It's a tricky, stressful business, he was told. Not everyone is right for the Marines, and not everyone is going to want to join. But just because it's a tough assignment doesn't mean recruiters can bend the rules or make false promises.
"Don't try to make an applicant or their family believe it's a piece of cake," the textbook warns. A popular Marines poster reinforces the point: "We'd promise you sleep deprivation, mental torment and muscles so sore you'll puke. But we don't like to sugarcoat things."
Staff Sgt. Jason Baxley with recruit Travis Mitchell at the Marine Corps office in Columbia.
(Photograph by Chris Hartlove)
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"One out of ten will agree to an appointment, and two out of four appointments will not show up," the textbook continues. "Don't take it personal. If you do, odds are you will cross a line, and do something stupid like threaten them with bodily harm or just plain lie to qualify the one who did come in."
The Marine brass was just as blunt with Baxley: He was going to become a recruiter whether he liked it or not. He definitely didn't like it; but by the time he left San Diego for Maryland, he had accepted it.
THERE ARE THE SKILLS YOU LEARN in recruiting school and those you learn on the street. One of Baxley's predecessors in Columbia was brilliant at getting inside Howard County high schools and connecting with kids. He chaperoned high school proms, helped out with a school play and spoke to high school classes whenever he could persuade teachers to invite him. He was an operator. If a potential recruit had smoked marijuana recently, for instance, he would pay for a private drug test with his own money to make sure the kid was clean before letting him take the Marine Corps' version. He was eventually bounced from recruiting after being convicted of misdemeanor assault and a sexual offense against a 17-year-old female recruit.
Baxley is nothing like him. He wouldn't go to a high school prom, and the thought of having to stand in front of a class for most of an hour scares him. He has his own tactics: He bought a PlayStation II, which he brings into the recruiting office, "so I'd have something to talk to them about," he says. He has gotten to know a couple of coaches who recommend a prospect every once in a while. And he has befriended one high school principal, who turned out to be a former Marine.
Mostly, he relies on his recruits to do much of the recruiting for him, a fairly common approach. Kids trust other kids more than they'll trust a Marine in a uniform. And if the recruits get two other friends or classmates to join, they'll be promoted automatically once they graduate from boot camp.
Like all recruiters, Baxley works brutally long hours. Twelve-hour days are typical, and not a weekend goes by that he doesn't work at least one day. When he's not out trolling for recruits at high schools or the mall, he is making hundreds of cold calls to potential recruits and logging the responses on note cards. The No Child Left Behind Act, landmark education reform signed by President Bush in 2002, requires public high schools to provide military recruiters with lists of students' names and phone numbers unless parents specifically request that their information be withheld. But that rarely happens. Out of the more than 6,200 juniors and seniors in the Howard County school system last year, only 30 had parents who made that request.
For Baxley, the constant calling -- and the constant rejection noted in a brief running diary next to each student's name -- makes him feel like a telemarketer.
Next to one name he's written: "Mom said NI" -- not interested -- "Don't call."
Next to another: "Interested in military. Parents won't sign. Don't want him to sit down with me."
Another: "Dad said no way . . . His son is not going to fight no war."
Another: "Mom says he's going to college."
That is one of the most frequent responses -- and the most frustrating. "They're so wealthy, and the parents say, 'You're too good for that,' " Baxley complains. "They all want their kids to go to college."
Not that he's dead set against college. He just thinks that too many people write off the Marines without fully exploring the perks, which include college tuition money. He often capitalizes on the intense teenage desire for independence by asking prospects: "Do you want to be living off your parents for the rest of your life?"
And if one of them fires back the inevitable question -- Will I go to war? -- he tells them it's possible. Lots of jobs, like his, are not on the front lines. Still, many are, and he tries to be straight about it. But he doesn't think fear of dying should prevent anyone from joining.
"More people were murdered in Baltimore last year than the Marines have lost in Iraq," he says. "And we're at war."
THE THIRD-PERIOD BELL RINGS, and the students at River Hill High School spill out of classrooms and into the hallway. Suddenly, there is a trove of potential recruits all around, many smart and athletic -- exactly the kind of kids the Marines are looking for.
Baxley straightens the glossy Marine Corps brochures on the table the high school administration has let him use. The principal has stationed him in the hallway between the cafeteria and the guidance office, whose windows are adorned with names of the colleges that seniors have been accepted to: Johns Hopkins, Virginia Tech, Cornell, Duke, New York University.
The stream of students approaches, but most of it flows right by him to another table, which has a sign for the prom. There are three, then 10, then 15 students in line to sign up for the dance, all of them passing by Baxley and the future he wants to sell them. For these kids, the script seems to have been already written -- prom, graduation, college -- and there is nothing Baxley can do to change their trajectories.
But if the forces conspiring against him are in plain sight, he doesn't seem to notice. He can't afford to be distracted. It's now April 21, and Baxley still has just one recruit for the month, Manveet Chadha. Stepney got another one, which means he's now at three. That's great for the station, which is now halfway to its goal of eight, but it isn't making Baxley look any better.
With his acceptance to the University of Maryland, Secrest is definitely out of the picture until he turns 18 -- and that's not for another couple of months. The prospect who called Baxley on his 18th birthday was, as Baxley puts it, "conned into doing a semester" at Howard Community College by his mother. So he's out, too.
But Baxley still has a few good leads. The track star, Sarah Mero, who runs for Long Reach High School, wants to join the Marines to earn money for college. She promises she'll sign by the end of the month, despite the opposition of her coach, Gregory Johnson. The 18-year-old has good grades and is an excellent runner -- she can run 1600 meters in 5:39, a time that will win her a Maryland regional championship title. Johnson thinks she could land a track scholarship, but Mero says she won't be getting any help from her family and can't afford college on anything less than a full ride. Johnson has been trying to convince her that she could make it work, and he doesn't like the way Baxley has been pursuing her. The recruiter has started showing up at some of the practices, which Johnson thinks is "a little heavy-handed," even "creepy."
Johnson hates that military recruiters come to the big track meets, watching kids who ought to be focused on their event. "To me it seems a little predatory or opportunistic," he says.
Baxley knows he's not a welcome presence at Mero's track meets, but he can't waste any time worrying about it. The tone of the daily tally sheets has gone from urgent to alarmed, because many of the other recruiting stations in the region also are falling short.
"Get up and assault," read the message on today's faxed tally sheet. "Everyone stop screwing around and PUT SOMEONE ON DECK!!!!"
If things don't get better, Baxley sighed when he read the fax, "next week is going to suck."
Here comes an opportunity walking toward him now, a tall, shaggy-haired River Hill senior with a goatee who flips through one of the brochures on Baxley's table.
"Is there any place I can go to get some more information?" he says, putting a brochure in his pocket.
"Yeah," Baxley responds, "my office."
But the student apparently was thinking about the Internet or more brochures, because he suddenly looks nervous at the thought of sitting down with a Marine recruiter and takes half a step back.
"Don't worry," Baxley says. "I ain't gonna do no Jedi mind trick on you. There's nothing in my office you can sign that says you have to join the Marine Corps."
Baxley can't get him to commit to an appointment, but the student does write his name and phone number on a sign-up sheet.
Next comes a young-looking, red-headed student. He wants to go to college, but he still hasn't heard if he's been accepted anywhere, he says. "Well, the Marine Corps might be your backup plan," Baxley says. "It was mine. I lost my scholarship."
