This week the U.S. Army announced that it would begin sending new recruits to basic training, ending a two-week pause that was instituted to stop the spread of COVID-19. Recruits from parts of the country that were deemed “low-risk” for the virus would be sent in the coming days to all four of the Army’s basic training locations. Those from “high risk” areas will be rescheduled for future dates.
In addition, Basic Combat Training and One-Station Unit Training at the Army’s four recruit training locations will still operate at reduced capacity and would adhere to social distancing guidelines.
The Army had stopped sending future soldiers to basic training at Fort Benning, GA; Fort Sill, OK; Fort Jackson, SC; and Fort Leonard, MO beginning on April 6, in response to the highly infectious coronavirus. The end of this rare pause in basic training came about as the Army has improved its testing capacity for the virus. This has included Fort Jackson, the training-heavy post that has been the site of service’s worst COVID-19 outbreak.
In late March, Fort Jackson had confirmed that there were 25 positive cases of the coronavirus on the base. South Carolina has seen nearly 5,000 cases statewide, while 150 people have died from the disease.
The outbreak is seen as contained at the U.S. Army’s bases. As a result, the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, which oversees all the service’s initial and entry and more advanced training programs, announced that recruits could again be sent to bases provided appropriate measures were taken.
All recruits who report to their training posts will undergo modified training curriculums and will be monitored with daily health assessments, the Army announced.
Changing Recruitment Efforts
Prior to the decision to put a pause on sending recruits to basic training, the U.S. Army also shut down its recruiting offices as well as face-to-face contact between recruiters and prospective soldiers. Instead it implemented a virtual recruiting program that included mobile operations.
Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, the military services were struggling to meet annual recruiting targets. The military was competing with a historically strong job market to attract the best talent.
Now this week, in an effort to appeal to Generation Z, the U.S. Army has enlisted the power of music in a new recruiting video. Titled, “Unbelievable.” It is the latest addition to the “What’s Your Warrior” ad campaign, which was launched last November 11 (Veteran’s Day). The video has already aired on YouTube and has been making the rounds across social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.
Instead of showing soldiers in seeming traditional “military roles” it instead highlighted the Army’s role in addressing COVID-19. The Army has deployed thousand of National Guard and Reserve soldiers to help communities across the country, while hundreds of active-duty troops have been providing medical support to hospitals coping with the spread of the coronavirus.
The video highlights these events and flashes the message, “When the unbelievable happens … the unbelievable rise to meet it.”
The background music was created by Barking Owl, a music production company, specifically for the ad campaign. Among the company’s composers is English musician Atticus Ross, who has worked with the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails.
In addition to sharing the recruiting tool on social media, the Army had also tested out the concept for the video by running 15-second picture-to-picture stories on the Facebook-owned platform Instagram with a similar “call to service” theme.
