"Recruit: Joining the Army of One"
Photographs by Christopher Sims
May 13 - July 16, 2004
Main Gallery, John Hope Franklin Center
Opening Reception
Thursday, May 13, 2004 :: 6:30 - 8:00 PM
"We're a company that's been in business for two hundred and twenty-seven years. The United States Army will not be going bankrupt, is not going out of business-there ain't going to be no hostile takeover. We'll be here twenty years for a career, and we'll be here sixty years after that to pay your benefits. If you want job stability, I got it for you."
-Sergeant Stephen Spivey, U.S. Army recruiter
In coverage of wars overseas and of our own "home front," we are accustomed to seeing pictures of familiar scenes. One can easily recall images of tearful farewells in airport hangers and National Guard armories on the eve of war, or the blurred, camouflaged figures of soldiers rushing into battle. But before those narratives pick up, soldiers are first recruited one by one in shopping malls and high school classrooms. I was drawn to make a photographic record of this intersection of civilian and military existence, wholly unsure of what it might look like. Beginning in the spring of 2002, as our country began the yearlong build-up to a war in Iraq, I photographed the daily work of U.S. Army recruiters in the North Carolina Piedmont.
The ranks of U.S. Army recruiters are made up of non-commissioned officers, soldiers who have served on average eight years in another military specialty. Soldiers who wish to advance their careers usually must agree to serve a stint as a drill sergeant or a recruiter. Recruiting is a duty most soldiers look on as a hardship. They encounter hostile parents and school officials and find that half the appointments they make with potential recruits are no-shows. They spend three hours a day on the telephone calling high school seniors and recent graduates. Only rarely does a qualified young person without a criminal record or disqualifying health condition walk into the recruiting office unprompted.
To find suitable candidates, recruiters must go out into the civilian world where they typically spend time each day introducing themselves to young men and women in Wal-Mart parking lots and other high-traffic public places. They give their business cards to their waitresses in restaurants, leave them in the pockets of size thirty-two pants in department stores, and insert them in the pages of test preparation manuals in bookstores. In their encounters with potential enlistees, recruiters tell their own stories of joining the Army. They also quickly assess what will most attract someone to commit to a follow-up meeting: money for college, a legacy of military service in the family, a chance for adventure and travel, a signing bonus for a "high-speed car," or an opportunity to give back to society. Each month, on average, after speaking with hundreds of people and conducting dozens of sit-down meetings, a recruiter will ship two recruits to basic training.
This exhibit is made possible by the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies. Additional support comes from a Roy H. Park Fellowship at the UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication at and a grant from the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For more information, contact Rob Sikorski, r.sikorski@duke.edu or 919.684.2867