“You go to East Forsyth High School?” Sergeant Long asks. “You used to. Did you already graduate? Did you transfer somewhere? Did you drop out? Aw man. Why did you have to drop out?” Sergeant Long is dressed in uniform, a short-sleeved green shirt and blue trousers with a red stripe down the middle. His deep voice is earnest and comforting, carrying the faint twang of his native Kernersville.
The teenager on the other end of the line, Brian, is the sort of kid most predisposed to military recruiting. He has no plans for college and, nearly a year since dropping out of high school, he is still waiting to begin a factory job at Hanes Clothing.
The Marines offers an alternative with better pay and benefits, personal development and opportunities for advancement and education. But to join the Marines, he must graduate from high school. For Brian, the opportunity may be too distant and the challenge too hard. Sergeant Long asks where he wants to be five years from now. It sounds like Brian wants to own his own business, but he does not plan on returning to high school or pursuing a GED. Sensing a losing argument, Sergeant Long makes a final pitch: “Well if you look at starting your own business, and you go back to high school, then you’ll be eligible for the Marines, and it’s a place where you can really learn leadership and management skills.
“You know where my office is located? In the mall, right across from the Game Frog. Come by and see me some time.” Of the 13 Marine recruiting stations in North Carolina, Recruiting Sub-Station Winston-Salem sent the highest number of recruits last year to training camp on Parris Island, SC. That number was 120 — a record for the Winston-Salem office during a period of high recruiting nationwide. In 2007, the Marine Corps began a four-year plan to increase its ranks to 202,000, in response to a directive from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Typically gung-ho, the Marines are on schedule to accomplish the four-year plan in two years. They have already begun to slow recruitment efforts in 2009 in order not to exceed their goal. But the job of recruiters and their mission to recruit as many quality Marines as possible has not significantly changed, recruiters say. So far in 2009, RSS Winston-Salem, which recruits from Forsyth, Davie, Davidson, Stokes, Surry and Yadkin counties, has obtained 52 commitments.
They come from high school seniors and high school graduates who have met with recruiters, passed initial physical tests and background checks and signed contracts to attend boot camp on a given date. From the day of their commitment, they are known as “poolees,” which refers to the waiting pool for boot camp. Poolees are expected to maintain weekly contact with their recruiters and encouraged to attend regular physical training, or PT, at the recruiting station. Poolees often act as recruits among their friends, and by referring at least two new recruits, a poolee can increase his initial rank to private first class.
On the wall behind Sergeant Terry’s desk are two maps of the area, which are dotted with pins and flags. The first map, labeled “Assets,” shows high schools, community colleges and other targets for recruiting, each marked with flags colored for priority level.
Sites friendly to recruiters are labeled as “priority one,” according to Sergeant Terry, and those which are not friendly to recruiters or do not allow recruiters, such as West Stokes High School, are labeled as priority two and three. The second map, labeled “Enlistment,” is a pincushion of red and black tacks, locating last year’s and this year’s recruits.
The seven recruiters at the Winston- Salem station visit schools when allowed by a principal and speak to classes when allowed by a teacher. They also contact high school seniors using lists that are provided as part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (parents can remove their child from the lists by contacting the school). Although their efforts cast a wide net, the recruiters are quick to identify individuals who are both qualified and interested — the proverbial “few.” “Each individual joins for different reasons,” Sergeant Terry says. “We look for commitment.”
The recruiters do not delude anyone about to their likelihood of facing combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Sergeant Terry.
“Not in this office do we guarantee they won’t have to deploy,” the sergeant says. “The day I compromise my integrity to get a recruit to enlist is the day I quit.” By noon there are several new faces at the recruiting station. An out-of-uniform Marine shows up with his girlfriend, a tall brunette in a pink Camp LeJeune T-shirt, who is interested in enlisting. A poolee, Stephon Watts,
relaxes at a desk. “If I had money I’d take you all out to lunch,”
Watts says. “I find that hard to believe,” Sergeant Long says, “you
having money, that is.” A few young men come in and fill out forms or
talk quietly with recruiters. A woman enters, shakes a few hands and
announces, “I have family in the military.
A Marine recruiter talks to a group of “poolees” during a function at Hillside High School in Durham. (photo by Gus Lubin)
Thank you for what
you’re doing.“ Meanwhile the phone calls continue. Each with his own
style and tone, the recruiters attempt to persuade their targets to
join the Marines.
Sergeant Long talks on the phone with Jose,
another high school senior: “How do you think you’ll feel with all that
debt coming out of college, with an entry-level job making 30-35
thousand a year? Well do you always want to live with mom and dad?
Until you pay off your loans? Well what happens if you meet a girl? Are
you going to bring her back to mom and dad? You cool with that?”
On
Thursday, I join some poolees for PT. We meet Sergeant Long in the
recruiting station at 5 p.m. The first poolee to arrive is James
Cooper, an 18-year-old from Glenn High School. Cooper, called Coop, is
a small and stocky white guy with a military buzz cut and glasses.
Since
joining the delayed-entry program on June 25, 2008, he has come to PT
at the station nearly every day. Coop will enter the Marines as a
private first class because of his completion of an Eagle Scout, or
alternately because of his twoyear membership in JROTC. He was
recommended by the recruiting station for the presidential guard, an
uncommon Military Occupational Specialty. For Coop, this was a
disappointment.
“I had my hopes up to see the Afghanistan
adventure,” Coop says. Then walks in Kaya Rumley, a girl with big,
blonde hair like Dolly Parton.
She joined in February,
following a disappointing first semester at East Carolina University.
The idea to join came from her ex-boyfriend, a Marine, and his Marine
friends; and her enlistment came as a shock to her new boyfriend.
Although she looks like a Southern belle, Rumley considers herself a
tomboy.
“The girls going into the Marines will have a similar
mindset to me,” Rumley says, regarding her entry into an institution
that is 94 percent male. “I expect they will get along with me.” We are
also joined by Jeffrey Lyons, a skinny 15-year-old with long, muscular
arms; Willie Mills, an overweight high school junior; and Joseph
Richwood, a tall, lean black senior in a Hollister tank top. Before PT
begins, Lyons, Coop and Mills — who all have buzzed hair and look like
“small, medium, large” — banter crudely, like most teenage boys. They
joke with Rumley about the butch girls found in the Marine Corp, and
then they joke about Arabs. Rumley sighs and moves to sit by herself.
Mills wears a T-shirt that says “INFIDEL” on the front, translate into
Arabic on the back. We take turns on the pull-up bar. Rumley meets the
female requirement of holding herself above the bar for a certain
length of time. Mills also can only dangle briefly.
Coop pulls an arduous eight. Richmond does an easy 10. Lyons surges up 15 times. I max out at three. “How does it feel being beaten by a 15year-old?” Lyons teases.
“How does it feel waiting a year and a half to join?” Coop counters. “Well think how good I’ll be in a year and a half.” “Well I’ll be in the Marine Infantry in a year and a half.”
Outside
Hanes Mall at 8 a.m. on Saturday, 33 poolees stand in formation. It is
cold and many wear only T-shirts. Coop, Rumley and Lyons are there. So
is Watts, who stands at the front corner and holds a red USMC flag.
Sgt. James Horak explains several military procedures, such as the
difference between standing at attention and at ease. Then they break
formation and divide into two vans and two cars. We drive 90 minutes
east to the statewide poolee function at Hillside High School in
Durham. Poolee functions are monthly events designed to build community
among the poolees and to prepare recruits for boot camp. Today’s
function is the biggest of the year, featuring physical competition
between the 13 recruiting stations and a visit by drill instructors
from Parris Island. RSS Winston-Salem won first place at last year’s
event, but they did so with a much larger team of 63 poolees.
“Winning
is the only option today,” Watts leans forward and whispers to the van
driver, Sgt. Rios. Watts holds the furled flag beside him. The black
Mount Tabor High School senior expects to enter the Marines with an MOS
in aviation electronics. Like Coop, he is disappointed not to be in the
infantry.
RSS Winston-Salem is the last to arrive at Hillside
High School. The poolees line up and jog to the football field, where
they complete a square formation with nearly 400 other poolees. After a
few minutes, two drill instructors walk to the center of the field.
One
is a brawny man in camouflage pants and a yellow DI T-shirt; the other
is an athletic woman in a maroon shirt. The man calls out pool groups
one-by-one: “Jacksonville, you going to win today?” “YESSIR!” While the
drill instructors lead a series of high-energy warm-ups, I talk with
Major Jeffery Morgan, the senior recruitment officer in North Carolina.
The major, perhaps the only officer at Hillside High School, looks
about 10 years older than most of the recruiters (and 20 years older
than most of the recruits). He is one of the only Marines dressed in
full camouflage.
“We have three missions,” Major Morgan says
to me, as he will later repeat to an audience of poolees, “make
Marines; win battles; and return better citizens to society.”
Major
Morgan speaks proudly about all aspects of Marines recruiting. In the
past few years, since he took over the North Carolina program in 2006,
the Marines have met and exceeded recruiting goals.
They have
produced a representative army, which recently fell within one
percentage point of national ethnic demographics — a wonder, he says,
which occurred without the use of quotas. The Marines have had to
raise, not lower, their standards, he says. “You hear good stories
about troubled kids who get turned around in the Marines. But that’s
not who we’re looking for. We want the football captain. We want the
high school valedictorian,” Major Morgan says. Recruiters set up 13
freestanding pullup bars and select 10 contestants from each station. A
single girl leads off for every team. Most of them are, in fact, not
butch: Beside Rumley is a pretty blonde from Greensboro, a petite
brunette from Raleigh and a tiny black girl who speaks with a Caribbean accent. Holding herself up on the bar, Rumley outlasts
nine girls, before dropping down. The tiny black girl wins. Nine
Winston-Salem poolees do pullups after Rumley. Lyons is berated by the
female drill instructor for swinging his body too much, and then,
despite her subsequent screams of encouragement, he fizzles out after
eight. Watts fights to 19. He struggles to get 20, spreading his arms
wide and pulling his legs up horizontal, but cannot do it. Wilbert
Brown, a muscular high school graduate with a short mohawk, powers
through 21 dips. “I guess I do a lot better at the recruiting station
than I do here,” Lyons says, sitting glumly on the ground.
A group of “poolees” stands at attention during a Marine recruiting event at Hillside High School in Durham. (photo by Gus Lubin)
Tabitha Jordan, the second girl from RSS Winston-Salem, draws on a poolee’s back with a blade of grass. The day is hot and the sun is blazing. Several hours pass, filled with competition, cheering, sitting and daydreaming.
I
walk with Sergeant Horak to the Ammo Can Lift. He is a short and
vigorous Marine with a shaved head. The sergeant wears a medal for
performance in combat, even though his MOS is cooking, and he looks
forward to finishing his term as a recruiter.
“Going from
being with all the time, where if you want to get something done you
can dictate and it gets done — going from that to high school kids —
you have to be more delicate,” Sergeant Horak says. The final competition is tug of war. As teams step up
alphabetically, RSS Winston-Salem waits. Because of the odd number of
teams, they wait even longer.
ABOVE: Master Sgt. Jared Terry said the day he compromises his integrity to a recruit to enlist would be the day he quits the Marine Corps. RIGHT: Sgt. Freddie Jones makes calls to area high school seniors as part of his recruiting duties. (photos by Gus Lubin)
“They saving the best
for last?” Watts quips. “They gonna be tired by the time we get to
them.” Brown says. “Hold it right on your hip; and then — backbone!”
Sergeant Horack demonstrates to a few poolees.
Our turn comes
and 10 poolees step up. They face away from the rope and drop to pushup
position. At the whistle, they turn around and grab the rope and pull.
The other team is stronger. Brown, at the front of the line, strains
his biceps and pulls the rope past him; but really he is just moving
forward, until he is almost at the center flag. The whistle blows and
they lose. The team looks downcast and stunned.
“What team was
that? Aberdale?” one of them asks. “We didn’t go down like pussies,
that’s for sure,” a poolee says. RSS Winston-Salem gets another round
at the rope. They are about to start when the recruiters notice that
someone is missing. “Shit!” Coop cries, running forward. He seems
dazed. When the whistle blows, Coop’s glasses slip and he fumbles at
the rope. But the team wins anyway.
They get one more round at
the rope and lose. At the awards ceremony, RSS Winston-Salem wins first
place for the crunches relay and nothing else. Third place overall goes
to Kannapolis; second place goes to Raleigh; and the first place trophy
goes to Hickory.
The Winston-Salem team is disappointed, but
they cheer up when it’s time to go home. After all, the team was formed
only recently, and it will soon dissolve into the total Marine Corps.
And they are tired.
The poolee function concludes with an
address by Major Morgan. The major congratulates the poolees and gives
them some general advice, including to stay hydrated and to keep in
close contact with their recruiters.
“Finally, nothing good happens after midnight,” Major Morgan declares.
“We don’t promise you much, but I’ll promise you one thing. You’re going to boot camp.”
RSS Winston-Salem competes in a tug-of-war contest against a team from another recruiting station. (photo by Gus Lubin)
