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"Join the Army," They Said: Difference between revisions

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"Join the Army," They Said (view source)

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* * The Canadian Armed Forces once had the slogan, "There's no life like it." Now, the current campaign is having commercials with Canadian personnel doing things like stopping smugglers - "Fight chaos" - rescuing people trapped in a crashed plane in the Arctic - "Fight fear" - and ends with "Fight with the Canadian Armed Forces". However, some do still have shots of (presumably) hostile gunmen, IEDs exploding, and soldiers removing rubble from a bombing in addition to the standard Canadian Forces scenes of search and rescue and humanitarian assistance.
* Police recruitment ads can be similar. Of particular note is a New Zealand ad which featured a young policewoman hauling around a bale of marijuana twice her size. One wonders if this was supposed to be a career highlight.
** There's a British "Police. Could You?" ad series, which featured [[But I Play One Onon TV|actors who play police officers on-screen]], saying they couldn't do the job in real life.
** The Norfolk, VA Police Department used to have an ad showing an officer missing anniversaries, holidays, and other major family events.
** The Memphis, TN Police Department is currently (2009) running ads featuring ''[[Steven Seagal]], in Memphis Police uniform'', sitting with the current Memphis Police Chief while talking (to the viewing public) about how rewarding a police career is.
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* This trope is parodied in the classic [[Marx Brothers]] film, ''[[Duck Soup]]'', where Chico notes that Harpo's working in a new military recruitment drive; which consists solely on him banging a drum while wearing a sandwich sign saying, "Join the Army and see the Navy!". While walking around ''on the battlefield.''
* ''[[Private Benjamin]]'' has Judy Benjamin joining the Army thinking it is all travel and fun, like the adverts (an image reinforced by an unscrupulous recruiter).
* The film version of ''[[Starship Troopers (Filmfilm)|Starship Troopers]]'' is actually intended to represent a recruitment video at many points.
{{quote| "Would you like to know more?"}}
** It should be noted that the fake interface includes 'Join' as one of the options.
* In ''[[Stripes]]'', the recruits ironically sing the Reagan-era "Pick a service, pick a challenge" recruiting jingle as they wearily trudge back to the barracks after a long march.
** The movie also contains a scene in a recruiting office, recruitment posters, and recruiting commercials on TV, including one of the famous "Be all that you can be..." commercials.
** Keep in mind that ''Stripes'' is basically one long recruitment commercial. The military actually has an office solely devoted to [[Backed Byby the Pentagon|approving use of military property for any film they think might increase enrollment]]. ''Stripes'' is one of those that got such approval and pretty much all the uniforms, equipment, and vehicles that show up in the movie are courtesy of the armed forces, and after the movie came out enrollment ''did'' go up.
* In ''[[Down Periscope]]'', the basketball player is climbing a mast in a rainstorm to rig a light as part of his captain's [[Zany Scheme]] (they're planning to sneak past the sub hunting them by impersonating a fishing boat), and gripes "I never saw ''this'' shit on the recruiting poster!"
** He then promptly sings "Be all that you can be" before [[The Captain]] yells at him that it's the ''Army'' recruitment song.
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== Literature ==
* ''[[A Separate Peace]]'' addresses this trope. All you need to know is that it ends [[Death Byby Newbery Medal|badly]].
* In [[Larry Niven|Niven]] and Pournelle's ''The Mote in God's Eye'', right after a particularly dangerous mission, a naval rating quips "My brother wanted me to help him with his wet-ranch on Aphrodite and I thought it was too dangerous. So I joined the flipping Navy." The {{SPACE Navy]] that is!
** In a perfect example of Niven's Law (Anything worth writing is worth selling repeatedly.) he used an almost identical sentence in the dialog of a Star Trek comic strip he wrote, just replacing 'Aphrodite' with 'Mizar'.
* [[Inverted Trope|Weirdly inverted]] in the book ''[[Starship Troopers (Literaturenovel)|Starship Troopers]]'', where recruiters try to ''discourage'' people from signing up. Since only veterans can vote, the constitution says everyone who volunteers must be allowed to join, even if they are useless incompetents. The military wastes a lot of money trying to train and support the low-quality recruits.
* Gently prodded in the [[Discworld]] novel ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Men At Arms|Men at Arms]]'', and with all Watch novels afterwards (and some that weren't), with Detritus being a particularly enthusiastic, if [[Malaproper|malapropism-prone]], evangelist of such slogans (as well as other military book/movie/TV cliches).
** Played brutally straight in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]''. The war is going so badly and has stripped such a large portion of the possible recruits from the population that not only is nobody joining up anymore, but the recruiters are only going through the motions. Things aren't helped by the fact that not enough of the men are coming back, and not enough of those that do come back is coming back.
* In [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s [[Warhammer 40000]] novel ''Scourge The Heretic'', two new Imperial Guardsmen are introduced on guard and grumbling, "Join the Guard and see the galaxy."
* [[Hand of Thrawn|Shada Du'kal]], high-quality bodyguard and commando (the two go hand-in-hand in Star Wars), while climbing a filthy wall to get in position to cover her employer for a transaction with someone.
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* One episode of ''[[The Hollowmen]]'' dealt with the decline in military recruits with the main characters attempting to create an recruitment campaign that appealed to young people. The Prime Minister wanted an old-fashioned ad, highlighting the qualities of "mateship"; The military wanted one that showed people having a good time - neither of which would work, as nowadays people know what they're getting into. In the end, they just make an old-fashioned ad featuring plenty of explosions.
* Parodied in ''[[The Young Ones]]'' episode "Cash", where the sole employment ad in the newspaper is for the British Army. It reads thus: "Join The Profeshionels -- It’s Graet! You Can Have A Gun If You Want! And There’s Money In It (Not The Gun)."
* Parodied in ''[[Malcolm in Thethe Middle]]'' when Reese joins the army, and his drill sergeant says something along the lines of "How ridiculous, the army doesn't put out subliminal advertising!" and he [[Lampshade Hanging|gives a long pause and looks knowingly at his friend]].
* The [[Victim of the Week]] in one episode of ''[[NCIS]]'' was an unscrupulous Marine recruiter who made promises that would never be met, such as promising one recruit that he would be trained as a medic. As Gibbs points out, the Marine Corps doesn't have medics; they use Navy corpsmen.
 
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You'll even get paid."<br />
I said, "[[Tempting Fate|That sounds pretty good]]."'' }}
* ''[[Disturbed (Music)|Disturbed]]'''s "Indestructible" seems to be about some sort of black ops soldier, who thanks to skill and equipment is seen as an unholy terror by his enemies. The song is intended as a sort of [[Theme Music Power-Up]] for the troops, since the band's style is popular among soldiers. As a band, they're "For the troops, against the war" (respect the sacrifice, hate on the cause of the sacrifice).
** The band has straight examples as well (again, in the realm of respecting the soldiers): "Enough" and "Sacred Lie" are the most obvious.
* Billy Connolly's "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk7T-NTUIeE Sergeant, Where's Mine?]" savagely criticized the then current British Army advertisments, from the perspective of a young man who'd believed them and found himself in the middle of [[The Troubles]].
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* The Imperial Guard of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' can - depending on the world the troops are from - be made up of all-volunteer forces with much propaganda and patriotism, fitting this trope to the letter. Never mind the daemons, soulless ghost-robots, giant bugs, and the other denizens of the setting they'll be sent to fight against...Although ''generally'', worlds that raise regiments from volunteers are more likely to provide competent soldiers than ones that press-gang conscripts.
{{quote| "Join the Imperial Guard! Travel to fantastic new planets! Meet exotic new life forms! And then shoot them! Serve the Emperor today - tomorrow you may be dead!"}}
* The ''[[Magic: theThe Gathering]]'' card [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=20396 Border Guard] parodies the "...and kill them" thing. "'Join the army, ''see foreign countries''!' they'd said."
* The NEG in ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]''.
 
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* In the [[World War II]] RTS ''Company of Heroes'', selecting an allied engineer squad will sometimes prompt a response of "Join the army they said... It'll be fun they said..."
** Which may be a [[Reverse Funny Aneurysm]] when you realize that, historically speaking, he was probably conscripted.
* In ''[[War CraftWarcraft]] 2'', clicking on the human Footman [[Stop Poking Me|frequently enough]] will yield the comment. " 'Join the army!', they said. 'See the world!', they said. I'd rather be sailing."
** Which only gets funnier when you find out how you can torture the crew of your destroyers by clicking incessantly until they complain you're rocking the boat making them seasick, and then throw up. They're ''[[Talking to Himself|even played by the same guy]]'', who hasn't even changed his voice for the role. You've got them coming and going...
** ''[[War CraftWarcraft]] III'' features footmen who, if clicked on enough, ''start spouting recruitment phrases''. "Grab your sword and fight the Horde!" "Uncle Lothar wants you!" They also have a "captain of the guard" special unit available in certain campaign missions and in the map editor, who muses that his job entails constant danger and lousy pay, but at least <s>[[Leeroy Jenkins|he's got chicken]]</s> he gets to hobnob with royalty.
** Similarly, repeatedly clicking on a civilian in ''[[Starcraft]]'' will make him declare, "I wanna be all I can be!" and decide to join the Terran forces, with his only misgiving being, "I'm a little claustrophobic though. Hope they don't put me in any tight spaces". Repeated clicking on one of the SCV construction units reveals that... it's the same guy, now sealed into a tiny crew compartment, babbling, "I told 'em I was claustrophobic, I gotta get outta here!"
* Mocked rather cruelly in ''[[Star Wars|X-Wing Alliance]]'', where one of your emails is a recruitment poster for Red Squadron--the first into battle, and the first to replace the first who fall in battle. And this is what they sent ''Rebel'' pilots.
** In ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]] 2'', Imperial troopers occasionally mention the Imperial recruitment campaigns with a slogan which is a parody of this trope.
* The [[Feelies]] from ''[[Crusader: (VideoNo Game)Remorse|Crusader]]: No Remorse'' included a newsletter that had an advertisement for joining "MilOps" (Military Operations Cartel), the assault arm of the [[Mega Corp|WEC's]] forces.
* ''[[Ratchet and Clank Future Tools of Destruction]]'':
{{quote| "Greeting, inferior beings of Polaris. Does you life lack a sense of purpose? Do you constantly worry about finding steady income? Do you enjoy killing stuff? Then join the imperial army and aid me on my humble quest for [[Galatic Conqueror|Galactic domination!]] Here, you'll travel to interesting places, meet interesting people, and execute them in the name of me."}}
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* Arcade game ''Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja'' wants to know: are you a bad enough dude to <s>[http://hikkyz.net/void/img/badenoughdude.jpg hit your own dick with a hammer]</s> [http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3190/2855445750_7f7eacbb4c.jpg?v=0 rescue the president?]
* ''[[Mechwarrior]] 3: Pirate's Moon'' produced this sarcastic quip from lancemate Dominic Paine after a particularly tough mission: "Join the army, see the galaxy, what the hell was I thinking?!"
* ''[[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Mass Effect]]'': If you speak to the surviving marines on Nepmos after helping them [[Hold the Line]], they'll say, "'Join the marines, see the galaxy.' Hell."
* Satirised in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'', which has fake military recruitment ads during the opening scene that are based on the style of real ones, exaggerated with tons of [[Deranged Animation|psychedelia]] and [[Values Dissonance]] until it ends up right in the [[Uncanny Valley]]. Notably, the ads, like real ads, repeatedly use video-game like imagery like [[First Person Perspective]] and unthinking, unbleeding, identical enemies - ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'' is in some ways a comment on video games being used to recruit young people into fighting real wars.
* In ''Bloodmoon'', the second expansion to ''[[The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind (Video Game)|The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind]]'', the the legionnaires at Fort Frostmoth will occasionally mutter to themselves:
{{quote| ''""Join the Legion! See the world!" Freeze your arse..."''}}
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas]]'' had '''Join The Military''' radio ads which by its very nature, a spoof of recruitment ads. see them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSFQHtKGaE4 here].
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Various recruitment techniques are parodied on ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' in the Strong Bad Email [http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail172.html more armies].
* The [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20000612.html first] ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]''. Appropriate really.
 
 
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*** Especially since his stated goal was to be a pilot, so the Navy would've been the natural choice. (At the time the Air Force was part of the Army.) The closest he comes to flying is being tricked by Sergeant Pete into boarding a paratrooper training plane in "Sky Trooper".
* An odd episode of ''[[Time Squad]]'' parodied these commercials. (Mixed with a bit of infomercial.) It showed a Time Squad unit rescuing ''George Washington'' and his men from a Redcoat ambush. Fans of the show know that the team's average assignment is a lot less glamorous. The commercial even becomes [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] after the episode with the "[[AI Is a Crapshoot|Virtual Washington]]" cold opening...
* ''[[Family Guy (Animation)|Family Guy]]'' has "Aaaww Yeah" and "Actual experience may differ".
* In ''[[Evil Con Carne (Animation)|Evil Con Carne]]'', Skarr rants against his mother and the military while crawling up a hill.
{{quote| '''Skarr''': Join the military, my mother said! The military! Curse you mother! Curse you! Curse my luck!}}
* In an episode of ''[[NedsNed's Newt]]'', an army recruitment message looks more like a travel bureau ad, so much that the enthusiastic Newton ends up enlisting Ned into it without his knowledge.
 
 
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