Disturbing Reason Why North Minneapolis Doesn't Have A Military Recruiting Center...

Blog post and stock photo by John Hoff, bar dedicated to the "Red Bull" infantry division in Little Falls, Minnesota. 

North Minneapolis doesn't have a military recruiting center. If you live in North Minneapolis and you want to join the army, navy, air force, Marines, Coast Guard, or various kinds of reserve and national guard units such as the "Red Bull" infantry division of the Minnesota National Guard...either you'll need to get on a recruitment website and ask to have a recruiter come visit you, or you'll need to travel to a recruitment center someplace like Stadium Village near the U or the suburb of Bloomington.

Recently, I had an opportunity to speak to somebody involved the military recruitment biz and I asked why there's no military recruiting center in North Minneapolis. Here's what I was told...

Supposedly, only one Northside high school student in ten is capable of getting a minimum score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, (ASVAB) which is a standardized test used by the military to figure out how intelligent a potential recruit is, and what jobs they'd be suited for. A great score on the ASVAB means you can get any job in the military you want, as long as there's an opening.

(When I say "job" I mean the Military Occupational Specialty--MOS--not the rank. Obviously)

Secondly, gaining a criminal record at a young age is a serious or fatal obstacle to enlistment. And, according to my friend in the recruitment biz, a high number of young people on the North Side have criminal records at a young age.

So what this means is even though many individuals in North Minneapolis could benefit from joining the armed forces, the armed forces isn't looking very actively for recruits on the Northside. These facts appear to be contrary to the Northside urban legends about tricky military recruiters waiting outside the doors of North High, trying to persuade naive young people to join the military and get shipped off to fierce fighting in a foreign land.

Actually, I think the facts may show being a soldier in Iraq is statistically less dangerous than being a young person in North Minneapolis who likes to hang out with friends on street corners. Also, despite REPEATEDLY volunteering to go to various hotspots around the globe during my time in military service--Iraq, South Korea, the former Yugoslavia--and even being issued orders to South Korea, TWICE, during periods of international tension in that region--I spent my whole 3 and a half year enlistment in El Paso, Texas. The only dangerous foreign land I visited was Mexico.

For myself, military service was a way to pay off student loans and gain valuable career training. It's not an easy or risk-free way to pull oneself up economically, but it's likely to be the biggest break a young person from a poor family will get, a way to pay for college after 3 or 4 years of training and adventure. And so--having experienced those benefits intimately and personally--it's very discouraging to realize there's no military recruiting center in North Minneapolis because, well, North Minneapolis youth aren't considered good enough.

I would LIKE to think the crime and ASVAB data is actually false and anecdotal, some kind of widespread misconception not rooted in factual data. I would LIKE to think most Northside youth can pass an ASVAB test and not THAT many have criminal records, and there is a hidden pool of highly-qualified potential candidates for military service within the 55411 zip code.

I would LIKE to think these things. But in the meantime, there's no military recruitment center in North Minneapolis and the reason appears to be Northside youth are considered--by and large, on average--not good enough for the armed forces.