On your Unhumble Car Czar's to-do list this week: putting an end to those bashful U.S. Army recruiting ads with the earnest, expressive-eyed teens just drowning in anxiety over the prospect of telling their parents they'd like to, um ... ah ... oh, gosh ... here goes ... join the U.S. Army.
These re-dubbed feminine hygiene commercials serve as clear warning that our military recruiting machine has totally lost it.
This nation's most recent patriotically-pure surge of new military recruits came in the days after September 11 – men and women who signed up to fight a real war against a real-if-elusive enemy.
But after "The War on Terror" was grandly repurposed, some of this nation's best and brightest reevaluated. Military recruiting has been a tough sell since, and even recently-lowered recruiting standards can get an army only so far before the heinous war crimes and intra-troop felonies just get in the way of the endgame objectives of war.
Just as our military readiness did not profit from handing out headbands and T-shirts in the recruitment drought of the 80s, neither will it benefit in this pre-post-Iraqi quagmire from millions of dollars in television advertising that tries to make joining the U.S. Army look as angsty-trendy as coming out of the closet on prom night.
What are you guys thinking over in that five-sided building?
If you've underestimated your next recruiting class this badly, just what kind of job have you done sizing up this nation's enemy combatants?
It's time to ditch these glorified Massingill ads, gentlemen.
Put those sweaty, dirty, battle-worn faces back on TV.
Bring back that 15-second spot featuring the Hell-fire roar of a nighttime F-14 carrier launch.
Bring back the one-eared Marine.
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