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I am not an unkind person, nor do I wish ill will upon anyone, but when I see "news" items like this, my understanding of what the media and journalist are all about forces me into an unhappy place. We all have our happy place, and therefore, must also have an unhappy place, and right now because of bull like this, I am in my unhappy place!
The story in question can be found here:Bogus Story!
I am not sure who has me deeper in my unhappy place in this story? The two dumb kids, the StarBulletin.com website that allowed this leftist garbage and false story to be reported, the journalist that reported it in the manner that she did, or the Navy! Yes, I am highly pissed at the Navy about all of this too!
Let me explain, but to start off with, let me introduce you to two of the dumbest kids in America. I say dumb, because I would rather consider them dumb than what I know to often be the true alternative. Yes, they were either complete morons, bordering on the verge of literally drooling on themselves, or they are without a single ounce of honor and will forever be men whose word means nothing!
America used to be filled with men that their honor and their word meant everything. No more unfortunately. Now we are either faced with a generation of idiots, or men without character and honor. As I said, I prefer to think them morons.
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Joseph Mauga Jr, right, and his friend Cory Miyasato whom both enlisted in the U.S. Navy.
Now let me give you the most reprehensible journalist for reporting their concocted story without apparently checking a single fact. Her name is Susan Essoyan and her email address which is clearly available in her report, (if you can call it that), is sessoyan@starbulletin.com. Maybe you should email her and explain that the public would prefer that journalist report facts, and if there are lacking facts, the reporter should find them. If the reporter cannot find them, and cannot substantiate the story with facts, then maybe that reporter should either modify the story to reflect that, or cancel the report altogether!
I am tired of journalist in America advocating a point of view with a total disregard for the truth and thinking they are just going to get away with it forever. Americans that are not experts on everything rely on journalist to provide them with unbiased, concise news and information. When we have dirty politicians and people in power, we rely on them to dig deep and get the dirt. We do not rely on them to report such a disgraceful story totally lacking in facts, and clearly smearing the name of a service member that is doing a job I wouldn't wish, well, even on Ms. Essoyan.
As for the Navy, and Petty Officer McKee, I certainly hope that Ms. Essoyan misquoted you. If she did not, you should be ashamed! Totally and utterly ashamed, and there should be an investigation alright, but not into the recruiter in question, but the Naval Recruiting District, it's Public Affairs Officer,(Petty Officer McKee), and anyone else in the chain of command that failed to stand behind their sailor over such a ridiculous accusation! It is one thing to throw a sailor or service member under the bus because of something with some validity to it, or that is hanus, but as I believe any thinking person will conclude this is a clear case of cowardice on the part of that public affairs officer, the recruiting district, and therefore the United States Navy once it is understood what really goes on! Besides, what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty, especially when this recruiters chain of command is well aware of everything I will be explaining here. They "know" what really goes on, and have failed to demonstrate any leadership by supporting their sailor and telling the truth about the two knuckleheads.
The truth is that recruiting is one of the toughest jobs on the planet, and this so called news story by the Star Bulletin is the exact reason why. This recruiter is challenged with getting people into the Navy and that is quite a challenge to be sure, but what he is accused of is just laughable!
Let me explain a little about recruiting, so we can start to build an understanding. Bear with me, as it can be a little complicated, and I think I may have a tinge of ADD or ADHD or whatever the hell it's called now, and may go off on a tangent or two.
While in most cases, individual recruiters do not have specific goals in the manner most people think, they do fall under their respective recruiting stations goals. A station with 1 recruiter in charge, and 2 recruiters, may have a goal of 3 new delayed entry recruits for the month. Everyone that joins goes into the Navy's Delayed Entry Program for a period of time. It isn't as people incorrectly believe, that you will go sign up and leave for boot camp the next day.
So, back to the point. If the station has a goal of 3, generally that will break down to 1 apiece or if the recruiter in charge of that station so chooses, it will break down into 2 for one recruiter, and 1 for the other. No matter how the recruiter in charge breaks it down, at the end of the month the station better have 3 net gain new contacts.
But lets say one recruiter is hot, and goes out and gets 3 people in the Navy right off the bat in the first week of the month. Does that mean the other recruiter is off of the hook? Oh no! Not at all. That guy better find someone and get at least one person in the Navy before the end of the month too, or by what ever day the "mission day" falls on. (Mission day in December for instance is often around the 19th or 20th due to the holidays).
So not withstanding any other considerations, every recruiter must gain at least one new contract(new delayed entry recruit), per month minimum. The reason that isn't a true quota however is because lets say the recruiter had to kick someone out in the first week due to drug usage. Now he must not only make up for kicking that person out of the delayed entry program to get back to zero, but he still must find one more to go to his minimum requirement of ending up with at least plus one for the month, and therefore will need two people total for that month.
This cycle is always to the advantage of the Navy, and never to the recruiters advantage, and failure to produce results in constant covert, and sometimes overt threats, longer hours,(if that could even be possible), belittling of the recruiter, and sometimes punitive action. A super sharp sailor in the fleet that is a top performer and making rank very quickly, will more often than not be brought right back down to earth in recruiting, and in my experience, his career will usually suffer for it.
Yes, recruiters are supposed to be given extra consideration for advancement boards to the higher enlisted ranks, but the numbers do not really show that to be the case. The recruiters semi counter parts, Boot Camp instructors, which are called Recruit Division Commanders, or RDC's, are given an obvious advantage however on advancement selection boards, and the numbers consistently show this to be the case. If you happen to be reading this and are faced with a decision between the two in an effort to advance you career in the Navy, take my advice, and become an RDC! That advice was free however, so take it for what it's worth!
Now that you have a better idea of what the typical recruiter faces as far as production numbers, let me explain why although it may be tempting to "trick" someone into joining the Navy somehow, given all of the pressure they are under, it is nearly impossible, and highly unlikely that a recruiter could pull off such a thing, or would even want to.
Here's why:
- Lack of true recruiter involvement
- Civilian Oversight
- Parental Oversight
- Common Sense
- Reputation
Now let me cover these one by one starting with lack of true recruiter involvement. Everyone is scared to go talk to the recruiter because they think the recruiter is going to trick them, and sign them up for the military right there in the office. This is nowhere near true, and the sad fact is that most people can't qualify for the military in the first place! This is what truly makes a recruiters job very difficult.
A recruiter is like a scout for a professional baseball team. He is out there trying to find the talent, to take back to the team for a look. It's up to the team if they want the person, and if they do, it is up to the team for how long, and how much they will pay the person and so on. The scouts job was done once he got the person to the team. There is more to this and I will explain more below about why recruiters aren't exactly like scouts, but just keep in mind the recruiter has a limited role in the process.
This means, let's say a scout promises a baseball player that he could be a pitcher for a team. Once he takes the kid to the team, the team looks him over and says, "kid, we don't think you'll pitch for us, but we could use you in the outfield." The kid says, "Ok.", signs with the team, only to later complain that he never wanted to be in the outfield, and the scout lied to him. Are you starting to see the TRUE picture now, and not the one that Ms. Essoyan would have you believe.
Next, lets just say that the team and the scout for some reason want to trick the kid, and they decide, yeah, we will just lie to him and tell him he can pitch, but we are really never going to let him pitch, and we will just trick him in the contract because he's a dumb kid and he'll never know. Well, that is where the players association comes in. Except in this case they are totally independent from the branches of the military where the players association are usually current players in sports.
Anyway, in the case of the military, this autonomy from the branches of the military, allows impartial oversight without caring for one second if anyone ever gets into the military or not. They sit every applicant down, and go over their contract. They specifically ask them, do you understand you are signing up for this, or that, and for this long. Do you understand that no other promises made to you are valid. Then they ask were there any other promises made to you and by whom. They ask did the recruiter tell you to lie about anything. This is all done for every single applicant that joins the military, and it is done prior to the applicant swearing in by raising his right hand and taking the oath of enlistment. It is also done prior to him signing the final portion of his contract.
Even before you get to the point where the applicant is at the Military Entrance and Processing Station,(MEPS), where they actually will join if they qualify, in the case of two knuckleheads like we have here, where are the parents? Yes these guys were 18 and ultimately responsible for their actions, but they were still in high school!
Didn't their parents think it might be a good idea to find out first hand exactly what was going on? Especially since if you read the Star Bulletin report, you will see that one of the kids dad was a retired sailor, along with apparently 11 other family members that were in the Navy! Unbelievable! No one thought hey, he is getting to the final point where he may actually sign with the team? Give me a freaking break!
Common sense. I have heard stories of people saying the recruiter promised they could take their XBOX to boot camp, or their girl friends could come visit them in boot camp and on and on. I mean really. Would you be that dumb even if a recruiter did tell you such a thing. Doesn't anyone have common sense anymore? It is the freaking information age, and there are no secrets! I mean haven't you ever heard of the internet for goodness sake?
Then we come to reputation. Now it is easy to find those that have nothing good to say about recruiters for whatever their personal reasons are. Maybe they are anti-military, or against the war on terror. Maybe they believe that kids shouldn't be recruited at all, and that if they want to join the military they should seek it out on their own. In a sense I could agree with that. But what happens is this so called journalist slanders this Navy recruiter and does so knowing that she ultimately is breaking any journalistic code of ethics she may have!
Is their a single person on earth that doesn't have both supporters and detractors? Of course not! So for her to print such garbage, and be unable to find one single person to represent the "other" point of view, shows that she is merely pushing her agenda. The reasons recruiter don't go around just lying to everyone is because as I have explained, they really can't and if they could, they know their reputation wouldn't last the THREE years that they must recruit in a given area or school!
Now notice I said a recruiter is "like" a scout, because in recruiting, once the team says they want you and they sign you, the recruiter becomes your guidance counselor, your role model, and personal trainer, and often times will become like a parent to young people who may not have anyone filling that role in their lives. Once a person signs up and swears into the Delayed Entry Program, the truly difficult work starts for the recruiter! Oh if they could only just be like scouts, and just get them there. No it is not so simple in the world of recruiting.
The entire time a person is in Delayed Entry, the recruiter must baby-sit them. And I DO MEAN baby-sit! It is a nightmare, and I will get into why in some other post, but I hope now you have a little better insight on why that story is so bogus! If you have yet read it, check it out here and be sure to email the so called journalist, or at least leave some kind remarks!
Bogus Story!
This means, let's say a scout promises a baseball player that he could be a pitcher for a team. Once he takes the kid to the team, the team looks him over and says, "kid, we don't think you'll pitch for us, but we could use you in the outfield." The kid says, "Ok.", signs with the team, only to later complain that he never wanted to be in the outfield, and the scout lied to him. Are you starting to see the TRUE picture now, and not the one that Ms. Essoyan would have you believe.
Next, lets just say that the team and the scout for some reason want to trick the kid, and they decide, yeah, we will just lie to him and tell him he can pitch, but we are really never going to let him pitch, and we will just trick him in the contract because he's a dumb kid and he'll never know. Well, that is where the players association comes in. Except in this case they are totally independent from the branches of the military where the players association are usually current players in sports.
Anyway, in the case of the military, this autonomy from the branches of the military, allows impartial oversight without caring for one second if anyone ever gets into the military or not. They sit every applicant down, and go over their contract. They specifically ask them, do you understand you are signing up for this, or that, and for this long. Do you understand that no other promises made to you are valid. Then they ask were there any other promises made to you and by whom. They ask did the recruiter tell you to lie about anything. This is all done for every single applicant that joins the military, and it is done prior to the applicant swearing in by raising his right hand and taking the oath of enlistment. It is also done prior to him signing the final portion of his contract.
Even before you get to the point where the applicant is at the Military Entrance and Processing Station,(MEPS), where they actually will join if they qualify, in the case of two knuckleheads like we have here, where are the parents? Yes these guys were 18 and ultimately responsible for their actions, but they were still in high school!
Didn't their parents think it might be a good idea to find out first hand exactly what was going on? Especially since if you read the Star Bulletin report, you will see that one of the kids dad was a retired sailor, along with apparently 11 other family members that were in the Navy! Unbelievable! No one thought hey, he is getting to the final point where he may actually sign with the team? Give me a freaking break!
Common sense. I have heard stories of people saying the recruiter promised they could take their XBOX to boot camp, or their girl friends could come visit them in boot camp and on and on. I mean really. Would you be that dumb even if a recruiter did tell you such a thing. Doesn't anyone have common sense anymore? It is the freaking information age, and there are no secrets! I mean haven't you ever heard of the internet for goodness sake?
Then we come to reputation. Now it is easy to find those that have nothing good to say about recruiters for whatever their personal reasons are. Maybe they are anti-military, or against the war on terror. Maybe they believe that kids shouldn't be recruited at all, and that if they want to join the military they should seek it out on their own. In a sense I could agree with that. But what happens is this so called journalist slanders this Navy recruiter and does so knowing that she ultimately is breaking any journalistic code of ethics she may have!
Is their a single person on earth that doesn't have both supporters and detractors? Of course not! So for her to print such garbage, and be unable to find one single person to represent the "other" point of view, shows that she is merely pushing her agenda. The reasons recruiter don't go around just lying to everyone is because as I have explained, they really can't and if they could, they know their reputation wouldn't last the THREE years that they must recruit in a given area or school!
Now notice I said a recruiter is "like" a scout, because in recruiting, once the team says they want you and they sign you, the recruiter becomes your guidance counselor, your role model, and personal trainer, and often times will become like a parent to young people who may not have anyone filling that role in their lives. Once a person signs up and swears into the Delayed Entry Program, the truly difficult work starts for the recruiter! Oh if they could only just be like scouts, and just get them there. No it is not so simple in the world of recruiting.
The entire time a person is in Delayed Entry, the recruiter must baby-sit them. And I DO MEAN baby-sit! It is a nightmare, and I will get into why in some other post, but I hope now you have a little better insight on why that story is so bogus! If you have yet read it, check it out here and be sure to email the so called journalist, or at least leave some kind remarks!
Bogus Story!
Check out some of my other articles by clicking below, or the archive menu to the right.
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7 comments:
Make no mistake there are Recruiters out there that for whatever reason do stupid things. The counter-recruiter crowd will take any instance and blow it out of proportion. Been that way forever.
These two in the story went to MEPS, MEPS informs applicants of what they are doing and what they are signing up for to the point of ad-nauseum. They knew, no doubt they knew - there is a signed record they acknowledged that they knew.
NCCM, Thanks for your comment. I responded back on your Website to say thank you.
I agree that recruiters can do some pretty stupid things, like dipping the deppers and so on, but we all know most recruiters get in trouble for trying to "help" someone that may not quite qualify for one reason or another.
While recruiters sometimes do this only to make goal, I believe it happens more often than not to help some young person change their life.
We romanticize the WW II generation guys that were 16 years old, or had medical conditions, yet flat out lied to go serve their country, but now "forgetting" a speeding ticket or a little eczema means severe punishment for the recruiter, and maybe even NJP.
Your comment is dead on though! They knew, and in my opinion, it's a shame that the Navy responded so timidly.
The Navy is not a social service! Recruiters are recruiting to man the fleet and not to help those down on their luck. Joining the military is not a "right" - it is a privilege. Those who are trying to "help" applicants really need to keep this in mind.
That is certainly one way to take my point, but I believe most recruiters know the difference between a fellow that is only down on his luck, and that of a young man that maybe got a ticket on the way to MEPS, or possibly had ADD when they were 5 years old, yet have no doctor willing to say they are now ok since they were not the one to diagnose it.
The point is the recruiter has no one on their side. They are in a constant battle with the NRD, MEPS, the Star Bulletin, the urban legends, the PAO, the anti-war whiners that don't realize we are all anti-war, the parents, the high schools, the applicants, the community, and even in some cases, their own families!
I could have made a little more forthright statement in saying I KNOW that recruiters more often than not skirt that line in order to help young people, and all recruiters have such examples to give, but I don't want every reader to be unduly influenced by what I "know" to be true, without having the benefit of weighing my argument why.
I haven't presented that argument on my blog yet, but rest assured I will..
I also look forward to commenting on your statement that serving in the Navy is not a right, but a privilege in another separate article on my blog, once I get the hang of all of this of course :)
Thanks again for being my sole "commenter". Hopefully, I will get things in motion over the coming months and we can have some really candid discussions with a wider range of the public!
Indeed, when I got to MEPS I was told God knows how many times "You are aware of what you are doing?", asked too many times "Did the recruiter tell you to lie?", my Petty Officer on day one even said "you are aware that anything that isn't written on your contract won't happen". So even if he'd promised a million dollar signing bonus and choice of duty, if it wasn't on the final form, then it ain't happening. That was the first day I walked in to join! It disturbs me in general when a few bad eggs are used to stereotype the military. I think it's because the services (I'm still in DEP so I won't use the term 'we') are held to a higher standard. I think the left in general can't stand that. That there might be some people in this world who want to serve others. The whole "Generation ME" that has infected this country is ridiculous. In any case going back to the topic at hand I agree wholeheartedly with your statement about recruiters and DEP. My Petty Officer has a hard job, we have maybe 20 people in DEP and he has to keep track of all of them. Make sure that they stay out of trouble, become physically fit, and know the DEP manual before they go to RTC. I have nothing but great respect for him and his fellow recruiters. I can at least say that NRD Richmond has some excellent fellows working there.
OH MY GOD! Im in Recruiting and I see this all the time. Not the news article that is new and an EPIC FAIL! The part where a few buddies or one applicant are all set on joining they have the head nod going and are motivated to get in that they sign up with the quickness. Then they lose their balls when it comes to telling their parents what they want. I laughed my ass off when they said they wanted to be officers and yet they are going to a Community College. Sorry buddies ya need a 4 yr degree not a 2 year. Everyone wants to be an officer but thing is not everyone remotely qualifies. You can buy honor roll student status online it's real easy. I feel for the recruiter for not having support of his chain of command, I despise the incompetent anti-military bashing reporter, and I think the parents have included their son's in the "Everyones a winner" category where ya show up you get a trophy. They made it sound like starting out on the bottom was the equivelent to shoveling shit at a toxic waste dump. Oh GOD HELP ME FROM THE IQ DRAIN OF IGNORAMUS. To think they can vote now pains me. Great blog reminds me of tubedaze.
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