“Mom (Dad), what do you think?”

Speaking of the series of commercials covering all branches of service that open with a young man or woman in the midst of a mission, or a field hospital with mom or dad in the scene questioning why they want to serve. At that point the scene changes and all are back stateside prior to enlistment and the young man or woman explains why they want to enlist. “Well, mom, what do you think?”

I just think they’re great commercials.

It’s very smart and needed in this day and age of kids being attached at the hip to helicopter parents. My wife is an early Millenial and it’s still strange to me just how attached she is to her parents, she literally cannot go a day without speaking to them or seeing them.

Me? I’m a Gen X type and COULD NOT WAIT to get the hell out of my house and away from my parents and be an adult.

These commercials are recognizing that they need the complete buy in from these young people’s families.

Commercials are great and all, but our military is currently Woke and Broken! I have an 18 YO son, and No FUCKING Way...They can't have him! I Love MY Country, but at this point, if he had interest, I would do EVERYTHING in my power to dissuade him! Remember Afghanistan...

I had posted something pretty crappy, but instead I'll just echo the above sentiments. The commercials are good for the intended current audience I'm sure.

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:
I had posted something pretty crappy, but instead I'll just echo the above sentiments. The commercials are good for the intended current audience I'm sure.

and that’s all the thread was about, apprentice.

Ward Carroll has a couple of good youtube vids analyzing military commercials.





As for the other aspect here in this thread, I too would STRONGLY dissuade my kids from joining today's woke, political, clueless, tactician-less, maintenance plagued, mismanaged excuse for fighting forces today.

I have a good friend who is a recruiter for the Army in the Dallas metro area. He said this past year has been one of the worst years ever for recruiting. Parents are a huge influence on whether a kid enlists or not. While many kids don't pay attention to politics like we do, they're aware in many ways of what's going on. That negative impression of how things went down in Afghanistan, what's important in the military now and influence of parents has recruiting way down.

Personally, I would be disappointed if my child joined today's military.

I recall my recruiter showing me a film that depicted a life of ease in the service. People were playing golf and tennis, swimming and doing all kinds of fun stuff in pleasant surroundings. Shortly thereafter, I found myself scrubbing out garbage cans in my WWII era wooden barracks in the summer Texas heat. Then I was magically transported into SACs Northern Tier at 30 below zero while the northern lights lit the night. I think these current commercials do the same thing. They depict high speed low drag high tech adventure in exotic locations. What they dont show is the monotony of peacetime garrison duty or the realities of war and combat in faraway hostile lands. Often for ill-defined goals. And the toll that exposure to war, savagery and brutality takes on people. I think that many parents, especially those who are veterans see through the ads and dont recommend the military to their kids. I believe that military service can be an honorable and rewarding experience. And a high quality, well trained, prepared and well-equipped military ensures our survival. But the military needs to recruit kids who know what they are getting into and are realistically prepared to serve. And lose the woke nonsense too.

I am hesitant to speak ill of the military [Army] this close to the end, one this is certain; anything you say, especially "On-Line" can and will be used against you.

Certain programs, values and initiatives are very high priority. VERY high priority... Almost no end to the resources and efforts to promote/enforce/sustain the same. It is shocking.

I will say this; if you are looking for higher education with very little out-of-pocket costs or debt (And to a lesser extent technical/trade training) and/or a real good head start in LE, Government or certain fields like teaching or nursing. And you can suck it up and play the game; in exchange for 3-6 years of your life; the Army or National guard is excellent, especially if you get on a deployment with at least 6 months OCONUS.

^^^Step One to 'sucking it up and playing the game' is currently a Mandatory COVID Vaccine...Following that, one must be 'fully vaccinated' throughout their service!

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
What they dont show is the monotony of peacetime garrison duty or the realities of war and combat in faraway hostile lands. Often for ill-defined goals. And the toll that exposure to war, savagery and brutality takes on people. I think that many parents, especially those who are veterans see through the ads and dont recommend the military to their kids. I believe that military service can be an honorable and rewarding experience. And a high quality, well trained, prepared and well-equipped military ensures our survival. But the military needs to recruit kids who know what they are getting into and are realistically prepared to serve. And lose the woke nonsense too.

When I was in (USMC 2000-2004) we were gearing up for another persian gulf run. (Iraqi Freedom)
A bunch of us piled on ship (USS Kearsarge) and headed east across the atlantic.
The whole time across we had various drills on what to do if/when attacked.
Go here. Do this. etc..
For Marines on a Naval vessel, it was pretty much "go to this spot and stay the hell out of the way".

Eventually we got through the Suez and were cruising into the arabian sea.
The captain comes over the intercom "possible imminent gas attack. this is not a drill."

For this scenario, the drill was "go get your gas mask and put that shit on. then go to your assigned spot and report in".
I was in the galley area at the time - and I started hustling my way to my bunk (where my gas mask was).
While I'm going through the corridors of the ship, I'm passing (SEVERAL) people (both sailors and marines) who were literally just sitting on the floor crying.
The first one or two I tried to spur into motion "cmon dude get up. if you dont wanna die then GO AND GET YOUR FUCKING GAS MASK!"
I was mostly ignored.

The point of the story here is to accentuate what is being said by Yooper (above).
These people apparently had no idea what they signed up for.
They joined to get the free college tuition or something and never once believed their life would be in danger.

Ads come and go. I really liked the 'Global Force For Good' campaign the Navy had a few years ago. The slogan was lame and stupid. But the campaign highlighted the different missions sailors are doing at different parts of the globe at any time.

Talking with friends that are teachers, helicopter parents are old news. Snow plow parents are the new thing. Little Johnny or Suzie having trouble? Mom and Dad swoop in and fix it for them. Any obstacle and the parents knock it down. I am scared that GenZ will not be ready for service even those that do want to serve. And watching AngryCop's YouTube channel, it sounds like the Army's DIs are getting limited severely on what they can and cannot do to trainees. None of it good.

Those commercials referenced here are not aimed at the potential recruits (the Teens and 20-somethings) but at those who are known as “influencers” (not the Tik-Tok social media idiots, but parents and other adults with real-life experience). I don’t watch MTV and those types of channels, so I don’t know what (if any) military recruiting commercials are on them.

I’ve been retired from the military for 20 years now but I still follow what’s going on in it. The pro-military organizations (Air & Space Force Assoc—yeah they updated the name; American Legion; Military Officer Assoc; etc.) are still stuck in WW2/Cold War/Desert War 1&2 mode about organization and equipment requirements.

Fancy equipment is all fine and dandy to have, but if you don’t have qualified individuals to operate it, it’s just so much expensive junkyard material. I fear that when something serious actually breaks out, there are going to be lots of casualties and busted equipment. It’ll be like early WW2 all over again; you go to war with what you’ve got, and you have to learn it all over again.