Truth in advertising?

[featherynscale]

Yesterday afternoon, as triadruid and I were driving home from work, we noticed a profusion of American flags up at the funeral home next to the Masonic cemetary. They were accompanied by a large number of motorcycles, and we thought, "Ah. That must be a biker's funeral. And they all came up on the bikes, how nice." Then, as we drove a bit further, we noticed a camper with a yellow banner on the side. It appeared to be soliciting volunteers to join the Army. But surely, I thought, there's no way the Army would recruit at a funeral home. It's just, I don't know, in poor taste.

This morning, when we drove by, the bikes were gone, but the flags were still there. The camper had been relocated to a spot right in front of the building. It did, in fact, bear a recruitment banner. They are, in fact, recruiting for the Army, at the funeral home. For the life of me I cannot figure out why anyone would think this was a good idea, but I am open to suggestions.

Comments

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

I believe the phrase "if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand" applies.

A fighting buddy stopped out on Thursday, he's outprocessing for Iraq right now. It occured to me how much that inspires me to go back in.

Ditto for funerals, young men that served tend to have friends of a similar mindset. With the age limit now up to 42 for the army, there have been a number of cases where fathers and mothers have enlisted to pick up where their children left off.

And if anyone finds this a 'bad idea', keep in mind that a 40 year old adult joining 5 years after the war started has a far better idea of what they're up against compared to those who enlisted at 17 in a time of peace. The Army selects no one, interested individuals select the Army, and if they are lucky, they will qualify and be able to serve. The restrictions are looser now, but there is still a grand assortment of things that will disqualify people. The military lists I am on have a steady stream of people asking if there is anything they can do to get around certain things that disqualified them.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I'm in favor of people being able to join the Army if they damned well want to join the Army, and of people knowing what they're getting into before they get into it. It just seems sort of crass and opportunistic to me to recruit at a funeral -- not quite at the level of "well, we've got a pair of boots free now, and they might fit you", but pretty close. But then, my sensibilities and the sensibilities of the target audience may be different enough that what seems awful and disrespectful to me may seem honorable and motivating to someone else. *shrug*

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

That was sort of my point... generally the funerals of soldiers are filled with people that understand the motivations.

I'm also not sure that they were recruiting, they could have just set up an information/support tent (which usually has goarmy.com type stuff on it). I would find it odd that actual recruiters were doing their business there... but it's sort of like me with Scouts or the SCA, I'm not one of the paid recruiters, but when I'm out, I am always recruiting anyway, simply because I think some thigns are uber-awesome. 8-)