Just Ask An Airman: An Interview

(Several months ago I had the opportunity to sit down with two Air Force recruiters and ask them some questions about military life, recruiting, and the war. It is my pleasure to post for my readers the informative answers I received. Enjoy!)

Richard Burton has been in the service for 14 years, and has been deployed to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. He has worked as an Air Force recruiter for 7 months, and lives with his wife and two children in Fremont, Nebraska.

Joseph Monter has been in the service for 17 years and has been deployed to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Russia, and Africa (to mention but a few). He has worked as an Air Force recruiter for 3 years, and lives with his wife and three children in Columbus, Nebraska.

How does one become a recruiter?

(Burton) You volunteer for it. Basically they come around to every base and ask people if they would like to become a recruiter, and when you’ve been in the service for so long and you’re doing a job you think, well, it would be kind of nice to work with people coming in. You know; working with high school students and working with people who don’t know what they want to do in life. The Air Force has done a lot of great things for me and I just want to pass that information to our volunteers. And then when you volunteer they ask you where would you want to go, and I told them I wanted to go to a small town in Nebraska, and so they put me in Fremont.

So you probably get asked a lot if you fly jets?

(Burton) All the time! Believe it or not, only 4% of people in the Air Force are pilots. The Air Force has jobs just like a small town would have. You have people who work in the gyms, hotels, kitchens, people who work on transportation, you have mechanics, dieticians... Only a few people fly the jets, but you need to have those people to put them in the air.

What is your most memorable experience from boot camp?

(Burton) Going from being a trainee to an airmen. When you get down to basic training you are transitioning to military life. When you complete your fourth week of training; our hell week, they give you a coin with an airmen’s stripe on it, and that signifies that you’ve made it through hell week and now instead of being a trainee you are an airmen. You will see a lot of people go down there; male or female, and they will cry when they get it. When I came into the service I weighed about a hundred and eight pounds, I was 17 years old, and everyone told me I was stupid and that I wouldn’t make it. I weigh a lot more than 108 pounds now, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.

As far as character, what is the most important thing you learned at boot camp?

(Burton) I would say attitude. I was smart-mouthed, and you will see when someone comes back how respectful they are… and that’s how I was. What I took most out of my training was the customs and courtesies it taught me. It’ll change who you are.

A few years ago there was criticism from our mainstream media towards military recruiters. Their claim was that the numbers of military enlistees had gone down, and that recruiters were lying about military life in order to gain more volunteers. Do you think there is any truth in this?

(Burton) No, I don’t. I think people will hear what they want to hear. For most recruiters, it’s their job. Some people who come in here don’t know what they want, and you tell them what the Air Force has to offer, and sometimes there are recruiters out there who can’t break down exactly what they were asking. So someone might take it the wrong way. But it’s very hard to lie, especially if you’re near our Air Force base. Every month we go and visit an Air Force base, and what the Air Force recruiters do is when someone has just come back from basic training, they (possible enlistee) can talk to that basic trainee (it’s called the rat program). There are bad recruiters out there, but there are very few. But for the most part, I think the media just blew that up a little too much.

What about a claim that recruiters were calling possible enlistees repeatedly?

(Burton) Now, the way it works is- I get a list of everybody graduating from high school, because the high school has to provide that list. So every year my job is to contact everybody on that list. If it’s not something they want to do, I take them off my list and don’t call them again. But if I don’t get a response, I call back. I have to personally talk to you, and you have to tell me “no” before I can stop calling, because I have to have 100% contact. If people knew that all you had to do was answer the phone and say “I’m not interested” it would make my job so much easier.

Would you say that recruiting methods have changed much over the past, say, ten years?

(Burton)Yes, and the reason for that is- there’s more media outlets out there. And so a lot of rumors can be solved by looking on the internet. So it’s a lot less work for me and other recruiters to get our name out there. And it’s also changed in that it’s harder to get in now. When you come in here there’s a job interview. Now we only take the best, so you have to meet the qualifications. We really stress education.

Has the war in Iraq affected how you communicate with enlistees?

(Burton) No. Most people that walk through the door because of all that’s happened in Iraq; more want to serve their country. A lot of people are a little bit blind on how they’re going to do that, but that’s why they come to me. It affects more in talking to parents. Parents are scared, but if you look at the articles in the paper, how many people in the Air Force do you see getting killed?

(Monter) The Iraq thing- yes it does affect the parents quite a bit. Since 9/11 in the Air Force there have only been 45 deaths that have been directly related to the war. You know how many people in the U.S. die of lightning storms? 90. And 40,000 people die of car accidents. So yeah, it’s a lot more dangerous to get in your car because there’s more of a chance. But as far as the kids, they want to come in because of that right there (points to American flag). You get proud Americans; that’s why.

To be continued...