The U.S. Army, as part of its recruiting efforts, has thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall to entice young men and women to sign their lives away in service to the military’s oldest branch.
From cartoon video series on YouTube to Zodiac matchmaking on Instagram, the branch really wants you to know there are no rules here. It’s not like a regular Army; it’s a cool Army.
Its latest campaign is a Buzzfeed quiz, a popular time-wasting method from the early 2010s that people evidently still do in the Year of Our Lord 2022.
The Army’s little quiz tests the taker’s general knowledge of trivia regarding awesome base locations, paid vacation time and big signing bonus money.
The answers to each question in the quiz, predictably, are the most flattering to the branch. It doesn’t take a Psychological Operations specialist to figure out that the queries are supposed to entice young people into answering Uncle Sam’s call to join up.
Proud to report that this writer got a 7/7 on the ‘How Much Do You Really Know About the U.S. Army?” quiz, but will not take that as a sign to run straight to the local recruiting office.
A quick scan of other Buzzfeed content written by the U.S. Army reveals some comically corny listicles too, but one in particular sticks out — an article from 2015 entitled ‘10 U.S. Army Tips That Could Help You Survive A Zombie Apocalypse.’
And, oh boy, was it full of terrible advice that would require a platoon of the most obscure Military Occupation Specialties all conveniently housed at the same installation.
For example, it calls for Geospatial Engineers to “map out the area surrounding your base in order to track hordes of flesh suckers.” And Human Intelligence Collectors would need to “use subtle questions to find out where villainous factions are hoarding food from the people.”
“This We’ll Defend”? More like, “This We’ll Concede to the Hordes of Flesh-Eating Undead.”
Sarah Sicard is a Senior Editor with Military Times. She previously served as the Digitial Editor of Military Times and the Army Times Editor. Other work can be found at National Defense Magazine, Task & Purpose, and Defense News.
