14 DAY TRIAL // In an attempt to address an ever-decreasing number of new recruits strengthening America's forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the world, the US Army is currently adopting a new way of recruiting young men and women for active service. In northeast Philadelphia, it has set up a new experimental recruiting center, filled with computers and video game consoles, as well as large-scale models of a Humvee and some helicopters. The place looks more like a lounge, adorned with couches and swept away by rock music coming from loudspeakers.
The experiment the Army is currently engaged in seeks to bring more people in, and already they seem to be accomplishing that, if we consider the fact that the new center has already drawn 33 full-time soldiers, as well as 5 reservists. This makes it the approximate equivalent of five other recruitment centers, counting the people attracted within a short time frame.
The $12 million US Army Experience Center, hosted by the Franklin Mills shopping mall features some 60 personal computers and 19 Xbox 360 controllers, all coming with a large array of military strategy games to choose from. In addition, several interactive touchscreens offer potential recruits all the information they need about possible ways of developing a career in the force.
According to official data, the number of recruits will most likely increase in the near future, as more and more people will lose their jobs and will be forced to seek employment elsewhere. The same thing goes for students and college graduates, who will find it very difficult to find a safe position in a company. The US Army says that more than 185,000 men and women joined during the last fiscal year, the largest such increase since 2003.
Not everyone is very excited about the new project, and some say that the flashy way in which the Army presents the battlefield and life-threatening situations is glamorizing. "It's very deceiving and very far from realistic. You can't simulate the loss when you see people getting killed. It's not very likely you are going to get into a firefight. The only way to simulate the heat is holding a blow dryer to your face," says former Army staff sergeant, Jesse Hamilton, who is a member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. On the other hand, participants say that the feeling they get when at the center is very nice, and that the traditional image of the Army, of men standing in front of an officer in a gray building, in front of a metal desk is long gone. "It's a more relaxed environment. You don't feel like you are being pressured," Eddie Abuali, a teenager who plans to join the Army after finishing college, told Reuters.