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Would you buy what this man is selling? The U.S. military sure hopes so. At a time when support for the war is plummeting and our forces are stretched dangerously thin, by-the-book Army recruiters like San Antonio Staff Sergeant Christopher Schwope may be its only hope to succeed.

Article Excerpt
ARMY STAFF SERGEANT CHRISTOPHER Schwope is nothing like the recruiters most of us remember from high school Those were men who rang your phone off the hook and stalked you in fast-food places, as sure a part of graduation as caps, gowns, and knockoff Waterman pen sets given by friends of your parents. The baby-faced 25-year-old, with his reedy smile and "dude"-riddled speech, could pass for a high schooler if it weren't for the battle fatigues and shaved head. He does things differently. "If I go grab a bite to eat, at like a Sohlotzsky's or Sonic, and run into some kids there, I don't want to interrupt them, because their lunches are already brief," explains Schwope, who's been serving in the northeast station of the San Antonio Recruiting Battalion for just over a year. "So I might ask, 'Anyone ever thought about joining the military?' To the ones that say no, I'm like, 'That's cool, but here, take my business card.' And the ones that say yeah, it's 'Dude, can I get your name real quick? I know you're eating. Do you mind if I call you tonight?' There are horror stories of recruiters who won't take no for an answer. I think some of that is where recruiters might get a bed name."

But as Schwope is aware, the current bed name was born of more than bed manners. As the Iraq war has dragged on and its public support has diminished, the number of new soldiers signing up has approached the post-Vietnam lows. And along with the declining numbers has gone the public perception of the soldiers charged with enlisting those recruits. Since Fahrenheit 9/11, in 2004, recruiters from the Army and the Marines, the two branches most involved in the Iraq war, have been steadily portrayed in the media as predators. The criticism was often deserved. The actions of a Denver-area Army recruiter, who was taped in 2005 telling a high school senior how to fake a urine test and purchase a bogus diploma so he could get into the Army, merited not only headlines but also the drop in rank he received. Investigations of fraudulent enlistment--instances when a recruiter either overlooked a He told by a recruit or coached the recruit into lying-jumped from 473 in 2000 to 836 in 2005.

That was a small fraction of the 73,373 new soldiers enlisted last year. But it was also viewed for exactly what it was, a side effect of the difficulty of finding willing qualified kids to fill out an all-volunteer military during an increasingly unpopular war. And it played in the press as a systemic problem. To send a different message, the Army declared a national stand-down on May 20, 2005, a day in which recruiters set aside the search for new soldiers to refocus on core Army values, like honor and integrity. But as enlistment kept dropping, the Army was forced to make adjustments to bring in new boots. After raising signing bonuses from $6,000 to $15,000 in August 2004, the Army raised them three more times, ending at $40,000 this January. The number of recruits categorized as Category Four--the borderline qualifiers--allowed to enlist was doubled. The number of recruiters was increased from six thousand in 2004 to eight thousand in 2005. The Army looked desperate. The negative press kept coming

A soldier like Schwope is the best bet the Army has to counter that negative image and maintain its numbers. He's an easygoing combat veteran who can impress and connect with the kids and a by-the-regs straight arrow who can shut up the critics. He believes in the Army, and his trust has translated into recruiting success. In his first ten months on the job, he signed up 32 recruits, and he earned the Army...

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