Military Calls Underage Teen at Home
Army Recruiting Upsets Teen’s Mom
Darla Swift, Cherokee County, said a stranger called her house a few weeks ago asking for her 16-year-old daughter.
“The first thing was, is Robin there? Didn’t even include her last name, it was very casual, and I really thought it was one of the boys who call occasionally,†Swift said. “So I’m like, who’s calling? And the person said it’s the U.S. Army, and I’m thinking this is a joke, alright, who’s calling? He goes, ‘It’s the Army.’”
The local Army recruiter found her daughter’s information on a list provided by her high school.
“I really was taken by surprise because she is so young, and after deliberating on it, I came to the conclusion, I don’t like them cold calling my teenage daughter,†Swift said.
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“To ultimately put people in the Army, we have to make contacts,†said Maj. Dave Weis of the Atlanta recruiting battalion, and said cold calls were an important part of the recruiting process.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, all public schools are required to give the armed forces a list of the names, addresses and phone numbers of high school juniors and seniors every year to avoid losing federal funding. The law allows parents to have their child removed from the list.
A student or parent wishing to protect privacy must actively contact the school to opt out and protect their personal information. In some districts, it can be difficult to withhold information specifically from recruiters, yet still allow this information to be used for other purposes that parents and students may approve of, such as honor rolls or school TV shows.
Write a letter to your child’s principal saying that you don’t want your information released to the armed forces or download a opt-out form here that you can fill out and deliver to the school.
Here is the full US Military School Recruitment Handbook in PDF format.
One thought on “Military Calls Underage Teen at Home”
I know this is an old blog but I have experienced pretty much the same thing. Ever since I turned 16, I’ve been getting so many offers in the mail from the Army/Navy/Marines. I thought that was the end of it but I was wrong. I’m 17 now and about a 6 weeks ago, I received a call from my local Marine Corps recruiter asking me when would be available for an appointment. Well I was about to go out with my family and I told him that I was leaving with my family and that I was going to be out of town for a few weeks. He said he would call me back and I didn’t think anything of it.
About 3 weeks have passed since the call and I thought that maybe they figured that I wasn’t interested but I got another call. It turns out that there was a new recruiter who was calling all seniors (which I didn’t believe.) This guy however was more aggressive. He wanted to set an appointment with me but I told him no thanks. Of course he wasn’t satisfied and asked me what my plans were. I told him that I was going to college and I was interested in bio-engineering. Then he tells me all of these great offers and how they offer wonderful “training” for my career. He then tried to scare me into joining by saying in a way that I won’t get the job I want because I was “inexperienced”. This made me really upset. Bio-engineering is one of the hottest job fields out there. I think someone is still going to hire me with only a doctorate. I finally got impatient and told him politely that I really am not interested. Before I was going to hang up, he asks me just answer this short survey to just see if I’m eligible for the marines. I figured that if I just play along, he would just leave me alone and never call back.
I’m not really angry for my school to have recruits on their campus but what really makes me irate is the fact that they called me at home and wouldn’t quit pestering me to make an appointment. The last recruiter was pretty decent but I don’t really like this new guy. Thanks a lot Congress for giving out my personal information. I’m usually pretty informed but I didn’t know the military could request a list like this from schools. Most kids in my school don’t even know what the “No Child Left Behind Act†is.