"Sign Here Kid"

by Mike Ferner

Veterans For Peace Newsletter, Fal 2004

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/news/Newsletter-Fall2004-web.pdf

He trolled for teenagers in North Carolina high
schools, barked orders at recruits in boot camp, and
pulled charred civilian corpses out of cars in Iraq.
Now Jimmy Massey is making good on his promise to tell
the whole world what he learned as a Marine. For the
first ten years, Massey loved being in the USMC.

With a quick mind and an easy manner he and his
superiors knew he’d make a great recruiter. And by the
luck of the draw, he was assigned to the area around
Asheville, NC, not far from where he grew up.

"It was an advantage being a recruiter in this area. I
understand the mentality of mountain people. When we’d
talk about topics like the economy and industry around
here, I knew what people were talking about. And too,
people here usually don’t open up to strangers."

Contrary to what some believe, Marine Corps recruiters
don’t get paid commissions for going over quota, the 32
year-old former Staff Sergeant explained. "My monthly
quota was three in the summer and two in the winter.
You could get five one month, but still go from hero to
zero next month when you started over again."
Recruiters do get Special Duty Assignment pay "an extra
$475 a month, when I was in," he said, to offset the
higher cost of living in the civilian economy. "An E-5
recruiter would make about $1500 every two weeks
including SDA pay. But being a recruiter is expensive.

There’s extra costs, like taking a guy to Hooters for
some wings. The government gives me a credit card but
it’s in my name, and the bill comes to me. I have to
pay it and then get reimbursed." "You have to have a
nice car, you can’t go rolling down the street in some
old family wagon. You can’t be talkin’ to a kid about
financial stability and drivin’ an old Ford Ranger."

Massey drove a Mustang, and Army recruiters he knew
drove "decked-out Expeditions with 20-inch rims." And
not just a fat ride, he added, "You have to have a
little ’bling’ (gold, jewelry, etc.) on you...that kind
of thing. I made sure I always dressed nice when I was
off duty. You gotta play the part. Young kids are
really materialistic minded."

Often the biggest enticement a recruiter can offer
young men and women trying to escape poverty is the
promise of job training. Conversely, not getting the
job a recruiter "guarantees" can be a source of real
discontent among the troops. "The Marine Corps can
guarantee you a job all day long," Massey said, "but
that doesn’t mean you’re going to actually get it."
"There’s a whole network within the community to enable
recruiters to make their quotas, the sheriff’s
department, police department, schools...all the way up
to the local congressional office."

"A recruiter is like a private eye," Massey said. "They
know everything about the kids they’re recruiting." For
example, he learned the names of virtually every
graduating high school senior in his seven-county
district-about 1,000 youngsters annually in that
largely rural area.

And high school students weren’t the only people he got
to know well. "We knew the names of the District
Attorneys in every county, and went to them to get
certain things [charges] reduced or dismissed on kids
we were recruiting."

Massey explained the Marines’ Systematic Recruiting
method that includes use of a working file of
Prospective Applicant Cards on which information is
routinely entered. "I’d put all the information down
that I knew...maybe Johnny Smith had some problems
with the law. That’s when I’d go to the D.A. and ask if
Johnny was salvageable. If he was, I’d tell the D.A.,
’well I talked with Johnny and he’s thinking of going
into the Marine Corps.’ More likely than not the
response would be, ’Oh yeah? Well, that’s just great!’

While the "Systematic Recruiting" method concentrated
on a kid’s social weaknesses, it might ignore a
potentially life-threatening medical condition, say,
asthma. "I’d ask an applicant concerned about his
asthma if he uses an inhaler. If he answered ’yes,’ I’d
tell him that if he controlled it with an inhaler then
he really didn’t have it. Then I’d tell him to give me
10 pushups. If he did that with no trouble, I’d say,
’See, you don’t have asthma!’" By 2000, his last year
as a recruiter, Jimmy Massey got "...tired of lying. I
felt like I was close to a nervous breakdown. I was
diagnosed with major depression and put on medication.
I wrote a letter to my commanding officer about how
Marine Corps recruiting should be more ethical."

The Recruiter Instructor who once monitored Massey’s
work, told him he thought it was one of the best
statements anyone had ever written about recruiting
practices. Massey decided to quit being a recruiter,
but also to reenlist to get back to "the regular Marine
Corps duty" he enjoyed.

Soon he felt "good enough to get off anti-depressants."
Then came his orders to northern Kuwait, and within two
months, he was invading Iraq with 130,000 other U.S.
troops. As they made their way north towards Baghdad,
through the towns of Safwan and Basra, Massey said his
unit’s "main job was to set up roadblocks. We had
permission to fire on anyone who got through them. In
one 48-hour period, we killed over 30 civilians. We
just ’lit ’em up’ with gunfire. But when we went to
pull the charred corpses out of the cars we never found
any weapons. They were just civilians. I could start
feeling the depression come back. I knew what it was
from."

In a meeting one day his Lieutenant asked if he was
feeling okay, and Massey replied "No. We’re committing
genocide, and leaving enough depleted uranium around to
continue genocidal activity for a long time." "Do you
really believe that," the LT asked? "Yes," replied
Massey, "or I wouldn’t have said it." At that point,
Massey knew his career in the Marine Corps was over.
Two months after the invasion, Massey was sent to a
Navy psychiatrist in Kerbala, Iraq, rediagnosed with
major depression, and PTSD, and told that he would be
medevac’d out. Since his honorable, medical discharge
from the Corps, Jimmy Massey has been applying the hard
lessons of war to the cause of peace. He is a founding
member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and has
started writing a book about his experiences. When
asked what advice he would give to a teenager when
visiting a military recruiter, Massey thought a moment
and answered, "Take a veteran with you to the
recruiter. We’re never going to stop that kid bound and
determined to play Rambo, but getting the facts out,
educating kids.. that’s why I keep speaking out."

Indeed, Massey put the Marines on notice just before he
left. Speaking to a Colonel he pledged that, "the
moment I get out of here, I’m going to tell the whole
world what I’ve learned."