His audience, a small group of about 10 other recruiters-in-training, goad him on: "No way," one says. "What are you going to do?" demands another.
"So what am I going to do? I SPEED UP! AND THEN I GET OUT OF THE CAR. I GO UP TO HIS WINDOW. BAM!" He swings his elbow into the air and his face turns bright red, a purple vein bulging in his forehead. "I SMASH IT."
Staff Sgt. Jason Baxley with recruit Travis Mitchell at the Marine Corps office in Columbia.
(Photograph by Chris Hartlove)
|
|
"YEAH!" the other Marines yell.
"AND THEN YOU KNOW WHAT I DO? I PULL HIM OUT. I GRAB HIM. AND TOSS HIM TO THE GROUND. AND I HIT HIM. I HIT HIM. I HIT HIM. AND THEN I SMASH HIS FACE. AND THEN I PUT HIM IN THE REAR CHOKE HOLD."
"RIP HIS HEAD OFF," screams one of the Marines in the class.
With that, the vitriol crests. The sergeant takes a breath, and the red runs out of his face. "But you know, it's just not worth it," he says. "I'm a United States Marine. And the Marine Corps keep us at a high standard, teaches us discipline and patience."
The class erupts into raucous applause, and a public-speaking teacher, who has been jotting notes on a piece of paper, gives him a big smile.
"Good job," the teacher says. "You're looking good. You're looking a lot more comfortable up there."
Though no recruiters will ever deliver a speech about road rage to teenagers, the "What Makes Me Angry" exercise helps them get rid of their apprehensions about public speaking. When Marines are angry, instructors have discovered, they become impassioned, gesticulate and lose their inhibitions -- key ingredients of a good speech. Now they simply need to do all that without getting so violent.
To be successful recruiters, they have to learn to behave in ways their drill instructors never would have allowed and shed some of the strict mannerisms pounded into them during boot camp. Their new assignment is to sell the Corps, and, to do that well, they have to be able to relate to teenagers, to talk like them, act like them, loosen up. But for Marines, who have been taught precisely how to sit, stand, walk and eat, something as simple as smiling doesn't always come easy. Which is why the Marines look outside their ranks for help.
Jackie Freiberg, co-owner of Freibergs.com, a private consulting firm, has been teaching communication and salesmanship to recruiters for more than a decade. She is tall and stylish, with long blond hair, engaging blue eyes and a nurturing demeanor -- nothing like the instructors her students are used to. She says "Goooood" when someone gives her a correct answer, and never yells at the incorrect ones. While she says the Marines are quick learners who are particularly adept at following instructions, they also pose special challenges that she does not encounter from other clients, which include executives from Sprint and Southwest Airlines.
"We're going to try to deprogram you," Freiberg tells the class at the start of school. "We've got to tear that military speech down. We don't call ourselves civilians. The only people who call us civilians are you. We don't go to the head. We go to the bathroom. We don't go to chow. We have lunch. We don't have MOSs [military occupational specialties]. We have jobs. You have to go back to your roots, remember how you used to talk."
Many of her students have been Marines for so long that they have a difficult time remembering how they used to talk. "It's very hard leaving that Marine mentality," a sergeant says as he heads to a classroom for extra help.
In the classroom, there are Marines in almost every corner of the room facing the wall, as if being punished, practicing their "Why I Love the Marines" speeches out loud. "Good morning, class. My name is . . ." One starts and stops his speech several times without ever getting past the third sentence, until he finally bends over at the waist as if in pain.
Soon, a speech coach asks the sergeant to recite his speech.
"Good morning," he says, introducing himself. "I am your local Marine Corps representative. Today I am here to talk to you about why I love the Marine Corps. There are many reasons why I love the Marine Corps, but, unfortunately, today I only have time for two. The first reason is tuition assistance. The second reason is educational benefits -- "
"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," the speech coach interrupts. The sergeant is what the Marines have made him: a warrior, big, tough and strong. But the coach sees something different in him, something the high school kids will like.
"You look like a big teddy bear," she tells him. "You look really warm and approachable."
"Is that bad?" he asks sheepishly.
"No. It's good . . . That warm, approachable nature, we want to capitalize on that. There's a couple of things we're going to do right off the bat to help. One of them is: I don't want you to curl your fingers. If you have them open, it looks more relaxed to civilians. This," she says, curling up fingers into her palm, "looks like a fist to us . . . Okay let's do the introduction again."
She interrupts him five more times to offer bits of advice -- smile, slow down, don't be so stiff -- before he finally gets through the whole thing. Then she sends him to the corner to practice his speech facing the wall.
Slowly, with each recitation, he gets better. He'll practice the speech over and over, forcing himself to smile, to create a more approachable persona. And with a few more weeks of training, he'll be ready to hit the streets.
WHEN BAXLEY GOT THE ORDERS assigning him to recruiting duty early last year, his unit was preparing to go to Iraq. It was the first real war since he had joined the military, and he didn't want to miss it. Plus, the thought of having to go up to teenagers in a mall or a school hallway made him shudder. He asked if he could postpone recruiting school until after he returned. But the Marines said no.
"It's like training for the Super Bowl and then having to sit on the bench," Baxley says with a trace of bitterness.
In the small town outside of Myrtle Beach, S.C., where he grew up, lots of kids join the military, eager to serve, eager to fight if that's what they're called to do. About a dozen of his high school classmates went into the Army after their senior year. Baxley was one of four to join the Marines.
His family couldn't afford to send him to college, he says. After he lost a scholarship to study drawing at the Art Institute of Atlanta for getting into a fight at school, he figured he could join the military, work for his dad doing odd construction jobs or get a job in the steel factory. The first option was a lot more appealing than the other two. So he enlisted and, like the commercials say, saw the world. When he came home to visit, his travels -- to Italy, Japan, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia -- and the medals on his uniform were sources of pride.
Thanks to the Marines, he believes he has done something meaningful with his life. He plans to remain in the Corps for another 11 years, when he thinks he'll have earned enough benefits to retire comfortably. He is a dedicated Marine -- upright, faithful, handsome in his uniform. In other words, just the kind of person the Marines are looking for to sell the Corps to others.
By the time he got the orders to go to recruiting school, he had been promoted to staff sergeant, become an expert in the weapons systems for F-18 fighter jets and sometimes had as many as 30 Marines under his command. Serving a three-year tour as a recruiter will increase his chances of being promoted, this time to gunnery sergeant.
So, reluctantly, he went to San Diego and studied his 285-page textbook, which laid out the secrets of landing recruits: how to calm a reluctant parent, get inside classrooms, befriend guidance counselors and find out where kids hang out after school.
"The first time you call the prospect, his mother states, 'He's not home right now, he's at school rehearsing for the senior play.' (Use this information to get the prospect to do the talking.) Recruiter: I understand you're in the senior play. Tell me more about it!"
Baxley also learned how to handle what the textbook refers to as "stallers."
"When you reach the moment of decision and John begins the 'staller two step,' control your urge to strangle him and simply state, 'John, I'm confused. When we began this conversation I asked . . . if you would describe yourself as the type of person who, when given enough information and whose questions have been answered, can make a decision? You said yes. Now were you trying to impress me, or were you serious?' "
If that pressure doesn't work, recruiters can try the "challenge close," where they say something like: "I'm not sure you have what it takes to be a Marine." Or they can try the "Puppy Dog close:" "Have an extra set of dress blues in the office and have the prospect wear the jacket looking into the mirror. Ask them what they see."
Baxley tried out his pitch on kids at a shopping center near the recruiting school, honing his sales skills and learning to balance the pressure to sign up new recruits with upholding the Corps' exacting standards.
