Race for Recruits

he engine exhaust catches in your throat and burns your eyes. The heat is stifling and the noise is deafening. But on a Friday afternoon in May, the Atlanta Dragway is a military recruiter's dream-the place is teeming with teen-agers. Courtesy of an alliance between the Army and the National Hot Rod Association, about 1,500 high school students from rural Georgia have swapped a day of classes for a day at the drag races, all with the blessing of their school administrators. The students' field trip to the Advance Auto Parts Southern Nationals in Commerce, Ga., an hour's drive east of Atlanta, comes with a price: Under the auspices of education, the teens sit through a short presentation promoting the twin virtues of auto safety and military service.

The plug for safety seems a bit lost on some of the students-most of them are here, after all, to watch young men and a few young women climb into souped-up cars and hurl themselves down a short track at 300-plus miles an hour. If a show of hands is accurate, only two of the students are interested in an Army career. But if Army officials are discouraged, they aren't letting on. At a time when fewer and fewer young people are drawn to military service, the Army's relationship with the National Hot Rod Association has been a boon to recruiting, says Thomas Tiernan, promotions and event marketing manager at the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky. High school administrators, some of whom refuse military recruiters access to their campuses, are apparently more favorably disposed toward drag racing, giving recruiters a rare opportunity to promote the Army to hundreds of teens at a time.

It's an opportunity Georgia recruiters here are eager to exploit, with the help of Tony Schumacher, the 1999 Top Fuel world champion driver and the Army's newest weapon in the service's war against attrition. Schumacher leads the Army's drag racing team, and while he has never served in the military himself, it's hard to imagine a more energetic booster for the service. Since the Army made the 36-year-old driver an honorary sergeant last Labor Day, Schumacher has toured the Pentagon, flown with the Golden Knights parachute team, fired weapons at Fort Benning, Ga., lunched at West Point and probably seen far more of the Army than the average soldier. The experience has turned him into an irrepressible salesman for the Army, and his enthusiasm is the backbone of the Youth Education Services program that precedes every weekend race and forms the foothold for recruiters pitching the service.

It's a pitch that might surprise a few veterans. Sgt. 1st Class Michael Pyznar, a recruiter from Athens, Ga., tells the crowd, "There are 212 ways to be a soldier these days. You make the choice-nobody's going to tell you what to do." He assures them the recruiters aren't going to put any pressure on them-they're only around to answer questions. And just in case anybody is still worried about the Army being a regimented, inflexible place, Pyznar adds: "The good thing about the Army is you don't have to stay in for 20 years."

Courting Generation Y

If the Army comes across as pandering to the students, it's no wonder. For each of the military services, recruiting has become a huge challenge. They've invested millions of dollars in research studies, focus groups and marketing surveys to discover how best to reach young people. And while there are signs of progress-all the services met their recruiting goals in 2000 for the first time in several years-that progress is fragile, service officials say.

Together the services will recruit more than 200,000 troops this year. The bulk of that responsibility falls to the Army, with a recruiting objective of 78,950 soldiers. The Navy aims to sign up 55,000 sailors; the Air Force 34,600 airmen; and the Marine Corps 32,703 Marines. Few of those recruits will come easily. To meet their quotas, recruiters will log thousands of miles in their vehicles, work an average of six days a week, including most evenings and weekends, and talk to thousands of young men and women, the vast majority of whom will walk away without making a commitment.

For all the research that's been done analyzing the cohort variously known as Generation Y, the Millennials, Screenagers and Generation Why, figuring out how the military can best reach them for recruiting purposes seems more art than science.

Marine Corps Maj. Andrew Wilcox probably knows as much about them and what they think about the military as anyone, in or out of uniform. Wilcox recently completed an extensive study of youth attitudes toward the military for the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. His thesis, "Recruiting the Next Generation: A Study of Attitudes, Values and Beliefs," is a primer on the challenges confronting military recruiters today. In the course of his research, he conducted 36 focus groups at nine high schools in six states, interviewing nearly 700 students in the process.

"If the average teen-ager's perception of the military was a reality, none of us would be in it," says Wilcox, now a personnel planner at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va. "They get all their impressions from movies. They think [military service] is too hard, there's too much sacrifice."

"They also think we're a lot better than we are," he says. "They have the idea that a squad of Marines can take down an entire city-that sort of thing."

Although teens held generally inaccurate views about life in the military, Wilcox believes the services often have inaccurate perceptions about teens. About 91 percent of high school students plan to go to college, says Wilcox. "They view a college degree much like teen-agers in the 1950s viewed a high school diploma-the necessary ticket for an entry-level job." Where teen-agers in the past viewed the military as an acceptable holding pattern while they figured out what to do with their futures, young people today view college that way.

"College is the default decision," says Wilcox. While the military's education benefits are still attractive to some teens, he argues the services should emphasize other benefits of military life that kids won't necessarily find in college-the opportunity for challenge, discipline, adventure and character-building.

When asked which service the teens would join if they were drafted, and why they would choose that service, Wilcox found: ‰ The Air Force had the greatest overall appeal. It was perceived as the "safest" service, and as an "easier service." Teens thought it would provide more technical training and treat people best. When asked to describe their mental picture of airmen, students mentioned the movie Top Gun (a film about the Navy). The Air Force was particularly attractive to young women.

‰ Teens were most familiar with the Army-and said it appealed to them the least. They perceived the Army as having the most job opportunities and as being the service most likely to pay for college. But many of those who said they would chose the Army did so because they had ruled out the other services, using such phrases as "afraid of flying" and "got seasick." When asked their mental picture of a typical soldier, they tended to mention boot camp, camouflage, mud and dirt.

‰ The Navy was second to the Air Force in appeal, especially with women. Students tended to think of ships and the ocean when they thought of the Navy, and they also considered it "safe." Even when asked about the USS Cole bombing, students thought of it as an anomaly. When describing their mental picture of a typical sailor, they used phrases like: "sitting-using technology," "dressed in white" and "open ocean."

‰ All the teens who selected the Marine Corps did so for reasons of self-improvement. Students described the service as the best and the toughest, although it was the service least appealing to young women. It was also the only service students associated with advertisements they had seen and remembered. When asked to describe their mental picture of a Marine, students used words like brave, disciplined, clean, strict and orderly.

A Name Brand

The Defense Department spent more than $270 million on advertising to attract recruits last year, more than double what it spent in 1995. That doesn't include signing bonuses, education benefits or other incentives. To better attract new troops, the Army, Navy and Air Force have all adopted new advertising campaigns and Web-based recruiting efforts in an attempt to reinvent themselves in the minds of potential recruits.

Only the Marine Corps has stayed the course with its advertising campaign: "The Few. The Proud. The Marines." While the other services actively promote education in centives, signing bonuses and other monetary benefits available to enlistees, the Marine Corps barely mentions such inducements in its advertising. Instead, the Marines promote the idea that theirs is an exclusive club-ordinary folk need not apply. If you're interested in mind-bending, back-breaking challenges, if you're up for having your courage tested, well, maybe the Marines will find you acceptable material. "We dare you to try to become one of us," is how one Marine officer describes the service's approach to recruiting.

Officials in the other services are quick to point out that the Marine Corps recruits only a fraction of the troops they do. Wilcox agrees that the Marines' lower recruiting goal is a factor in its success. Still, he says, "the Marine Corps is the only service that's selling something you can't get in corporate America."

The Air Force created a stir among the other services last year when it shelved its longtime "Aim High" campaign for "America's Air Force-No One Comes Close." Soldiers and Marines groused that what the Air Force really meant is it doesn't come close to providing adequate air support for ground troops.

The Navy took fewer hits when it replaced "Let the Journey Begin"-a campaign many thought better suited to a travel agency than a military service-with "Accelerate Your Life," although that, too, has detractors who believe the service is playing to recruits' self-interest rather than appealing to more patriotic motives. The Navy's new Web site features a "life accelerator" that helps users envision a future in the Navy, and offers a quiz that helps them find the right career field for their interests. Some sailors are skeptical about the quiz. For example, one question asks the quiz-taker if he or she enjoys refinishing furniture. Asks one enlisted sailor: "What is that supposed to tell you? That you'll enjoy swabbing decks?"

'Army of One'

No service has received more criticism for its advertising slogan than the Army. After relying for nearly 20 years on "Be All You Can Be," the Army in January announced its new "Army of One" campaign. If the adage "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is true, then the campaign has been a huge success. But if the tenor of the publicity is any indication of how potential recruits see the new campaign, the Army has lost a key battle in what the Navy is openly calling the "war" for recruits.

The first ad in the Army's new campaign showed a single soldier running across the desert, dog tags flashing. To the average real soldier, the soldier in the ad looked like he was going AWOL-and providing a nice target for any potential enemy at the same time. And the fictitious soldier's assertion in the ad that "the strength of the Army lies in me. I am an Army of one," rankled many a foot soldier, who have been trained for years to believe that teamwork is the highest calling.

The Army is standing by the ads, however, and expects recruiting numbers will soon validate its approach. The ad campaign "is not constructed solely on this individuality aspect that everyone who objects to the campaign seems to think," says Col. Kevin Kelley, director of advertising and marketing at the Army Recruiting Command.

"My first impression was, 'This is bold. This is exciting,' " Kelley says of the new campaign. When he observed focus groups with 17- to 21-year-olds, he was sold on the concept, he says.

"They got it. They understood an 'Army of One' had this dual meaning of personal growth and achievement for me, but also that I'm a part of something bigger than me, that what I can do will make a difference, that what I can do is valued. They all echoed these kinds of words back. This is hitting home with this audience," he says.

Research by RAND and the Chicago-based advertising firm Leo Burnett, which is responsible for the campaign, showed that "Be All You Can Be" had lost its luster and wasn't reaching today's youth, Kelley says. The slogan "had become part of the background noise. Also, we had relied too heavily on promoting the incentives and the college fund and bonuses instead of the Army brand. It became evident we needed to build the Army brand," Kelley says.

While the services work on building their brands with young people, the Pentagon is working on their parents. Steve Sellman, the Defense Department's director for accession policy, says influencing parents is critical to improving recruitment. To that end, the department has launched a print advertising campaign aimed at parents and other influencers. The ads feature beaming families standing by uniformed sons and daughters, with the caption "He's not just my son [or daughter]. He's my hero." The ads direct parents to a Web site (todaysmilitary.com) where they can learn more about military service options.

The Defense Department also is supporting a range of efforts by the services, from developing interactive recruiting information kiosks in malls and airports to creating high-tech joint recruiting centers.

"One of the initiatives we believe holds great promise is the use of civilian administrative assistants in the recruiting offices," says Sellman. "This was a concept that the Coast Guard originally tried. There are many kinds of clerical activities-picking up birth certificates, checking police records, answering telephones, making copies of enlist-ment packages-things that don't require a recruiter to do. So the Coast Guard had hired civilian contractor assistants to work in their recruiter stations and undertake these kinds of clerical duties. We piggybacked on the Coast Guard idea and provided funding for the Air Force to hire civilian administrative assistants," Sellman says.

Sellman expects to have data later this summer that will show quantitatively whether the civilian assistants are a good investment.

Selling Service

In the meantime, it may be hard to quantify the success of many of the services' new recruiting efforts. At the Atlanta Dragway, this seems especially evident. Schumacher says part of the program's success will be planting seeds in the minds of younger kids at the track with their families. "They come here, they have a good experience. Maybe they're not thinking 'I want to join the Army,' but somewhere along the line it sinks in that the Army is a real possibility for them, and later on, they enlist. How do you measure that?"

The Youth Education Services program feels more like a religious revival-albeit one with an automotive bent-than an education program. Schumacher gives a lively presentation about the importance of teamwork, safety and the opportunities that exist at the racetrack. He also relentlessly plugs the Army as an unbeatable place to get training and experience. Recruiters speak about 212 ways to be a soldier, and there's a T-shirt giveaway to those who can answer trivia questions about the Army and drag racing. It's impossible to tell what effect the pitch has on the kids, who listen respectfully throughout the presentation. But the dozen or so recruiters present are impressed.

After the program, dozens of students congregate at an Army exhibit that includes a climbing wall and computer banks-some with race car simulators and others with Army career information. Others take in a demonstration by the Army's sharpshooting team. To participate in the exhibit activities, students must fill out a form, with their home address and phone number-manna for the recruiters. "You've got 6,000-horsepower engines, a lot of noise, and the fastest cars in the world. What's not to like? Kids love this," says Schumacher. Apparently so. Several kids say they are interested in pursuing careers in automotive mechanics, and the opportunity to meet Schumacher and get out of school for a day was irresistible.

"Whatever gets us in touch with young people is OK by me," says Sgt. Samuel Bell, an Army mechanic turned Florida recruiter who tells students about the opportunities for those with mechanical interests. Like a number of recruiters here, Bell had never attended a drag race before the Army's sponsorship started last Labor Day. "At first, I was skeptical. But having seen how this works, I'm sold on it. I think the Army is really doing this right." Bell is a regular on the drag racing circuit now, speaking with Schumacher across the country. He considers himself a "poacher" in recruiting terms. "Anybody who's already out of high school, they're fair game," grins Bell, who keeps his laptop and enlistment forms in his car, just in case.