Uncle Sam Meets Shyam Uncle

Note: This article is cross-posted on my blog.

Lately, I’ve been straying away from writing about current events, mostly because I’ve been quite involved with my own stuff. But when I read a short piece by Mark Thompson in last week’s Time magazine, it was time to come out of my shell. The article was about the U.S. Army recruiting in India.

Retired Brigadier General Kevin Ryan suggested in the Christian Science Monitor last week that the U.S. Army open a recruiting station in India–a big potential source of English-speaking enlistees. “Instead of waiting for these people to trickle in,” he says, “we could go out and find the ones we want.” [link]

So, off I go to the Christian Science Monitor and Retd. Brig. General Ryan’s article certainly proved an interesting read. He mentions:

If the US Army placed one recruiting station in the capital of India, an English-speaking democracy of more than a billion people, we would have available a pool of enlistment-age adults equivalent to the entire population of the United States – more than 300 million men and women. [link]

But wait, there’s more. If you’re a grad student or a semi-erstwhile grad student like myself, then this should definitely catch your eye. The Retd. Brig. General suggests that the Army doesn’t even have to go to India:

Or, if we don’t want to pay for a recruiting station in New Delhi, we could mail recruiting brochures to some of the 1 million foreign students who actually make it to America’s colleges and institutes on temporary visas each year. Perhaps they would like to have their school debts paid along with guaranteed work.

Almost the entire chunk of my graduate education was paid for through Assistantships, so fortunately I have no school loans to pay off. But if you’re ready to go and fight in Iraq, then by all means, go to GoArmy.com, the Army’s recruiting site and ask for info. As a lark, I signed up to get their information packet, not because I have the chutzpah to go to Iraq – and, don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for those who do – but just out of curiosity about how and when they award citizenship for recruits. I’m waiting to hear from them.

It’s funny though, because I remember that the US Army hired Indian cooks for Gulf War I, but this definitely is a new take on the whole thing!

Update: I just wanted to clarify that there is no recruiting center in India. The articles above only discuss suggestions by a Retired Brigadier General of possibly opening one some time in the future. And based on quotations in Time, it looks like it might very well become a real possibility.

The Army says it’s interested in the idea. “It has great promise,” says Major General Sean Byrne, the Army’s director of military-personnel policy. “We need to pursue it.” [link]

The Great Ganesha