Be all you can be: Army recruiters in Alaska help plan for life success

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - To go inside the gates, the journey begins on the outside; whether it’s connecting with a recruiter at a high school, sporting event, or even at the recruiter’s office, Alaskans should know what to expect before signing up to serve.

Alaska‘s News Source went outside of the gates of Joint Base-Elmendorf Richardson to the Army’s South Anchorage Recruitment Center to learn more.

“As far as the process for joining the Army — first thing you gotta do, obviously, is talk to a recruiter,” said Staff Sgt. Austin Cunningham, who’s been a recruiter for almost two years.

“It‘s not as simple as that. It‘s not ’talk to recruiter,’ bang, congratulations. Here’s your uniform, you’re in the Army. I wish it was that simple.”

Cunningham said that the initial conversation centers around what your goals are, not just for the military, but your life goals.

“The Army is not a permanent life thing,” he said. “You’re not going to stay in the Army forever. You will leave the Army. At some point, you will retire. You’ll get out.

“So the Army puts a lot of emphasis on how we can benefit you for that period afterwards, and make you the most successful.”

Once you have decided the Army is the branch of service you’d like to sign up for, you’ll be filling out a lot of paperwork. Then the Army conducts a physical to ensure you meet their health standards.

After that, an Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test will be taken. ASVAB is a standardized test that helps determine what job a person is qualified for.

“For the Army, specifically, that’s when we can start sitting down and seeing what jobs you can pick from,” Cunningham explained. “The Army is the only branch where you can pick your job and get the specific job in writing. So we do that here in the office.”

Cunningham said the Army is the only branch of service where you know what job you’ll take on before you sign up. He said this is because the Army is the largest branch of the military and has the highest demand for personnel.

“In order to kind of give us, as recruiters, a leg up over the other branches, we have a couple other incentives to offer that the other branches don’t,” he said. “The main one being job of choice. You’ll sit down with your recruiter, pull up a list of everything that’s available and eligible for you, and pick the specific job.

“Most of the other branches, you pick a career field, or you don’t get a say at all.”

He said that recruiting in Alaska presents challenges, but it’s also very rewarding.

The challenge comes with the remoteness of Alaska. For the largest state in terms of area, there are only five recruiting offices for the Army statewide.

“Another one of our biggest challenges is the lack of information out there,” said Cunnigham. “Yes, we have the Internet — you literally have super computers at your hand. You can Google everything — but a lot of people are misinformed or just lack information about what the Army has to offer to begin with.”

He said events like the Iditarod or high school sporting events offer an opportunity to have a soft conversation.

“When we‘re doing these events, it’s more of us trying to just put ourselves out there,” he explained. “Ask us questions, right? We want to support you, we want to support the state, we want to support the country. We want to benefit you guys.”

When asked about the biggest misnomers out there, Cunningham couldn’t whittle it down. He did say that a big issue is a lack of trust when it comes to speaking with recruiters.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions about recruiters,” Cunningham said. “They think that all we care about is making them join. They’re just a number to us, but that’s very much not the case.

“We’re very much normal human beings just doing a job. And we very much want the most success for these for these individuals that we talk to. So the biggest thing that I try to always stress to people is don’t be afraid to talk to a recruiter.

“Just talking with a recruiter isn’t going to make you join.”

But it will help you better understand the options available to you, not only in the Army, but beyond the gates.

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