| My mom called me on Friday afternoon. She was slightly upset, but mostly angry. I asked her why.
She said that two soldiers had come to the house looking for me.
Now, this doesn't surprise me at all. It's not the first time that's happened. In fact, they'd shown up at my parents' house twice before. The Army is so desperate for warm bodies that recruiters and career counselors will pretty much go anywhere if they think they can get somebody to sign up. And I'm still in the IRR, so that makes me a prime target--even though I've already served two tours in combat. But that's not the issue here.
The issue is how these two guys acted. My mom--who rarely gets flustered--explained that the two NCOs who'd come to the house were Army Reserve Career Counselors from the 90th Regional Readiness Command. They had shown up at my parents' house in an attempt to lure me back into a unit. But they didn't just ask.
Instead, according to my mom, they proceed to play good cop/bad cop with her. Sergeant First Class M. played the good cop. He explained that they were just there to let me know what options were available to me, should I want re-join a unit. He handed her his card.
The task of playing bad cop, however, fell to Master Sergeant N. Hovering over her in the driveway, Sergeant N. leaned in and told my mother--at her house, in the absence of both me and my father--that he could "make it easy" on me, and that he could give me "alternatives" if she would put them in contact with me. The implication was clear to my mother: If she wasn't willing to put them in contact with me, it would not be "easy" for me. He wasn't saying it specifically, but, as we all know, he was suggesting that if I wasn't willing to come off the IRR and join a unit, then I'd likely be recalled to Active Duty involuntarily and deployed for a third time.
To a mother who doesn't understand how the Army works, it was easy for him to make her think that he had some sort of say in the process. This is a common technique.
Irritated by his vague threats and intimidation, my mom told them she didn't have any contact information for me. Then she expressed to them that they could leave her home. She called me a while later.
Now, I can tell you, my mom doesn't need the added stress of having soldiers appear at her door. She doesn't need these guys telling her that her twice-deployed son could be sent back to Iraq if she doesn't give out his personal information. And she certainly doesn't need it done in the moderately threatening tone she described.
As soon as I hung up the phone with her, I dialed the number for Sergeant M. It didn't even cross my mind not to. After a few rings, he picked up:
"This is Sergeant M."
"Sergeant M., this is Captain Brandon Friedman." I had no idea what I was going to say, but I knew I was going to raise my voice.
"Uhh, hi. . .sir."
"Yeah, hi," I said. "I understand you were at my parents' house today. Is that correct?"
"Um, lemme see. . .I think. . .uh. . ."
I stopped him. "Yeah, you were. You talked to my mom. In fact, you showed up and told her that you guys could 'make it easy' on me or make it hard on me. . . ."
"Uh, sir. . .," he stammered.
"No, just stop," I said. I was getting loud at this point. "Do you have any idea how inappropriate it is for you to come to my parents' home and talk to my mother like that!?"
"Well, sir, we didn't. . .uh, can I put you on the speaker phone? Master Sergeant N. was actually the one who--"
"Go for it," I said.
As it turned out, he was still with Master Sergeant N. and he wanted him in on the conversation. "Uh, sir," he said to me, "could you please tell Sergeant N. what you, uh. . . ."
"Yeah," I said. It was plain to me that Sergeant M. wanted no part of this. "I want to know," I lowered my voice, "why you guys felt the need to tell my mother that you could "make it easy" for me if she gave you my information. You did it deliberately, and you did it to make her think I was gonna be deployed again if she didn't go along."
"Well, sir," Master Sergeant N. began, "we just have to explain what your choices are. . .and that's all we. . .I mean, are you aware of the two-year no-deployment contracts, or do you know about the bonuses for--"
"Of course I know about all that," I cut him off. "But that's not the point!" I was getting loud again. "You knew exactly what you were doing!" I yelled at him. "You can't bullshit me on this stuff. I know how these things work. I work for a veterans' organization! I know career counselors. I have friends who are recruiters. I know guys who work at HRC!" I was getting on a roll. I noticed that I had woken Alex, my fiancée, from a nap she'd been taking.
"Sir, we--"
"You use shady tactics. And you know it. You make moms think you're going to have their sons deployed again if they don't sign back up. And what pisses me off the most is what you're doing to the Army. This is unprofessional. I love the Army. . ." I thought about it for a second. "And I can't tell you how disappointed I am in the way you're representing it." I started to slow down. "This isn't the Army I joined 10 years ago."
"Sir," Master Sergeant N. said, "there are a minority of career counselors who might do that, but I can assure you that most don't. Most of--"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I stopped him again. "Let me explain something to you: I hear from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans every day about this stuff." I started shuffling frantically through the papers on my desk, glad that Sergeants M. and N. couldn't see me. He was saying something I wanted to believe, but I knew it wasn't the truth. Then I found what I was looking for.
"Okay, look," I said. "I have in my hand right now an email sent to me by another Iraq veteran. It's from a career counselor with the 99th RRC. Do you know what the subject heading is? It says, 'Pending Reassignment (UNCLASSIFIED).' Now, do you know why it says 'Pending Reassignment?'"
No answer.
"It says that," I continued, "because that career counselor is trying to scare the veteran into thinking he's being reassigned out of the IRR."
"Well. . ."
"So, look. I know what you're doing and my parents don't need the hassle. Feel free to stay away from my parents' house. I think we're done here."
That's pretty much what was said. Alex--who I woke up with my ranting--helped me recreate the gist of it. I think they brought up musters somewhere during the call, but I can't really remember what was said. I think they asked me if I'd mustered or not. Anyway, I was pretty riled up and angry. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever yelled at an NCO. And I can honestly say that I've never yelled at an E-7 or E-8 before--in person or over the phone.
The bottom line is this: The aggressive and often dishonest tactics of the Army Reserve's Career Counselors are a disgrace to the professionalism of the all-volunteer force. This is something the Army needs to address.
Anyone who doubts what I'm talking about or who doubts the contents of the phone conversation need only look at the three emails below. The tactic is clear: Use the threat of an involuntary mobilization to coerce a soldier into joining a unit. These were forwarded to me by soldiers around the country.
This first one is a trip. The E-7 who sent it not only plays the mobilization card, but says, "I can help you prevent this from being a possibility for you." Then, as a friendly reminder way to frighten the email recipient, she actually attached an "example" mobilization order to the email as a PDF file. This is not a joke. This Sergeant First Class--from the 99th Regional Readiness Command--actually holds a mobilization over the soldier's head in the email and sends him a mock mobilization order attached.
Just so he knows who's boss around here.
This next one is the one I brought up on the phone with Master Sergeant N. It was sent to me by an Army captain who has already served three tours in combat--two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, with the 101st Airborne Division and with Special Operations Command. The subject heading of the email is "**Reassignment Pending** (UNCLASSIFIED)." Classy, huh? The career counselor who sent it (also from the 99th Regional Readiness Command]) tries his best to phrase the message so as to make the captain think he has no choice in this matter.
This third email is almost identical to the one above. It's sent by the same career counselor, but to a different soldier, in a different state. Funny how they both got forwarded to me, right? The soldier who forwarded me this email is an NCO who served one tour with the 101st Airborne Division in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. When he forwarded it to me, he sent a note along with it. In his note he said this:
Most of the people who contact me are soft-sell but this [name redacted] guy is a prick and just keeps up with the scare tactics.
Why is this document worded this way?
Why is the IRR procedure so opaque?
When did openness and honesty become the enemy of Army policy?
Why is the fact that this is a recruiting effort and purely voluntary not apparent in this document until four paragraphs in?
Great questions. Here's the email:
Someone even forwarded me an email from a captain recruiting for the North Carolina Army National Guard who just came right out with it and told the email recipient that he'd probably be involuntarily mobilized for deployment unless he signed up with them. Unfortunately, I can't reproduce it here because the sender was smart enough to mark the email "For Official Use Only."
So now, I'd like to bring this story back to my mom and what happened to her. I thought about notifying the commander of the 90th RRC privately, rather than writing about the incident publicly here. But then I thought about all the emails I've received from soldiers--like those above--and I realize that this isn't a problem that the 90th RRC's commander can fix. This isn't about two guys showing up at my parents' house. This is an Army problem. And as we've seen repeatedly, big Army problems don't go away until they become public (see here, here, here, and here).
One Army captain--who served with the 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq, put it this way to me in an email:
Emails like that further reinforce my skepticism that the USAR, like the Army overall, will say and do ANYTHING to ensnare anyone into committing to a Reserve or Guard unit. This is conduct unbecoming of any professional soldier, who is supposed to exemplify the meaning of integrity--at the very least with fellow soldiers (past and present).
That said, as leaders on Active Duty, in the National Guard, in the Reserves, in the IRR, or retired, we need to do whatever we can to ensure that conditions are set to:
1. Get rid of NCOs that act like this and get rid of commanders who allow and/or encourage it.
2. Get rid of policymakers who use the military so carelessly that the mission cannot be accomplished without sending the same soldiers back into combat over and over and over.
3. Get rid of policymakers who allow the Individual Ready Reserve and the National Guard to be used in non-emergency situations and in elective wars.
4. Enlarge the volunteer Army.
And finally, there's one last one:
5. If a war is necessary, and none of the above actions work, then initiate a draft. Those of us who've served multiple tours in combat are, frankly, tired of carrying the load for a largely ungrateful nation.
We're better than this. As a nation and as an Army. |
