Quote Originally Posted by Massengale View Post
oh, ROTC may not be the primary mechanism by which to reach this demographic (though if there was a serious CUNY ROTC program you might be surprised)...my post that started all this was just stating that Army culture in general is an issue. The fact that posters here don't think that both command influence and peer pressure relating to religion and politics isn't an issue in the Army simply shows that you're too used to it and see it as ordinary (I hear and statements which cross the line all the time, from LTs up to three stars).

BTW, I agree that the Army does a good job advertising its leave policies. It's effective propaganda. Too bad it's pretty misleading. Since weekend days count toward the 30 days of leave we're really just talking about 3 weeks of vacation. No different from other jobs. On the other hand, many units do get a fair amount of three and four day weekends in a garrison environment. But then plenty of private sector jobs are on a four day work week or offer the opportunity to work from home part of the time.
Then throw in the hassle that is involved in actually traveling somewhere (redundant, pro forma safety briefings, POV inspections and having to plan everything way in advance) and I can't say that military vacation policies are actually better than the civilian sector. It's worth it for other reasons, not the vacations.
I have a couple of things I would like to add on the various points we are talking about here.

The first being that unlike the other branches the Army does not have it's own OSO's and from what I've read many Army recruiters who are enlisted and more used to that side of the armed forces. Are sometimes unprepared to deal with and answer the questions of perspective OCS candidates. Again this is only what I've read about other people's experiences in terms of being a perspective OCS candidate.

Also it seems the process of becoming an Army officer straight out of college without any prior experiences with the military, is alot longer then it is for other branches of the American military. This is due to OCS candidates having to go to basic training first then OCS. I figure while this can be a good process to add before going to OCS, it appears to makes things alot more longer then does for other branches.

Last bu not least even the Army is the most represented branch of ROTC on college/university campuses I agree with what alot of prior posters said that the Army ROTC needs to establish it's self more and reach out to students on college campuses as well as establishing more companies and battalions on college campuses .As even though the Army is the most represented branch of ROTC there is not nearly enough as there should be to attract more perspective Army officers. For example on my campus if I wanted to do Army ROTC I would have to make a nearly 2 hour drive to go to classes for it at another university. Also maybe the Army as well as other branches could establish military science and studies more prominently in terms of mainstream academics in colleges/universities. Because that subject is easily interchangeable with history, political science, sociology and anthropology as well as international affairs and a whole list of other subjects and fields. That way I feel it would add more flexibility in terms of providing credit and perspectives in the classroom towards a career as a military officer after college/university. If it would be possible to accomplish due to the attitudes some take towards the military on college/university campuses.

Overall though the commercial that started this subject is an effective tool to draw individuals with a college education to the Army.