Military Recruitment--the lost art of

Man alive, I am having a very hard time trying to figure out what is going on with military recruiting today. Let me take you back a few years to the early 1970s. Back then the government had installed a sort of military draft selection lottery. Every day of the year was assigned a number, supposedly random, that was an indication of when you would be selected to join a branch of the military and prepare for a nice all-inclusive trip to Southeast Asia.

While how the numbers were picked for the associated days of the year is suspect, most of us knew that a low number was not as good as a high number if your goal was to avoid military service. Some friends back in those days whose numbers were lower than 100 opted instead to join a branch of service rather than be drafted. At least, that way they weren’t stuck in a line with some drill instructor passing by and assigning the new recruits to different branches of service by saying: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and so on.

Getting into military service back then was a piece of pie. No high school diploma? No problem we got a program for that. Criminal record? No problem, we got a program for that. Can’t speak English? No problem, we got a program for that. Village idiot? No problem, we got a program for that. No arms or legs? No problem, we got a program for that. Embalmed? No problem, we got a program for that.

Now, I don’t mean to say that military recruiters would take anybody, but I did see a few of them talking to life size cardboard cutouts in front of the movie theaters toward the end of the month. You know they had a quota. They had to rope in as many youngsters as they possibly could every month. For that, they got to be a “hometown recruiter” and stay back in the states, away from the nastiness of the jungle, the VC, and napalm. So given that motivator, recruiting was quick and fast and, well, loose.

Not so today.

Today it is ridiculously difficult to get a recruiter’s attention. Case in point is my youngest son Andrew. Andrew has been attempting to enlist in the Air Force for a few months now. At first, he contacted the recruiter’s office in Colonial Heights, and lo and behold, the Air Force recruiter is only here part time. The rest of the time the recruiter is pulling duty in Charlottesville. He sets up an appointment, but he can’t get a local appointment and ends up having to meet the recruiter in C-ville late on a Thursday night.

The meeting went well. He had a few things to do, like take the ASVAB and so on. He did that and scored well enough, but here is where the problem started. He could not get back in touch with his recruiter. It seems that she was getting ready to rotate out of her recruiter’s job and into whatever else it is she was doing for the Air Force. There was to be some kind of “transition” between her and the new person who was to handle his recruitment process.

I believe there was some kind of interaction between my son and this new person. He was told that the Air Force would be in touch with him. That was more than a month ago. Have we heard anything since? No. Back when I was in the Army, we called that a cluster flub.

It seems odd to me. And perhaps it’s related to all the cutbacks that we keep hearing and reading about with defense budget issues. Still, even though they are losing people it doesn’t mean they don’t need to keep the pipeline full, does it? During my entire seven years in the military, the only real constant was the continuous flow of new recruits.

It kind of makes me wonder what’s going on with recruitment today. Back when I joined the service in 1974, the only delay I experienced was the one geared toward lining up my chosen schools:  basic and advanced individual training at Fort Polk, followed by Jump School at Fort Benning. There was a slight two week break for Christmas before I had to report to Jump School.

Still, it’s almost as if the recruiters aren’t interested in new recruits. And, if that’s the case, maybe we ought to just shut down the recruitment offices and save a little money there.

Justice Served, but it's sad fare

Finally someone has been found guilty in the murder trial for Rusty Mack. Margaret Blair Dacey was convicted last Friday in a Chesterfield court of second degree murder and assault and battery.

For a while, it didn’t look like justice would prevail.

The first to face chargers, Jonathan Guy, was found not guilty in a jury trial. The other two former defendants, Francis Blaha III and Rusty’s estranged wife Ashley Whitmore Mack both had charges dismissed by a court maneuver called nolle prosse which in essence means that the prosecution opted not to pursue charges at that time.

Interestingly enough, it was their testimony against Dacey that led to her conviction. It wasn’t that way at the beginning, but then no one was facing jail time then either. Sometimes the additional pressure of facing legal charges can influence testimony.

In this case the testimony against Dacey was likely overwhelming. There was never a question that she applied the kick to Rusty’s head that eventually led to his death. And it’s hard to believe that her intent was to do him in at the time. To some extent, Dacey was a victim of circumstance.

Still, tragedies play out in the United States every day. And this case is nothing if not tragic and very sad.

Domestic cases are among the most dangerous a police officer has to face. Most times when the police are brought in there is already a certain amount of irrationality going on. Add in a bit of drinking, and the instability of the situation skyrockets. Those involved stop thinking and react almost totally on emotion. Emotion is not a good way to handle personal problems.

My question all along had been why they returned to Rusty’s apartment the second time? They already had a confrontation there once, certainly nothing good could possibly come out of a second trip. It seems to me the only reason to return would be for fighting.

And just so it was.

But no one deserves to be beat to the extent Rusty was beaten. Laid out on the ground, there was no need to take it any further. At some point, enough is enough. Had it been enough, Rusty would still be here and Dacey wouldn’t be facing significant jail time.

Whether it is through the fog of alcohol or the fire of emotion the person who applied the fatal blow is responsible for the results of their action. Really, it’s a very simple equation. Still, it’s different from robbery or shop lifting—the kinds of things that result in little more than a period of inconvenience.

Ultimately someone had to answer for Rusty. Make no mistake about it, justice prevailed Friday in that solemn Chesterfield courtroom. But there are no winners. Dacey will end up spending a good portion of her life in prison. She likely will not get the full amount of time that the courts could apply, but I would not be shocked to see her pulling 10 years.

And yet, nothing that happened Friday can bring Rusty back.

Police vs Policing: stastics are only part of the story

In a recent Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial entitled Law enforcement - Arresterfield, Joe Mahoney called out the Chesterfield Police Department on their apparent quota system for traffic stops, tickets, and arrests. It seems, Mahoney said, that police officers in Chesterfield County are required to make two to three traffic stops and at least one arrest every day. According to the opinion piece, that level of policing would result in “1,890 stops and 630 arrests per week.”

Whew! That seems like a lot of work. Or is it justification?

No question it’s difficult to judge whether officers are providing adequate policing value to the communities in which they serve. Productivity would seem an obvious way to go about it, I mean how else? It only becomes a problem when you take into account that productivity for police officers has a direct correlation to traffic stops, ticketing, and arrests.

Apparently that is not a problem in Chesterfield. The county police department has what can only be called a quota. People are always against discussing the idea of quotas. Many years ago when I was cutting my teeth as a reporter I was in a press conference with a local Civil Rights leader. The discussion centered on hiring practices and the disparity between male and female leaders. The figures just didn’t add up, we were told. In order to correct the problem, the suggestion was made to increase the percentage of women in leadership roles over a specific time period, say three-to-five years.

At that point, one of the more experienced reporters immediately asked whether that was not a quota. The immediate, and perhaps too immediate, response was “No, it’s not a quota.” Still, the reporter said that there was a goal and a time period, which is in essence the definition of a quota.

That pretty much ended that interview. Nothing was every clarified about quotas.

Today the idea of a quota still rankles some people. I can still remember my father talking about watching out at the end of the month because the police will be out hard looking for speeders in order to meet their quotas. And I also remember the denials.

Still, how then do you measure whether or not police officers are performing their duties as expected? How can we citizens be certain that the officers our taxes pay for are doing their jobs?

Management by performance seems like the best way to go. For me, I can judge the effectiveness of my team simply by reviewing their work performed over a given period of time. Did you get something accomplished or not? It’s really that simple. But it begs the question about how to determine that. Results oriented management seems to be the best answer.

But for the police department that seems to point directly toward stops, tickets, and arrests. And then on top of that you need to have some kind of scale. It’s not just apples to apples, you know. Even if there is no such written policy or quota per se, the police managers are still going to want to see proof of work accomplished. Certainly the miles put on a vehicle don’t really tell the tale. Nor do the number of times the police actually help people that goes unrecorded. It’s impossible to quantify such things, in the end there is no empirical data from which to judge effectiveness.

And so it seems that stops, tickets, and arrests are eminently quantifiable. There is a record for each and every one of those events that is tied directly to an officer, or a badge, which is the same thing anyway. But is that really the best way to judge effective policing? It’s hard to say, and like beauty is up to the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

There’s no question that traffic stops lead to tickets and in some cases arrests. In Chesterfield, according to the Times-Dispatch editorial, not meeting the prescribed numbers could and apparently has affected raises and promotions. A former Chesterfield police officer who was denied a raise for not making enough stops, handing out enough tickets, or making enough arrests opted to quit the police force when that was used as a reason not to give him a raise. Channel 6 News got hold of his story, which brought the county’s quota system to light.

According to the Times-Dispatch editorial, Chesterfield Police Deputy Chief Kelly defended the quotas, which he called “a performance-review system.” He went on to say that it would be wrong to consider Chesterfield police officers as “evil and out to get the citizens.”

But in truth, that isn’t the point at all.

Anyone who travels the local highways knows there are many opportunities for traffic stops, ticketing, and probably arrests. We applaud the officers who do those things as a matter of course, ultimately it is their job. At issue is whether such a policy ought to exist. Maybe a better way to do this would be to have a specific level of expectation. I know that doesn’t sound any different from the so called performance review system, but there is a difference however subtle.

It’s one thing for an officer to conduct stops, hand out tickets, and make arrests. It’s another to demand they do so at a given rate or quota. It’s a rare event when driving that I don’t see someone who needs to be stopped, ticketed, and in some instances arrested—and no, it’s not that geek in the rear view mirror. Do we really need a policy that sets a goal for such actions? Shouldn’t those things happen as a matter of course? From an officer’s perspective, I would think that’s all in a day’s work.