CLASSY
class and combat
On this episode, we’re looking into one of the biggest chasms between us in this country – who serves in the military and who doesn’t. Every year, the United States military has to convince thousands of young people to enlist. They want a group of recruits that looks like the country, across race, class, and geography. Jonathan heads to New Jersey with reporter and Army veteran Adam Linehan to see how that’s working out.
You can read more of Adam’s work at https://www.adamlinehan.com/
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
JONATHAN MENJIVAR: Adam Linehan grew up middle-class in Austin, Texas. With all the opportunities that come with being middle-class. But in his early 20s, his life started to take a turn.
ADAM LINEHAN: When I was 21, I dropped out of college and enlisted as a medic in the Army for a number of reasons, like, that don't really make sense to me that much anymore -
JONATHAN: Are you willing to say what they are?
ADAM LINEHAN: Well, I mean, like, you know, I wasn't really doing well in school... I didn't really kind of see the point of going to college. I was like delivering pizzas, like, I was doing drugs. I was drinking a lot, I was like, just not I… I didn't think that, like a degree was going to be able to kind of like, pull me out of the rut that I was in. I had developed, like, way too many bad habits. And in fact, when I went to join the, the Army, they… the recruiters they’re like, “Hey, do you want to do this like, urinalysis test just to see, you know, like before we kind of have a serious conversation with you?” And I pissed hot for everything on the panel. (JONATHAN LAUGHS). And then I went in a few weeks later and I pissed hot for, like, weed or something like that. And then they're like, “Okay, we’ll, we'll take a chance on you.” Because like, they were really being super flexible with the rules.
JONATHAN: They were being flexible because Adam was joining in 2006. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were raging … and the Army needed soldiers. Adam says that at the time … he needed the Army as much as they needed him.
ADAM LINEHAN: I wanted to do something exciting and bigger and I wanted to go places with my life. And I just saw, like the army at that time… like being involved in the wars… and it was maybe a path to bigger and more exciting things.
JONATHAN: So… but 2006, like, that's a period when the wars are really hot…
ADAM LINEHAN: Yeah, I mean, it was definitely like a controversial decision within my life. I mean, like, my parents were super upset and, you know, my friends were very upset. I was living with my best friend at the time, and the recruiter came by looking for me one day and my friend opened the door and was like, “Get the fuck out of here.”
[MUSIC]
ADAM LINEHAN: But I mean, I was super excited about it. Like, I mean, there are few opportunities for young people in this country to kind of have big adventures. And it just, it just seemed like the world like was just there, like through this portal. It was very enchanting to me.
[MUSIC]
ADAM LINEHAN: I thought I was going to be jumping out of planes shooting Osama bin Laden. I mean, as a medic, though, you know, I was going to be adjacent to that. I was going to be like… have just enough of a taste like but not die. That was my idea in my head. Just enough to, you know, say I was there.
JONATHAN: With a couple of bandages in your bag.
ADAM LINEHAN: Yeah, and there's just someone calling “Medic!” I go and put it on them.
JONATHAN: At first, Adam was stationed in Iraq … as a medic treating detainees in a field hospital. And then with his next unit, he was sent to Afghanistan. They were in Kandahar progressively going deeper and deeper into the heart of Taliban country. Other soldiers who are coming out are telling his unit how bad it is. There are IEDs … Adam can hear gunfights happening just outside the security perimeter. And then one day, his unit was in an outpost in the middle of nowhere. The most remote they’d ever been.
ADAM LINEHAN: You know, that moment arrived, I was like, I don't want anything to do with this. I’ve made a huge fucking mistake. I remember calling my mom… it’s like the most fucked up thing I've ever done. And I was like, on the verge of tears. And I'm like, “I'm so sorry I've done this to you. Like, I've made a huge mistake. I don't want to die. I don't… I don't know what I'm doing here.”
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: From Pineapple Street Studios this is Classy … a show about the chasms between us that are really hard to talk about, but too big to ignore. I’m Jonathan Menjivar. Today … we’re going to talk about one of the biggest chasms between us in this country … who serves in the military and who doesn’t. I think a lot of people have this idea that the military is a place you go when you don’t have other options. And that recruiters are there to take advantage of young people who are trying to figure out how to move forward with their life. But I can tell you from looking into this … that it’s a lot more complicated than that. And understanding how recruiting works … seeing how that operates on the ground … it’s a revealing look at all kinds of decisions and priorities we make as a country. Because the military is a kind of class magnifying glass. Or like, a class prism. Or ... I don't know, I’m running out of metaphors here. But the point is, if you look closely, the military reveals a ton about class in America. And nowhere are all of the class complications more on display than in the daily interactions between recruiters on the ground and the people they're trying to recruit.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: I first got interested in Army recruiting when I read an article, years ago, by that former medic Adam Linehan who you just heard. After he got out of the Army, he became a reporter, and in 2017 he embedded with recruiters in Northeast New Jersey, to see how they went about meeting the quotas the Army sets out.
And what he found is that it’s become increasingly difficult to sustain an all-volunteer Army. Fewer and fewer Americans are qualified and willing to enlist. Recruiters were having a hard time hitting their numbers.
ADAM LINEHAN: In 2017, when I reported that article, I saw what was happening in Essex County as a forecast of what was going to happen in the country as a whole. Like, that was the kind of… the ultimate conclusion that I came to. That the forces that were making it so difficult to recruit in Essex County were of national scope and that they were only gaining strength.
JONATHAN: That national recruiting crisis is here now.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, ABC BY THE NUMBERS]: It seems that fewer Americans want to be “all they can be” as the US army faces a recruiting shortfall.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, ABC 11]: Last year the army missed its recruiting mark by 15,000 soldiers.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, AL JAZEERA]: The US military is facing its greatest recruiting crisis in 50 years. Military leaders say…. (TAPE FADES UNDER).
JONATHAN: And so for this show … I wanted to do something similar to what Adam had done with his story … hang out with Army recruiters to see how they're facing this crisis. And more specifically, the ways that they’re pitching the Army to people from different class backgrounds. So we teamed up with Adam … and went back to those same areas where he’d done his original story. Adam is reporting and producing this episode with me. And before we head out into the field … let’s just establish a few things. So first off … when you look at the Army … what’s the class makeup? Where are people who join the Army coming from?
ADAM LINEHAN: Army recruiting is aimed squarely at the middle class, that is the sweet spot.
JONATHAN: Adam says there are a bunch of reasons why the Army wants middle class people. The primary reason is that … recruiters think those people, they’re the ones who are going to be able to pass something called the ASVAB … the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. It’s the multiple choice test that everyone who wants to enlist in the military has to take. I asked Adam to describe what it was testing.
ADAM LINEHAN: Like really basic stuff, you know, basic math, basic like reading competency, like that kind of stuff. And it's like, just a basic aptitude test, right, scored from 0 to 99. 31 is passing. And 50 is considered a quality recruit.
JONATHAN: The ASVAB exists for bigger reasons too. One is that the Army is a giant complex organism, with a bunch of complex roles that need to be filled.
ADAM LINEHAN: I mean, there has been consistent research that shows like that higher IQ people make better soldiers. You know, and especially like the American military is so technologically advanced and so like reliant on technology that actually like the need for higher, more intelligent soldiers just, like, grows and grows and grows.
JONATHAN: The ASVAB is there to make sure that the Army is getting recruits who will be able to learn and execute at a high enough level.
ADAM LINEHAN: And historically, you would find that that person, that kind of ideal recruit in the middle class. In, you know, communities where the education is good enough that they can pass the test, but where they're not so flush with opportunities that the army would never be an option for them.
JONATHAN: And here's where the goals of the military run straight into the realities of America. Back in 1973, when the US ended the draft and the military became all-volunteer, there was a huge middle class for them to recruit from. Those days are gone. A recent Pew study found that in 2021 … just 50% of the country can now be considered middle class. And this class gap means that there's an education gap, too. If you live in a middle-to-upper middle class place, your schools are probably pretty decent. If you don't, they're probably not. And this education gap poses a huge problem for recruitment. The recruiters Adam was talking to were recruiting people who on average scored 35 on the ASVAB. 15 points below the target of 50.
ADAM LINEHAN: The Army has kind of made peace with the reality that that ideal recruit is never coming back. That they are not going to be able to continue to demand that kind of person and still meet their recruiting requirements.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: There are other reasons the military is desperate for that middle class, well-educated recruit. One is that even when the draft existed, it was possible for wealthier, better educated kids to get around it. Among the many reasons to protest the Vietnam War, a major reason was that it was largely poor kids -- and more specifically poor Black kids -- who were being sent to the front lines. The military has spent decades trying to counter that narrative. They need racial diversity and geographic diversity and class diversity. So that’s what’s weighing on these recruiters every day as they're tasked to go out and convince people to join. For the last ten years or so … the Army has aimed to enlist somewhere between 60 and 80,000 new soldiers each year. Last year the goal was 60,000. They fell short by 25%. But when Adam and I returned to the same recruiting company he’d visited in Northern Jersey 6 years ago … we discovered a different story. The recruiters there are totally killing it … they’re making their numbers and running one of the most successful recruiting efforts in the country. How?
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: You know it’s just pretty much office space… I mean the recruiters are, you know - that’s the talent, right?
JONATHAN: This is US Army Captain Christopher Delgado. Adam and I went to see him in his office in Newark. CPT Delgado oversees the whole company of recruiters in North Jersey – which includes seven different stations all spread out in different cities and towns in the region. Last year, out of the 261 recruiting companies across the country … Delgado and his team came in third. They recruited 417 people. Each month this year … they’re expected to bring in an average of 38 new recruits … And they’ve been consistently hitting their numbers. Delgado says that part of the success he’s seeing is because he’s from Newark … and he understands it.
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: This place is a big melting pot, North Jersey for sure. The diversity here is unlike anywhere else in the country in my eyes. I mean, you could be in one city that's predominately Dominican, right. And I cross the Passaic River and everybody with their last name has a ski to it, and it's very Polish, right? So I think that was an outlook that a lot of the recruiters did not see. You know? I’d always known that the east ward of Newark is like, oh, that's where the Portuguese and Brazilians live, you know, and so I educated them on that.
JONATHAN: He knew there’s an African community in the South Ward. Puerto Ricans and Domicans in the North. So he’s tried to target where he sends recruiters.
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: Getting the right people in the right locations is key in this aspect. Because I mean, I didn't need Sergeant Knight, who is a white Caucasian from Florida in the South ward in Newark at Weequahic High School. It just wasn’t working out.
JONATHAN MENJIVAR: So you've got the white guys going to white towns and neighborhoods, Dominicans going to those neighborhoods, right?
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: Right, predominantly, right?
JONATHAN: Can you tell me anything about how things break down class wise? Do you are you aware of, like economic levels of people who are enlisting?
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: Yeah… (laughs)... I mean, we don't, we don't aim at like, "Hey, I'm going to target the wealthier and the white collar neighborhoods or, you know, we just go off of people's goals, really. But, you know, on average, it is middle class people that are joining the Army, right? I would say there's more middle class than poor or the 1% wealthy, right? I mean, it's less than 1% that we get from, like, the towns like Summit… or there is a town in New Jersey that nobody's ever put anybody in the Army… Alpine, you know.
JONATHAN: Alpine, NJ is one of the most expensive towns in America. Chris Rock and Kellyanne Conway have had homes there.
ADAM LINEHAN: Do you have a recruiter in Alpine?
CPT CHRISTOPHER CPT CHRISTOPHER CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: We don't. We don't have one. We have record that nobody's ever joined out of that town, ever… inside the army.
ADAM LINEHAN:You can put that on a billboard or something. (Laughs)
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: We do incentivize like I have incentivized, like I will write you an award like if you, if you get a recruit at a town like that.
JONATHAN: Is there, is there less of an effort put into those towns and neighborhoods?
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: I will say so because we do have record of contracts that, you know, “hey, this this particular... City A put in two contracts last year or one contract in five years.” So we don't exactly dedicate our prospecting efforts to towns like that.
JONATHAN: Delgado says they also don’t target low-income people.
CPT CHRISTOPHER DELGADO: Predominately those kind of people, they kind of find us, you know what I'm saying? They they kind of walk in. I've talked to applicants out of the station that are like, "Hey, I know where I'm from and it's not any good for my life right now. I'd like to enlist in the Army to get free of that environment and do something bigger with my life, you know?" But there is no way that our recruiters in a station will go predominantly target housing projects, for instance, in the city of Newark or anything like that, or anywhere, any cities in New Jersey, and think that like, “hey, we're going to get poor people to join.” Yeah, that’s… we don't operate like that.
[MUSIC]
[HIGH SCHOOL BACKGROUND NOISE]
UNIDENTIFIED HIGHSCHOOLER: The military are here! Hip hip hooray!
JONATHAN: OK … so they’re not targeting specific neighborhoods based on class, but the reality is there are people who are more inclined to say yes … and others who are more likely to say no. And the recruiters know it. We saw this in action one morning last winter … Adam and I went to Glen Ridge High School with some recruiters from the East Orange station. East Orange is one of the poorer towns where these recruiters work … the median household income there is just over $50,000. And if recruiters truly did target poor people, they’d focus on communities like that. But for all the reasons we talked about, they’re still trying to get in front of whatever middle class, and even more elusively, upper middle class, kids that they can.
Which is why they’re here … in Glen Ridge. Glen Ridge is mostly white … the median household income is over $240,000 a year. The school had set up a table in a hallway near the front door and the recruiters laid out some brochures and a sign up sheet. They had some Army swag to give away … t-shirts and pop-sockets. But the hallways were empty. I pulled one of the Army guys aside … Lieutenant Jack Ciattaarelli. He’s not technically a recruiter, but he helps oversee recruiting efforts like this.
JONATHAN: So now we wait I guess…
LT. JACK CIATTARELLI: Yes, so that's the, that's the fun thing with recruiting in schools like this, especially if they kind of put you in a hallway like this. Like, yeah, there's foot traffic… not that I've really seen all that much foot traffic yet. Maybe it's just a long period? We went to one school a couple of weeks ago.... I won't name names, but they just treated us like the plague. You know, they put us in an empty cafeteria after lunch periods and they just said, “Okay, like, good luck.” But we might see a rush. Maybe it's just class changes, but we'll see it, yeah. It's also a… Glen Ridge is more of an affluent town, upper scale town, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of crowd we get here.
JONATHAN: After about 15 minutes, class let out and kids started walking through the hallways. A few boys were lingering around … asking what they’d have to do to get a t-shirt. One kid started asking a recruiter questions.
KID 1: Do I get any money for doing it?
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: No.
KID 1: No money.
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: (LAUGHS) I mean, unless you join, that's the only way you get paid.
KID 1: But if I join the army, I get paid? Like right now, if I sign my name and I like, follow up, I'll get money? … I don't just get it for free?
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: No, that's not how it works…
KID 1: So I don't get paid if I come and do the US… repor-recruiting station?
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: No. You have to join the Army in order to get paid.
KID 1: Okay. But does that mean I don't do school? Do I just like, once I'm done with high school, then I join the army? Oh… But I kind of wanna get paid now. Can I just join the army now?
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: What grade are you in?
KID 1: Ninth. Next year, can I just join the army?
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: No, you got to wait to get to your junior year.
KID 1: How many pushups can you do?
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: Who me?
KID 1: Yeah.
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: I can go to almost 80.
KID 1: Can you do 100, if you like really push yourself?
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: Yeah.
KID 1: 100? Alright.
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: Back then, we used to do, like, about, like, 80 in 2 minutes.
KID 1: Oh my god.
SGT. PETER LAWRENCE: Yeah, some people do it.
KID 1: Maybe I shouldn’t join the army. That doesn't sound like fun.
JONATHAN: It seemed pretty clear that this kid and several others who dropped by weren’t all that interested in the Army. I mean … in some ways they were just being teens … screwing with recruiters the same way they might with any adult. Lt. Ciattarelli and the recruiters were having them do push-ups in exchange for t-shirts.
LT. CIATTARELLI: Whole body’s gotta move as one plane, one plane.
JONATHAN: When one kid was done doing push-ups … Lt. Ciatterelli started making his pitch. Do you play soccer or what? Football and basketball the kid says. He says he wants to go to med school when he gets older – and Lt. Cittarelli sees his opening.
LT. CIATTARELLI: The army will pay for med school. Med school is expensive man, and you can go to the army… I know a lot of kids that I went to school with who joined the army and they went on, they went on what they call an “education delay” which means they delay their service so that you can go and get your further training because the army's always short on doctors. The Army is always looking for doctors. The Army is always looking for nurses. So they'll give you an education delay and allow you to go to the proper schooling that you need to be a doctor or a nurse, that kind of thing. I mean, you could be a doctor or a nurse or whatever you need to be in the army. Make sure you've got a plan. That junior year creeps up on you, senior year creeps up on you. So... but, you know, Sgt. Lawrence will give you his card. If it's something you’re considering. As you get older, you’ll wanna take the test next year.
[TAPE FADES INTO MUSIC]
JONATHAN: A few kids wrote their names and contact info down on the sheet. But mostly, they just kept screwing around with the recruiters. After doing some one-handed pushups, one kid rejected a popsocket the recruiter tried to give him. “I want my compensation,” the kid kept saying. “If I join the Army what do I get? Do I get a car? What else do I get?” That kid walked away without signing the recruiters list. When he was gone, I walked up to the recruiter he’d been talking to … Sgt. Peter Lawrence.
SGT. LAWRENCE: I’m so sorry (LAUGHS). Well, now you see what I go through. But yeah, some, some kids at schools they, they be like that. I don't know why they do it, but that's how some kids are.
JONATHAN: Jack, you seem pretty pissed about it.
LT. CIATTARELLI: I wasn't pissed, I'm just a serious guy.
JONATHAN: You’re just a serious guy?
LT. CIATTARELLI: I wasn't pissed, but I was getting to the point. I was about to tell him, like in polite terms, like, stop wasting my guys time just because that's what he was doing. He didn't have my blood boiling, but I was getting to the point. I was like, alright man stop, just stop. I think it boils down to the kind of school you're at. Oh, I looked it up. You know what the college acceptance rate is here?
JONATHAN: Uhh… I'd imagine it's like in the 80% range.
LT. CIATERRELI: 97%.
JONATHAN: It’s actually 97% who are going to college, not students who are accepted. But same general idea. 97% of kids at this school are going to a four year college or some institution of some kind. 1% military, 1% other. I don't remember what the other 1% said. But… so they're not, they're not dumb kids, obviously. They know that this isn't their path. And, you know, they thought it was kind of funny. That's kind of what you'll see at certain schools. When you get to some schools that are not as working class, towns that are not as working class like Glen Ridge, you kind of see that divide of kids and how they act, just how they perceive the military in general.
JONATHAN: It really does break down that class like that?
LT. CIATERRELI: I think it does. I mean, when you look at it, it does break down to class and just where you're from, how you're raised. I think, I think it does. But that's not to say that there's not outliers. But I think that's you know, it's definitely a, definitely a factor.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: Lt. Ciaterrelli is right, it’s not like kids from wealthy neighborhoods like this never join the Army. It’s just that when those kids do join, they’re not typically enlisting with recruiters … they take a different path. They’ll go to a military academy like West Point or an officer candidate school and join that way. So if it’s not these kids, how is the Newark company hitting their numbers? Coming up, we get some answers. And we hear from people who’ve recently made the decision to enlist.
[AD BREAK]
JONATHAN: Jonathan here … your very classy host.
RANDOM SGT: Is everybody paying attention?!
CROWD: Yes Sergeant!
RANDOM SGT: Outstanding, that’s what I like to hear.
[FADES UNDER]
JONATHAN: We’re looking at Army recruiting in this episode. And recently … a bunch of new recruits and some recruiters were gathered on an empty soccer field in Secaucus, New Jersey, just across the river from New York. They were there for something called the Mega Future Soldier Event. Most of these people were headed to basic training in a month or two … and it was a chance for them to meet other people who had recently enlisted … and really just hang out and have fun. They were doing push-up contests and these races where they had to tie tourniquets and drag each other across the finish line. The recruiters kept telling them to take it easy … don’t get hurt before you ship off.
CROWD: Tie it higher! Tie it higher!
JONATHAN: For us, it was a chance to do an informal survey of people who had enlisted through the Newark company this year. Our Associate Producer Marina Henke and I talked to over 30 people that day. We asked them about why they were enlisting, their families, whether they planned to go to college … and it was clear … they were mostly working-class and middle class … all of them, except for one guy, were teenagers … and they had signed up with the Army for different reasons. Some of them were a little aimless, trying to figure out what to do after high school. Others came from families who had a long military history. A few were interested in becoming police officers. But mostly … what came up again and again … was money. Most of the recruits knew what kind of financial package they were going to get … signing bonuses, college loans, all of that.
ENLISTEE #1: It’s going to help me be more disciplined I guess. Cause right now, I’m just not at all. I get a paycheck, it’s gone the next day.
MARINA HENKE: And you’re going off in a month, do you feel excited, do you feel nervous?
ENLISTEE #2: Um, I’m excited. For the money. I mean just so, I want to invest it… just invest it in like crypto…
MARINA HENKE: And have you both been planning for a while on enlisting and going into the Army?
ENLISTEE #3: Truthfully, not really. I kind of made that decision when my boy referred me to it after a college crisis of mine. Just some debt issues.
ENLISTEE #4: My recruiter talked to me about the benefits and like how it is. I thought it was all about war and stuff. But like, he told me like how it actually is. It’s not all about war, it’s like helping people. He told me like, he likes making money so… and I like making money too.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: Captain Delgado was at that event … and I checked in with him … to see how they were doing. The fiscal year was almost over … and he said they were still hitting their numbers. They’ve recruited 382 soldiers … they’re currently the eighth best recruiting station in the country. He attributed a lot of that success to the Newark station. That’s where the most recruits were coming from. And a lot of them, it turned out … were immigrants.
CPT Delgado: You know I just took a phone call from a future soldier yesterday asking, “How can I get my parents naturalized if I join? I know there’s benefits, it’s easier right?” So there’s a lot of, we do have a lot of I-551 holders in the Newark area, right?
JONATHAN: I-551 is the official name for a green card.
CPT Delgado: And they see the United States Army as a pathway to citizenship right? So that is a big incentive for a lot of people that are fresh into the country with I-551 cards and they want to gain that citizenship. And thats… the Army’s always offered that.
JONATHAN: So recruiting immigrants … that’s one way Captain Delgado and his recruiters are beating the odds and doing something different than what’s happening nationally. And one day while Adam and I were out reporting, we discovered another answer … one more reason they’re doing so well here in Northeastern New Jersey. Remember when Adam first reported his story … he found one major challenge recruiters were facing is that people couldn’t pass the ASVAB test. It was a real marker of the education gap in the country. In the low income community of East Orange, Adam found that recruits there averaged 35 on the ASVAB. We talked to recruiters this time around who had potential recruits who had scored in the single digits. And one day … we ended up at the station in Bloomfield, NJ …. and we were talking to the guy who runs it … his name is Sergeant Revis. And he told us how the Army is now getting around these low scores.
SGT REVIS: Now the Army has this great program that is called the 09 Mike, which is pretty much you enlist with under a passing score.
JONATHAN: 09 Mike … that’s just 09 M for us civilians … it’s officially called the Future Soldier Preparatory Course …but… 09 Mike, it let’s people enlist when they haven’t yet passed the ASVAB. Then, once they’re enlisted on a delayed contract, the Army tutors them.
SGT. REVIS: It's a training that lasts about two months and pretty much the Army gives you training when it comes to passing the ASVAB. Pretty much it gives you classes in general science, things like that, things like high school classes for the person to get a better understanding how the ASVAB works. They get the, the opportunity to take the test again, but while they are already receiving the army benefits.
JONATHAN: How many people have you had to go through the program here?
SGT. REVIS: I think so far... I think we have about, I would say, 12.
ADAM LINEHAN: Out of how many?
SGT. REVIS: Of the 50 some we enlisted this year.
JONATHAN: 12 out of about 50 recruits that came in from this station, initially couldn’t pass the ASVAB.
ADAM LINEHAN: So it’s helped your mission out a lot?
REVIS: It has helped the mission, yes. It has helped the Army out in general.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: We checked with CPT Delgado to see how they were using the 09M program across all of his stations. He couldn’t give us exact numbers, but he estimated that the Newark Company has enlisted around 100 people through the 09M program. That’s more than a quarter of their total recruits for the year. While we were in the Bloomfield station finding out all these details about the 09M program … I could tell Adam thought it was really significant. I asked him about it later.
ADAM LINEHAN: To me, what it says is that the army has come to the conclusion that there's no getting over this education gap. They basically have to accept it. I mean, essentially, whatever they call it, like they effectively have lowered the passing score by ten points. And that's significant because 31 was already pretty low.
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JONATHAN: So, those are some of the ways Delgado and his crew in North Jersey are able to consistently hit their numbers and be so successful. While we were working on this story…the thing that I kept coming back to … is that regardless of the way they’re getting in, for the most part, the people who are enlisting … they’re kids. They’re teenagers trying to figure out what the hell they’re going to do with their lives. One person I talked to at that Mega Future Soldier Event told me that it’s scary … just not knowing what you’re going to do next. Maybe that’s not so surprising … but for some people … like probably a lot of those kids at Glen Ridge High school … the future is clear. You’re going to college, maybe to med school … you’re going to follow the path that people in your family have laid out before you. And even if you step off the path a bit, it’s ok. You’ve got a backstop. But for others … you’ve gotta build that path as you go. The Army … even with the prospect that you are signing up to possibly be deployed to a battlefield somewhere … it’s one way you can try and move forward … and have something to hold onto along the way. And at that event, we met someone who is really depending on the Army for his future. I wanted to know more about him, so I went to his house in Paterson, NJ. His name is Knowledge Sapp. He’s 18, lives with his mom, and he’s headed to basic training in a year. … once he finishes his senior year of high school. He goes to a performing arts school.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: I go there for dance so… but I like, kind of outgrown it. Like I used to be skinny like you, and… but now I started working out for the army and football, so I kind of gained weight. So I was like, “Yeah, dance is not for me no more.”
JONATHAN: You just can't move the same way?
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: No I can still move the same way, but I just don't want to because I got bigger. I would rather not. Because it look weird watching an awky dude do a ballet pose. Like why he that buff and he doing a ballet pose in tights?
JONATHAN: Eight months ago, Knowledge became a dad. He’s got a baby boy.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: He's a happy baby. He don't cry. Oh, and every time he see you, he goes like this with his hands. And then he clinches his hands up, and he shakes because he wants you to pick him up.
JONATHAN: Knowledge says he missed a lot of school last year … between his son being born and work. He has a job serving food at a hospital where his mom also works.
JONATHAN: And what’s Paterson like?
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: It got its goods and its got its bads. Like, it's dangerous, you know, just to walk to the corner store. But at the same time, one thing I know about Patterson, we just like one big family, only thing that is getting in the way is the gangs and the gun violence.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: If you from Paterson or you just live in an area like this, you know, the times like, okay, this is the best time to walk to the store. I know there's nothing going on, or this is the worst time to walk just because I know a lot of things happened around this time. Like you go to a party just try your best not to walk home, always get an Uber, or a ride, cause walking home you could end up in a bad situation.
JONATHAN: Basically sunrise to around 6 PM is when Knowledge feels OK to be out.
JONATHAN: If you know, “I can't go out after six.” Do you ever end up feeling like a little trapped here?
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: Yeah, you definitely can feel trapped, because, like say, if you, if there's no food in your house at all and there's a corner store, a local corner store by your house and, you know, “oh, they close at 9 and it’s 8:00.” And you're like, really hungry. Nine times out of ten, you're going to starve tonight because you don't want to spend like, you know, go spend money and then you could end up dying. Like, I’m not risking my life for some food when I can always get it when it's a better time tomorrow.
JONATHAN: Knowledge says he’s had guys in his face threatening him because they mistook him for someone else. He’s been shot at. When Knowledge was 13, he was assaulted by the police. He and his friends used to play a video game based on that old movie The Warriors … and in the game, the characters always run when police sirens come on.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: So we was coming from the basketball court and we was not thinking of anything and we just heard sirens and we was like, “last one to the corner,” you know, “like a rotten egg!” And he actually was speeding. And we get to the corner and we all stopped and the cop car stopped. And me, me and my friends try to run and two of my friends got away. But they tackled me to the ground and they put me in handcuffs and I was explaining to the officer. I was like, "Officer, I'm only a teenager. I ain't got no gun." He was kicking my foot and like, shaking my pockets really hard, explaining like, “Where the gun at? Are you gonna beat me up?” All kinds of stuff like that. Like you know you see it on the news. And it happened to a lot of people. But when it happened to you, you’re like shocked, like, “Wow, I never thought that would happen to me.”
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KNOWLEDGE SAPP: That's the kind of life that I want to try and get my son away from. So he don't never have to experience none of that at a young age, because only thing it builds is trauma. And, you know, later on it affects the person that you become as you grow. So I don't want that to affect him.
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JONATHAN: All of this stuff … it’s one of the major reasons why Knowledge enlisted. He says in some ways, he always wanted to join the Army. He was into old war movies and he likes the idea of being a part of something.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: And like I always wanted to be a firefighter too, because it is like that feeling of just, you know, helping people out and seeing people, and get you that, that good feeling. And whenever I get that good feeling, I like it. And I just try to just keep it going. Army always been a big thing for me. But firefighting was like number one. Like, no matter what I do in life, I got to be a firefighter.
JONATHAN: Why not just do whatever you do to become a firefighter? Why are you deciding to go to the Army?
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: Because I still want the Army experience. Like being in the Army uniform, being around guys that did amazing things in the Army, like seeing the world. Because I know as a firefighter you stationed at one spot, but like as a… when you in the Army, you get to be stationed in amazing places, like you could be in London, Paris one day. It's a nice world, and I want to get out there and see it.
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JONATHAN: About a year ago, Knowledge went to a recruiter’s office and enlisted. He scored a 45 on the ASVAB. Higher than the passing score of 31, but not in that range above 50 that the Army is aiming for. He’s hoping he did well enough on the test that he’ll qualify to get some firefighting training. He says what he’s seen of the Army has been good so far. He likes the camaraderie.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: The first time I worked out with them, we played a basketball game. It felt like a fresh breath of air, like I felt in a safe and good environment, like where I could actually be a kid again and I didn't have to always look over my shoulders or be tippy-toeing when I'm walking around everybody, like always on guard. Like I was able to relax and actually enjoy myself.
JONATHAN: Does it, like, like you can breathe in a way?
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: Yeah. Make you feel like I'm at a point in my life where, like, life is going good. Up until I step back into Patterson and realize the reality I'm living in.
JONATHAN: Do you get that feeling from anything else in your life?
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: Uh, skateboarding. My kid, pretty much that’s it.
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KNOWLEDGE SAPP: I started skateboarding probably like a year or two ago, but I always want to do it when I was younger, like nine times out of ten if you ever see me out in public somewhere, you gonna see my skateboard with me.
JONATHAN: Sounds like you really like moving around that way.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: Yeah, I like - I don't like walking at all. Like I said, walking is not a good thing to do in Patterson at all. I like going fast too. So that's, that's another thing. I get a rush from going fast on a skateboard. I like going down the hills without, like, trying to break or stop or slow down. I just like "frooom" sending it, fully sending it down them hills. It be fun.
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JONATHAN: Knowledge is looking for freedom. He wants to be able to move.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: I like Mother Nature. I like being out in nature. Like, I honestly felt like if I had a second life, I would be a farmer. Like, I like animals, I like cows, I like horses, I like all that kind of stuff.
JONATHAN: You still got time for that life, man.
KNOWLEDGE SAPP: Yeah. I told my family, I said, when I settle down, I'm gonna get me a little farm, get a little horse, a little pony or something, get some chickens and just eat some raw eggs or something. (LAUGHS) Yeah… I don't know. I just like, I like... Like if I was to go out in the forest and, like, if I was able to see the sunset, I would literally just sit on the ground and just watch it for hours. Like, even in my backyard, I have a little space, like fake grass, I can lay down on, put some sheets down, lay down and just look up at the moon, the stars at night. I just like that kind of thing because it helps you escape from reality sometimes and help you see like how beautiful the world can be sometimes.
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JONATHAN: So much of what Knowledge shared … it wasn’t about the Army at all. It was about this … kind of different life he wants. Far away from Paterson. And he doesn’t see a lot of clear paths forward. He’s not interested in going to college … the firefighter thing doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll leave Paterson. In that way, the Army offers him the same thing it's been offering people for years — a chance to be lifted out of where you are and an opportunity to climb up the class ladder. But that climb is just so much more steep now. And what he dreams of, it's pretty simple. A chance to see something else…the possibility of living in a more peaceful place. You can't help but want that for him. You can't help but imagine that he'll be a great asset to the Army, he’s such a thoughtful and hard-working kid. And you can't help but wonder … if the Army will be enough to get him there.
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JONATHAN: The town where Knowledge lives, Paterson, it’s not far from the wealthy Glen Ridge neighborhood where I went to that high school recruiting event. It’s only 9 miles down the road…about a 20 minute drive. But man…a lot can change over 9 miles. There’s no visible border, but you can see that class shift in really tangible, concrete ways…in the way the houses look…whether or not there are manicured lawns. And you can also see it in the kind of food that’s available. What we eat can say a lot about where we’re from. And that’s what we’re talking about next time on Classy.
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JONATHAN: Classy is a production of Pineapple Street Studios. This episode was produced by me and our Associate Producer Marina Henke in collaboration with Adam Linehan. Our Producer is Kristen Torres. Associate Producer … Marina Henke. Senior Managing Producer … Asha Saluja. Our Editor is Haley Howle. Executive Editor … Joel Lovell. Our Assistant Engineers are Sharon Bardales and Jade Brooks. Senior Engineers are Marina Paiz and Pedro Alvira. Fact checking by Tom Colligan. This episode was mixed and scored by Marina Paiz. Music in this episode from Joseph Shabason courtesy of Western Vinyl, Joseph Shabason & Vibrant Matter and Shabason / Gunning courtesy of Seance Center. Additional music from Epidemic Sound. Our artwork is by Curt Courtney and Lauren Viera at Cadence 13. Marketing and promotion by Grace Cohen-Chen, Hillary Schupf, and Liz O’Malley. Legal services for Pineapple Street Studios by Kristel Tupja at Audacy. Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky are the Executive Producers at Pineapple Street. The next episode will be out in a week! Make sure to listen on the Audacy app, or wherever you get your podcasts.