As I was writing about children who thought I possibly was their dad, one other memorable recruiting story I have is that of a man I met who wanted to join the Army. He was single when I met him.
After he enlisted but not yet shipped to Basic Training, he came to the Recruiting office with a young woman to inform me he had been married this young woman he met at a bar and has only known for one month. She seemed decent enough.
Of course I thought it was a bit rushed, but it was none of my business. However, it turned out that his new wife was going to be my worst nightmare, and I wasn’t even married to her!
She Should Have Shipped with Him!
The literal day after he shipped to Basic Training, his wife was back in my office, wondering why she was denied when she tried to access her health benefits. She thought that all of the benefits she would get being married to him would be activated the day he went to Basic Training.
I explained to her it’ll take a little time, but she wasn’t happy with that answer. She also had a ton of questions about other things she was entitled to now that she was married to a soldier.
I did the best I could with answering her questions, or at least getting her pointed in the right direction. She had so many questions I eventually asked her to put them all down on paper so I could research them for her.
“Is this even my job?” I thought a few times while doing the research. I heard over and over again that once a recruit ships to Basic Training, s/he wasn’t your responsibility anymore.
A Surprise Phone Call, Thanks to the Insane Army Bride
Recruiting is stressful. This isn’t a secret. Unless you recruit out of an extremely patriotic region, finding someone who is at least interested in joining is difficult. As I’m not a great salesman, nor did I even believe the Army was a good fit for most people, I was still under constant pressure to put people in the Army.
It doesn’t help when you have an insane Army bride adding her own type of pressure.
This pressure didn’t alleviate when my cellphone rang one day with an out-of-state area code while driving my “G-Jet” (government car). I almost ignored it because I was driving, but reluctantly, I pulled over and answered.
On the other end was a high ranking officer from the IG (Inspector General Agency) from Ft. Knox. He was either a Colonel or General, but I do remember he was one of the two because my anus was clinched the whole time.
He needed to talk to me because I “wasn’t taking care of one of my soldiers.”
“I don’t have any soldiers. I have Future Soldiers.” I wanted to reply. As far as I knew, I didn’t have any soldiers under me, but I was responsible for taking care of (making sure they shipped) the people I had helped join the Army.
He went on to explain about how I am making the Army look bad by not taking care of the wife of the soldier that recently shipped to Basic Training. He explained we are all one team and we all need to take care of each other.
As much as I wanted to interject my tongue lashing, I didn’t. Was this officer aware that this woman had just met the soldier one month before they were married? Was this officer aware of the fact that she was irrationally angry because she expected all of her benefits to kick in immediately the day after her husband shipped to Basic Training?
For minutes, I sat in the car, getting told about how bad of a soldier I am by failing at taking care of other soldiers and their families. Once the phone call was over, I sat there, partially feeling like I had failed.
Putting on a smile the next time I met with this woman was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Why did she choose to make my life so miserable?
It turned out I possibly wasn’t the only one she was making miserable.
Another Surprise Phone Call
After quite some time I had put this whole situation behind me, the husband called the recruiting office to talk to me about something. During our conversation, I asked him if he received his bonus.
I think that’s what he was calling about because his wife had purchased a new truck.
I wanted so bad to ask if she had his approval to buy that truck. I wanted so bad to ask him so many things. It was extremely hard to sit there.
The reason he was calling me was because his leadership was failing at helping him. I did wonder if his leadership had been harassed by his wife, which most likely was the case. Heck, I even think he had called me because of something his wife needed and she wasn’t getting it fast enough.
Poor guy. As much as my life sucked at the time, I couldn’t imagine what he was going through.
Even worse, to top it all off, was that his wife wasn’t even that good looking! But who am I to judge? Maybe with him, she was the sweetest of the sweet and the best person in the world for him.
Another Insane Bride Tidbit
Before I was a recruiter, I was an infantryman.
Infantrymen are the base of mostly what you see on TV and movies when it comes to the military stuff. Kicking in doors, shooting guns, driving tanks, etc.
Yet, one night at a military ball, I saw one of these infantryman who could not control his wife!
Somehow, I was tasked with organizing tickets for the ball for my company. I thought I did a good job with it, but then one soldier in my platoon showed up with his wife, who didn’t have a ticket.
For whatever reason, this caused a hurricane within the little booth I was in. My platoon sergeant because moving the tickets around. A squad leader began trying to figure out what was going on. I wasn’t even given a chance to correct the situation.
But boy howdy, this bride marched right up to me and basically called me a goof!
Now, I have some sort of ability to not freak out under customer service situations (that’s how I viewed this situation at the time). Unfortunately, I didn’t even have a real chance to resolve this situation since other leadership was in the booth trying to handle something they didn’t even know how to handle.
The soldier was trying to keep his bride calm, but since she was about 4 times the girth of him, she must have felt it was unnecessary to listen! She kept her angered, unflinching eyes locked on me as though I was being prepped on a dinner plate being served 2 hours late.
Luckily for me, the leadership let her in.
The soldier looked embarrassed over the ordeal, but he shouldn’t have been if he truly loved her!
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