Saturday, October 07, 2006

First post, First protest

As of late, I have been attached to a local recruiting head quarters. We have a large coverage area and are at the height of recruiting season, as school has just started on college campuses. I work with the officer programs office, which means we recruit for officers - specifically on college campuses because officers are required to have college degrees.

Today was my second recruitment fair. It was quite a production, as the navy brought in marketing subcontractors to help out, and we had all sorts of stuff, including this giant inflatable navy balloon, shirts, hats, etc., free food, etc.

There were rumors of a planned protest. The rumors were true.

The protesters has signs such as "accelerate your death" (hehe kinda funny), "officers = soliders, officers kill people too!", and "does dropping bombs on kids sound like fun to you?"

The protesters were a mixture of men and women, but more women. A few of them were muslim - merely an observation, not any sort of correlational implication. All of the protesters were minorities, and predominantly latino. We were targeting latinos for officer programs that day with spanish language ads and so forth.

I ignored them for most of the day, however as the day went on, they became more belligerent and aggressive, finally standing right outside of our tent and screaming. A senior enlisted individual got into quite an argument, but no screaming took place on the navy side, which I am proud of.

I'm enjoying my short stint as a recruiter. It's directly supporting the Navy and it's goals, and in turn our nations interests.


To the foam.