Recruiting is no easy task

By LEONARD GLENN CRIST
Salem News reporter Leonard Glenn Crist recently spent two days shadowing local Marine Corps recruiters and their potential recruits. This is the second part in a series about his experiences.


Military recruiting is not an easy job. A Marine Corps recruiter in Salem will often put in 70-hour workweeks, working seven days a week, and at the end of the year, he has sent less than 30 people to boot camp.

Much of the work — 99.9 percent, one recruiter hyperbolically claimed — is done by phone.

Every year, recruiters receive a list of student contact information from local schools, a somewhat controversial provision of the No Child Left Behind Act. If schools do not comply, federal funding can be cut. To allay privacy concerns, parents have the option to remove their child’s name from the list.

Staff Sgt. Matthew Baughman, a Salem-based Marines recruiter, said his office calls nearly every student on those lists at least once.

On an early Wednesday afternoon in late May, Staff Sgt. Tyrone Sidney, another recruiter at the East State Street office, made phone calls to several young adults.

On the first call, Sidney got a wrong or disconnected number.

“The wireless customer is unavailable,” said a voice from the speakerphone.

Sidney then called a guy named Steven who must have sounded groggy.

“Still sleepin’?” Sidney asked. “It’s about to be dark in a couple hours.” He quickly jumped into his join-the-Marines spiel. No luck.

The next guy on the phone seemed hesitant, but he let Sidney ask him a list of questions about his physical condition and morals to see if he could even qualify for the Marine Corps.

“When was the last time you smoked weed?” Sidney asked. He paused for an answer. “A year ago? Ok.”

Other phone calls revealed underage alcohol consumption convictions that led to probation. Any pending court action or fine disqualifies a candidate’s entry into the Marines.

Another problem, Baughman said, is kids can’t pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). The test is designed so a person with a tenth grade education can pass it, Baughman said.

The higher a person’s score on the ASVAB, the more options he or she has in choosing a military occupation specialty, or MOS.

Among those who do pass, one of the most popular specialties is the infantry, Baughman said. It is hard to get a position in the infantry because there are only so many infantry jobs, he said, and they fill up fast.

Baughman said recruits who sign up for the infantry are “joining the men’s department.”

A majority of the recruits I spoke with indicated plans to join the infantry.

One of them, Erik Carlson, an 18-year-old from Salem, said access to weapons at a young age pushed him toward the Marines and the infantry. He said his dad owns an M-16, the general infantry rifle used by the Marine Corps.

Two days later, at a training exercise held in Ravenna for poolees — poolees are the young adults, generally high school students, who sign up for delayed entry into the Marines — Carlson showed visible excitement at handling an unloaded M240 Golf machine gun.

Carlson said he had been hanging out at the recruiting center the last three years. Guys like him, gung-ho from the start, make the recruiting job easy. Carlson was scheduled to leave for boot camp today.

Convincing kids who are not so sure of themselves is another story.


Nathan Hall, a Leetonia resident and a 17-year old junior at Heartland Christian, came to the East State Street recruiting office later that afternoon to meet with Staff Sgt. Baughman.

Hall, a Leetonia resident with a brother in the Marines, is interested in becoming an electrician. Baughman told him about the various possibilities he would have to learn and practice his chosen craft in the Marines. One option would be avionics.

“At 19 years old you could be doing work on a $22 million aircraft,” Baughman said. “How many people you know do that?”

If Hall entered a traditional apprenticeship program to become a civilian electrician, he would have to work his way up for at least four years, Baughman said. Apprentices are also the first people laid off because they lack the experience, he said.

But if Hall enters the Marine Corps, he would do hands-on work for four or five years, Baughman said. He could also take advantage of United Services Military Apprenticeship Program, giving him equivalent training and certification to civilian apprenticeships, with less out of pocket expense and more job security, he said.

“You got Timmy, who you just graduated high school with is going to go straight to college, and all he’s going to do is learn how to do it,” Baughman said. “He doesn’t have any practical application, so to speak. When it comes down to showing your resume compared to his, your resume is going to say everything you’ve done and his resume is going to say everything he’s learned. That’s a good advantage.”

Hall asked if you can choose where you are stationed, and said he doesn’t really want to travel too far. Baughman replied Marines create a wish list for where they want stationed, but in the end they don’t have the ultimate say.

Hall also asked if Marine reserves have to go through basic training. The answer, of course, is yes.

Baughman went over the various educational opportunities, including the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program (MECEP), which pays for college and upon successful completion commissions the student a 2nd lieutenant. It’s a complicated program with no guarantee of being accepted.

“I would like to sit down with you again because I know we’re pressed for time,” Baughman said at the end of his presentation. “How’s all that sound to you?”

Hall hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said. “My mom’s not too happy about it,”

“You mom is always going to be your mom,” Baughman said. “She’ll be proud of you. Everybody’s mom has the same worries as everybody else.

“I’m gonna make you a Marine,” Baughman said.

Only time will tell.

Leonard Glenn Crist can be reached at lcrist@salemnews.net'>lcrist@salemnews.net