Prank Calling the Army

January 30, 2007 10:19 PM

The President's call for a troop surge in Iraq will likely be a headache for military recruiters, who have already had to relax standards to (barely) meet their quotas. But just how desperate are they for warm bodies? Radar prank called recruiting stations around the country disguised as a veritable Breakfast Club of misfit would-be soldiers, all dramatically unqualified or unattractive for service in some way. The resulting transcripts are hysterically funny (the writer poses as a flamboyantly gay man, a mama's boy, a martial arts freak, a junkie, an IBS sufferer and a lobotomy patient). The recruiters turn out not to be quite as sleazy as you might imagine, but the conversations are priceless.
posted by P-Soque (30 comments total)

I was laid off the end of last year, and applied for unemployment a week or so ago.

There were a couple of "security" guys at the office - uniforms official but nondescript.

They got one kid to fill out enlistment papers while I was there.

What a fucked up country.
posted by rougy at 10:33 PM on January 30, 2007

Sounds like they were just placating this guy. Not very funny. I don't see how they made their point of the article. Next time use the Jerky Boys.
posted by highgene at 10:56 PM on January 30, 2007

Yeah, pretty non-impressed. I'm sure they're pretty used to getting prank calls at this point, what with enlistment numbers being so low.

I dunno, I think I actually felt kinda sorry for the recruiters.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:14 PM on January 30, 2007

Things will only get more difficult for recruiters in the wake of the additional recently announced Afghan troop deployment.
posted by washburn at 11:28 PM on January 30, 2007

That's on you, but please don't come to the station and lie to another recruiter, you could get yourself and another guy in a lot of trouble. Okay?

Wow, I'm impressed by that. They must really be holding these guys accountable for fraudulent enlistment lately. Both with the lying to recruits and with hiding disqualifiying info. You would not have heard that sentence in the station that recruited me many years ago. Maybe they have some sort of "secret shopper" QA program that the recruiters are wary of.

I worked for my station a bit while waiting to fly out (many years ago.) I don't think any malicious lying went on. Just that, those guys saw their job as helping guys get into the military. Sometimes that helping went a little above and beyond what the instructions required.

I do know that those prank calls were most likely not even the strangest they got that week. Better prank would have been to be extremely qualified and interested, but just have some weird complicated obstacle they needed help with before they could join. See how far the recruiter would go outside the normal line of duty to get a recruit.
posted by ctmf at 11:37 PM on January 30, 2007

Nice!

*holds two thumbs up.*
posted by three blind mice at 11:47 PM on January 30, 2007

Is it me, or do these transcripts read almost verbatim from Mike Loew's Tough Call: Hard Hitting Phone Pranks? I mean, this site almost copies Loew's prank calls word for word.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:51 PM on January 30, 2007

I think I feel bad for the recruiters, too.

Random tangential: I was just thinking that it would be an interesting read, though probably not terribly funny, if someone such as myself went to enlist.

I'm in good physical shape, overly educated, and I have tons of technical expertise. If I had really wanted to go into the military, I'm the sort of person on paper that would go in as an officer. But I'm also a bipolar alcoholic with a strongly subversive and anti-authoritarian personality.

But I'm not actually fundamentally opposed to enlisting -- I'm not especially happy with my life at the moment, and I'm a big fan of taking on radical changes to liven things up. So it's possible I would sign up, but I don't really know what would happen. I figure I'd most likely end up with a dishonorable discharge, or maybe a court-martial, before I finish basic.
posted by wool sock at 12:16 AM on January 31, 2007

The President's call for a troop surge in Iraq

Maybe they mean Iran?
posted by rolypolyman at 12:29 AM on January 31, 2007

Sounds like a submarine junior officer to me, except for the technical expertise part.
posted by ctmf at 12:29 AM on January 31, 2007

Don't forget the recruiter who threatened to have someone arrested for not talking to him. He got promoted.
posted by Potsy at 12:30 AM on January 31, 2007

lame
posted by signal at 12:35 AM on January 31, 2007

We were never at war with Eastasia, we've always been at war with flamboyantlygaymen.
posted by tehloki at 1:15 AM on January 31, 2007

Point is the risks are way too high to meet any compensation.

After all what use for a stack of money if you are dead or suffering traumatic stress disorder, contamination by uranium dusts or some other shit, without a limb, disfigured or disabled.
posted by elpapacito at 1:24 AM on January 31, 2007

Personally I think it's a great idea to have a troupe's urge - the urge to work together to present a range of acrobatic, musical and comedic marvels for an admiring audience, within the fantastic performance space of the colourful big top.

Sure, we've got lotsa clowns in Iraq, and of course they used to have a strong man - but what about we send in a bear in a tutu? Man! If anything's gonna pull the fractured country of Iraq back together, it's a bear in a tutu.

Thanks President Bush - you're the best Ring Master ever.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:32 AM on January 31, 2007

I'm having a true psurge just thinking about it. Never mind your psircus ptroupe, I am having a rush of blood where it really pcounts.

In the ppols.
posted by Wolof at 3:11 AM on January 31, 2007

I've got mondegreen fever with the latest bush policy. I keep hearing Troop Splurge,which would be unusual political candor, or Troop Serge, which would indicate that the US is engaging in diplomacy with France.
posted by srboisvert at 3:34 AM on January 31, 2007

Serge!

Unfortunately, he died of a million different causes, all of them related to drinking and smoking.
posted by Wolof at 3:45 AM on January 31, 2007

Point is the risks are way too high to meet any compensation.

True enough if you are a sensible adult who weighs such things as risks vs. reward. But if you are young and idealistic, or economically desperate, that doesn't really apply.

But I'm also a bipolar alcoholic with a strongly subversive and anti-authoritarian personality.

I know a guy who had a long history of similar issues. I won't say he's a friend, but he's someone with whom I have a long history, and know quite well. He reported to me at a company for a couple of years, and was associated with my circle of friends.

A smart buy, not bipolar, but definitely someone with a tendency to be violent when drunk (otherwise passive) who had extreme difficulty taking orders from anyone at work. He was a software developer who would behave in the most juvenile of fashions when anyone attempted to assign tasks to him. Eventually, he was placed under my supervision, because I was the only one that could handle him.

In mid 2003 (after the initial invasion of Iraq), at the tender age of 34, he enlisted in the army. He came back from his first year much more mature, respectful and solid than I had ever remembered him being on his best day. I was unreservedly impressed. Despite my deep distrust of the military, I concluded that they had somehow broken him, and actually made a man of him.

Of course, at the time of his enlistment in 2003, he was told by his recruiter, and then his CO at the Monterey Language Institute in2004, that the Iraq War would be long over by the time he was fully trained up.

He finally shipped off to Iraq about a year ago. I hear from him less and less. I hope he's ok.
posted by psmealey at 4:01 AM on January 31, 2007

it's not that funny but this part:

Never been married?
I don't think I'm allowed.


is a little stroke of genius.

and kudos to Blazecock Pileon for the plagiarism thing, by the way
posted by matteo at 4:59 AM on January 31, 2007

"Hysterically funny"? I don't think so. Sophomoric, maybe; anyhow, Arlo Guthrie pretty much did it already:

Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."

This is like spoof-calling telemarketers, only less justifiable.
posted by No Mutant Enemy at 5:14 AM on January 31, 2007

From Potsy's link, on the rationale of promoting, rather than disciplining, that fraudulent recruiter:

The Army says he’s the perfect person to be in charge of other recruiters since he experienced first hand what happens when ethics rules are broken.

Wow.
posted by LordSludge at 6:10 AM on January 31, 2007

I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."


Father rapers!!
posted by spicynuts at 6:28 AM on January 31, 2007

Why not empty the prisons and ship all two million to Iraq? That would be 166,666 Dirty Dozens.
posted by four panels at 6:36 AM on January 31, 2007

Why not empty the prisons and ship all two million to Iraq? That would be 166,666 Dirty Dozens.


Well, probably 50% of that number are Muslims. Would they fight?
posted by spicynuts at 6:46 AM on January 31, 2007

If you want people that'll fight, get all the 17-year-olds from the juvies as well.
posted by pax digita at 7:56 AM on January 31, 2007

highgene writes "Sounds like they were just placating this guy"

Yep, it very much sounds like the recruiters are just reading off a script. They give uncomfortable sounding answers whenever he manages to get them off it.
posted by Mitheral at 9:03 AM on January 31, 2007

The Army says he’s the perfect person to be in charge of other recruiters since he experienced first hand what happens when ethics rules are broken.

LordSludge beat me to posting this line from Potsy's link. Who uses this logic?

Well, we caught him embezzling and stealing office supplies, so we figured he would be perfect to head up our security. I mean who better to watch for other embezzlers and thieves than someone who has demonstrated a willingness to do it themselves?
posted by quin at 11:02 AM on January 31, 2007

I had a problem with getting my classes straightened out this year, and for like two days I was off the list of enrolled students. During that time period I was contacted by the Air Force and the Army, asking if I would like to help "get my life back on track" by joining the armed forces.

/wish i was joking
posted by sourbrew at 6:26 PM on January 31, 2007

Maybe the Army should just send out random blanket txt messages:

b ll u cn b.

if u cn rd ths msj,*
txt GO-R-ME.
*Inside joke for longtime NYC subway riders/readers.
posted by rob511 at 9:12 PM on January 31, 2007