Comments on Beth Bailey's "The Army in the Marketplace Recruiting an All-Volunteer Force"

The thing that struck me most as I read this article is how economic and political military advertisements and recruitment are. I was surprised to read how based in economics and capitalism military recruitment is: "This system [all-volunteer military] functions as a labor market, driven by complex forces of supply and demand" (48). Advertisements used by the military was an economic and political and were used the same way advertisements for consumer goods were used: as a product to sell. I never thought of recruitment as something to be sold, but the amount of research and monetary funds that went into selling the idea of joining the army makes it clear that recruitment was something to sell: "'Let advertising do for the Army', he proposed, 'what it has done successfully for business'" (54). The research the Army invested in advertisements and targeting specific demographics shows the extent to which advertising was one of the most important factors in recruitment: "Army recruiting advertisements were, more than anything else, intended to attract draft-induced volunteers to the army rather than to be other services" (57). When the article began discussing specific slogans and advertisements used by the Army, I was really surprised when Bailey tells us that by December 1971, the Army's slogan "Today's Army Wants You To Join" had more public recognition than Ford cars and 7-Up soda. I know in general advertisements for companies and products use market research and are very particular about where they place their advertisements and who their target demographic is, but reading the specifics about how the Army placed their advertisements and how they presented the image of the Army really shocked me. When Bailey discusses how gender and race are utilized in the advertisements, I wasn't surprised at the extent the advertisements went to appeal to all races and genders, but the way advertisements for the Army, and advertisements in general, consider different genders or races just another demographic makes me angry: "Sex changed the surroundings dramatically; race changed nothing. For people of the same sex, the settings were identical, white and black people completely interchangeable" (65-66). I never knew that the Army advertisements worked the same way as product advertisements; I assumed advertisements for recruitment would have to be more personal in order to effectively convince people to join the Army, so hearing ab out the strategies used by the Army gave me a new perspective on their recruitment, and the politics and economics involved in it. I did not realize how planned and studied the Army's recruitment tactics and advertisements were: even the subtleties in advertisements, like the Army's presenting themselves as a group, instead of separating the consumer from the Army (like in the "We Want You advertisements) was planned for a specific purpose, and this economic way of presenting the Army and planning of the advertisements make their recruiting seem very sneaky.