The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives by Nick Turse

Author:Nick Turse
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Technology & Engineering, 21st Century, General, United States, Political Science, Public Policy, Military Science, History
ISBN: 9780805078961
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2008-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

The army Chevrolet and navy Dodge at the 2005 USG Sheetrock 400 NASCAR race. Photo Courtesy of the U.S. Army.

Tasked with generating “qualified leads of potential Latino recruits nationwide,” in just one year’s time, Latino Sports & Entertainment Marketing arranged for the army to sponsor fairs on sixteen college campuses to tout active duty and ROTC service and set up booths at forty Major League Soccer games. (The army deploys at plenty of other “Latino” events as well. For instance, 2007 marked the third straight year that it had sponsored a day of festivities, and set up a recruiting station, at the Tropical Music Festival, a Latin music concert series in the Bronx.) The Hummers, however, were its pièce de résistance. The two customized vehicles, according to the company, “toured markets across the country and were showcased at car shows, Hispanic festivals, concerts and sporting events” driving “traffic to the Armys [sic] information booth.”

All told, Latino Sports & Entertainment Marketing claimed that its staff “traveled more than one hundred thousand miles covering more that twenty-five key cities across the nation, providing the army exposure at hundreds of events,” reducing the army’s cost-per-lead for recruiters by 29 percent and increasing lead generation by 31 percent. One high school student, in an excerpt from an editorial for his school newspaper, republished in the Los Angeles Times, recounted his underwhelming real-world experience with the effort: “The army managed to get a Hummer rolling on 24-inch dubs, blasting rap, lined with flames on the side, outside of Room C161.” As for the pitch? “Dressed in army uniforms, recruiters stood outside telling people that if they signed up, they [would] receive a T-shirt that said, in Spanish, ‘YO SOY EL ARMY.’”

In addition to these Hummers, the army deploys an entire fleet of flashy SUVs to college campuses and various youth-oriented special events.

Meanwhile, the marines roll out their own flashy Hummer, which they call an “Enhanced Marketing Vehicle,” at events like college football’s Outback Bowl. They also take it to other high-traffic venues, where, parked alongside an “inflatable giant-sized drill instructor,” its custom paint-job, “fully loaded sound system, and a video game console” are designed to draw youths to four marine drill instructors manning what they call an “enhanced area canvassing event.”

The air force, too, has taken a similar tack. In late 2002, it got its own pimped-out ride: a 2003 GMC Yukon XL that it calls the “RAPTOR SUV”—after the air force’s F-22 fighter jet. Custom-painted in blue, white, and gray, replete with air force logos, backlit grills, custom rims, leather interiors, entertainment centers featuring a forty-two-inch plasma-screen TV, DVD player, full-range sound system and even a Sony PS2 thrown in for good measure, thirty-one RAPTOR SUVs (along with tricked-out trailers “carrying 6 flight simulators each” and stand-alone miniature models of the F-22) function as mobile marketing tools. Deployed across the country, they are meant to attract youth at local fairs, air shows, and extreme sports events like the Dew Action Sports Tour. In 2005,

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