal at age 19, and a sergeant at 21. While stationed in Japan in his last year in the Marines, Chris began to read more about history: about the Irish Republican movement and Sinn Fein, White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling, People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and relating those works to what he was doing. "How could I be against the occupation of Ireland, and be sitting there in Okinawa? Even though we might have been a subdued presence, we were still occupying a country.
I started drawing parallels between British imperialism, what they told their military, and the way we treated Okinawans when we were in Japan: like they were there to serve us. You know, without us, they'd have no jobs, and we were there to protect them."
He had a brief stint as a recruiter's assistant back in New Jersey, where he visited high schools, community colleges, and malls to approach potential recruits, a process that had one purpose: to make the monthly quota for recruits. He acknowledges the spin he gave on the information he would present to a potential recruit, just like his recruiter before him. One of the benefits hawked by his recruiter, in addition to money for college and training, was the chance to see a lot of different women from around the world.
"That's how I'd pitch to certain people ... I'd say: 'What are you doing man, you want to drive around town seeing the same kind of women your whole life, or do you want to go around the world and really experience life, learn about different—well, I would never say learn about different cultures—but, learn about different women ... I'd use that pitch a lot."
Other methods he employed depended largely on sizing a potential recruit up and playing to their strengths, weaknesses, or whatever would get them to sign up.
"I could ask a person, 'So what do you think the Marine Corps could do for you?' And if they said 'Well, I want to fight, I want to kill' or whatever, then I could push it towards that. But if they said 'Well, I think I really need college money', then, bam, I had all their information, and I'd be saying 'That's great, because the Marine Corps is really looking to get people educated. You know the economy is a little down right now, and we want to do is create a better force of workers for America.' That's how it would go, instead of pushing the 'you'll be running through the mud' kind of thing. Sometimes, depending on the person, I might question their manhood a little bit, but subtly. Like: 'You seem a little reluctant, are you sure this is for you?' And that was a heavy-handed tactic, but usually I was able to just say 'Look at the cool pictures, look at the videos.'"
As a recruiter's assistant, Chris worked on a point system, earning a certain amount for every recruit. The single-mindedness of the process was underscored by ever-present quotas, and the resulting misrepresentation, misinformation and deception were just tools of the trade. "I never went to recruiting school, but there has to be…they have to be taught how to psychoanalyze people, and I'm sure they don't call it that, but it's just so manipulative ... it's a sales pitch."
Now a graduate student in Urban Affairs at Hunter College and out of the military, Chris is active in the Campus Antiwar Network, taking his experience as a recruiter to the area of counter-recruiting. Recently, he visited a Navy recruiter's office with the producer from Democracy Now! to expose the tactics used to bring people into the Armed Forces. Both of them were undercover, acting as if they had an interest in joining.
When asked how easy it would be to get out if they changed their minds, they were told about administrative discharges. "The recruiter said, 'The Navy doesn't want anyone in who doesn't want to be in.' and told me I'd have to fill out paperwork and go through a little bit of the system, but he knows plenty of guys who have gotten out that way ... and the whole time I was thinking of Pablo Paredes*."
"The military didn't contribute a damn thing to my life, except I can do this counter-recruitment work now."
* Pablo Paredes, a member of the Navy since 2000, was assigned to a ship scheduled to transport Marines to Iraq in December 2004. He arrived at the Naval Station on that day, announced his opposition to the war in Iraq, refused to take part in bringing more troops over, and would not board. He was told to leave by the Command Duty Officer, but later informed that he was being charged with missing movement and absence without authority, and would be court-martialed. He applied for Conscientiuos Objector status, which was denied. In October 2005 he served his court martial sentence and was discharged. He continues to appeal the decision on C.O. status in Federal Court.
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