Zinkshipper, here ya go.

Now we have a place to discuss them in all their sanctimonious glory.

Even though I was Army, not Navy, I thought the "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of All Who Threaten It" was just about perfect.

The USMC, well, the really haven't changed, "The Few, The Proud, The US Marines" is also just about perfect.

I also like the old "Be all you can be", vs the current "Army of One" for the Army. The current "Find your Strength" or "Help them Find Their Strength" is sort iffy.

I've never seen an Air Force ad I liked, but, hey, it's the zoomies, what do you expect?

I'm just amused that the current army reserve commercials are totally glossing over the fact that this "few months out of a year" thing pretty translates to "10-month tour in Iraq".

The black man with his hard-working mother is cute, but the one where the man says, "You looked me in the eye, and shook my hand. Where did that come from?" Annoys the shit out of me. As does the "It's the Army".

I mean, it is tempting, to think about getting my school paid for, but it's way too much of a price to pay. I'm grateful for the people who make that choice. I'm just glad that it's not Vietnam and we don't have the draft. Canada's too cold in the winter.

I think it's a Marines ad, but I'm not sure...the one where the kid (in the service) is at home visiting his high school buddies. They ask him if he's jumping out of planes, and he says he's working with computers. They they ask him "Couldn't you do that at home?" and he just says "No". The first time I saw that I just asked "You wanna elaborate there, buddy?" He just seems intent on shooting his friends down. Don't know why that bugs me so much.

Or two years. I also notice the National Guard/Air National Guard aren't advertising any more that you can serve your country by staying in your state. Lots of them are in Iraq and Afganistan, and everyone knows it.

The "Army of One" ad campaign was the stupidest thing ever. Especially the ad with the soldier who appeared to be running away from the battlefield.

Way back in the 70s, the Navy had their "It's not just a job, it's an adventure" ad campaign, including the "Port of Call" ads. (For example: "Port of call: Hong Kong.") Saturday Night Live did a hysterical "Port of call: Bayonne, New Jersey" spoof that included the stuff the Navy somehow neglected to mention in their ads: swabbing decks, cleaning toilets, painting everything that wasn't moving. It ended with something like "It's not just a job, it's $89.78 a week!"

Oh...my...doG. Remember the one w/the soldier running in the middle of the desert all by himself with his VERY SHINY dog tags flapping on his chest (w/no silencers)? He was just BEGGING to be shot. (Or die of dehydration.)

Oh, yeah. I also remember a platoon sergeant showing it and freeze framing it on a monitor and asking all the NCO in the room to find all the problems with it.

We found, like, a dozen or so, ranging from the dog tags to wrong tee shirt for desert uniform. That was during the time when the Army was having some "professionals" do the ads, and didn't have quite as tight of control as the do now.

For all the current ads issues, they do get the uniform details right, and aside from weird ass camera angles, they aren't doing any thing all that off the wall. The "yelling near computers" ad is what a command post feels like when something is going on. What they don't show is the 10 hours of completely tedious boredom before the yelling goes on for a few minutes.

Drop and give me 10 for double posting!

Just for clarity, there a few different campaigns running for the different services. The Air Force is the one running the ads with kids and teens showing skills that will someday translate into Air Force worthy careers. For example, if you don't know to come in out of the rain, you may someday be an astronaut. The Reserves are the ones with the theme that all the kids want to join, but all of their parents think it's the worst thing they've ever heard (at first). Finally, the Army is the one selling the idea that an Army stint will eventually gift you with flashbacks and the ability to treat your friends, family and co-workers with sneering, superior contempt.

Gosh, are they really not meeting recruiting quotas?

double post

I had a teacher who was pretty anti-military. Every year, she'd have a Vietnam vet who'd tell us all the really horrible stuff that happened. You could call it scare tactics, but I kinda see it as making people aware of the consquences of war. In my case...I know it's not right for me, but I have met people that I'd think make terrific military people. But if they go, I want them to be informed about what really happens.

All the ad's now make it look like you're going to do all these extreme things, like it's some real-action video game. What the fail to mention is the tedium, the painstaking need for attention to details, and the few split seconds that decide whether you might live or die.

I thought they were pretty much running ad nauseum from about 2004-2005, but they seem to have dropped off just a bit.

I'll take those commercials seriously when I see some poor schmuck buffing the floor during a 3 a.m. firewatch. Almost made me want to start a fire just to see what the hell we were supposed to do. They should let me do the commercials.

The Army: Hey, It Beats Homelessness.

Or washing the rocks in front of the headquarters building, or picking up cigarette butts from the motorpool, scraping mold from walls before painting....
Female former servicemember here (Army). The whole point of the firewatch was to ignore the drill sgt sneaking into the bathroom with one of the trainees. And to warn him when the staff duty officer was coming down the hall on rounds.

Wow, I really wouldn't have lasted five seconds in the army. I don't do well with repititious tasks. I've said it before and I'll say it again...thank god we're in a country with a volunteer military. Otherwise I'd have to be coming up with all sorts of stuff to get myself classified 4-F.

I like how being a little girl who stands outside while there's a tornado going on means you should be in the military when you grow up. Because you MUST be a risk-taker who foolishly takes chances when they shouldn't. That's the perfect sort of person for the military.

I think my all-time favorite military ad was the Marine chessboard one. I liked the music and the whole idea was cool.

or waiting in your dress uniform for liberty call for four hours after the ship pulls in from a six month cruise because the customs guys want to inspect the ship (and then coming in the next day to stand duty)!

Hey! I think we’ve been too rough on these commercials. They’re not trying to appeal to potential recruits’ inferiority complex and desire to show up their childhood bullies and doubters.

The commercials are actually making a deep, thoughtful commentary on the unfortunate prevalence of PTSD in returning Vets and these soldier’s dissonant feelings of incompatibility upon returning to a country where the very people they risked their lives to protect can never relate to the horrors they have witnessed.

Go fig!

I dunno...I really think it's just about, "Oh yeah, I did all these really kick-ass things that no mere civilian will ever understand!"

Well... yeah, that too.

While I too love that one, it bugs the heck out of little ol' grammar Nazi-me. Shouldn't it be "threaten them?"

Mr. Wordnerd, being military (Navy), gets a kick out of these ads. Because EVERYONE who joins up gets to be a Blue Angel, right?

Does anyone remember the ads for the Marines that were basically fantasy/video game commercials? I was a kid when these aired, but I got the impression that when you joined the Marines, you were sent into these places of lava and rocks to fight giant dragons spewing fire at you. And at the end of each one, the fighter would morph into a Marine in full dress uniform, holding a sword.

So, so weird.

I still want to see Bobcat Goldthwaite's suggestion for a military commercial: show a guy suspended from an aircraft carrier deck scraping barnacles, then later saying to a female officer, "You don't look like Kelly McGillis. You look like Maude!"

I don't get the "Army of One" slogan. I thought the army was about teamwork, working as a unit and not about individualism. The "Army of One" theme doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, there's an army commercial where a guy, who apparently just enlisted in army, is playing pool and at the same time is explaining to his dad why he decided to join the army. When I first saw that ad, I thought it was a promo for a Josh Harnett movie. The guy in the commercial looks just like Josh Harnett. Could it really be him? I think in previous eras, some Hollywood actors did do promotional work for the military.

Every time I tried to be an Army of One, I wound in a front leaning rest...with my feet on a frickin' window ledge. AMAZING the things they leave out of the commercials.

emma675, I remember those. It reminded me of the old computer game Battle Chess. One had a wizard-like guy in it. Very very strange.

See when I think of the old " Be all you can be" I think of the skit on In Living Color.

If I remember correctly it went:

"Be all that you can be
get a messed up life
and an ugly wife in the army."

More like 12 month tour in Iraq plus 6 months of training in another state.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Me, too.

A. If your own son can't look you in the eye and shake your hand, you failed.

B. I don't care if the Army will make you so much a man that you can take the Ultimate Step of looking an actual Manly Evangelical (*) Patriarch in the eye.

(*) IMHO, that particular ad is aimed at political/religious surburban conservatives instead of people looking for money for college, etc.

I don't see it that way. Not that I think it takes a stint in the armed forces to make one a Man, but I could totally see a kid being intimidated by his father and unable to meet his eyes. Maybe the backstory is that the kid was a massive screw-up, failing in school, smoking dope most days of the week. He cleans up his act, joins the military, and can hold his head up high (but not stoned). 'Course, now he knows 52 ways to kill a man with his bare hands, so Pops better watch his step from now on. Soldier boy's got a bit o' bitterness and some residual daddy issues.

Has anyone else seen the new one for the Air Force with the girl talking about her job as an aerial photographer? Basically she goes on about what a cool job that is and how she gets to fly with the Thunderbirds (the AF equivalent of the Blue Angels) and take a bunch of pictures.

Yeah, because everyone who joins the Air Force gets such a cool job. <eyeroll>

(BTW, I'm a former zoomie myself, married to a former Marine who's now an officer in the Army. He teases me constantly about the AF, calling it the Chair Force, and "the world's largest paramilitary organization.")

On the other hand, no matter what I'm doing, I will always stop to watch a Marine Corps commercial. I love all their ads, and the Corps itself. You will find few better slogans than "The Few, The Proud, The Marines."

I certainly would if I had that jackass for a father. Everything about that man's tone, and the way he looks at his son, screams "contempt" to me, even though he's supposedly praising the poor kid.

I kninda dig the new-ish Navy Seals commercial, where the moonlight shines on the pristine beach, then it goes dark for a minute, then the moonlight illuminates the footprints on the beach, then the waves wash them away. No music, no voices. I actually thought it was a really cool effect. Even though I had to see it a few times to "get" it.

That is so old.

What, no comments on the Army apparently eschewing "An Army of One" (after, what, three years?) for "Army Strong"?

The Army changes its slogan with depressing regularity. I'm not at all surprised that "An Army of One" has gone away.

What did you do today? Mid 90's
Teamwork Makes Winners. Mid 80's. This one was a subset of the "Be all that you can be." campaign

"Be all that you can be," I think, was one of the longest-lasting ones, running from 1981 to 2001, when it was ditched in favor of "An Army of One."

ETA: "An Army of One" lasted just over five years

I saw two Army commercials today during the Pats game that sound like they're narrated by Josh Charles. Anyone else hear them?

eta- It is Josh Charles. From the Sun Times.

"Army strong! Army smash! Me like Army!"

Yeah, not feeling the love for that one, either.

TraceyBee, that's exactly what I thought when I first heard the new slogan too. My seven year old thinks those ads are cool, though.

So maybe they're hitting their target demographic? Why wait? Indoctrinate!

Also, wouldn't an "Army of One" essentially be Superman?

Absolutely. I HATE that commercial. They show it all the time in the early mornings on The Weather Channel. I get up early to run, and I"ve contemplated skipping the weather channel check because of that fricken commercial. That dad. It's cold out. If it's raining, I can see that. They also run those stupid "Head On" commercials, so bye-bye weather channel.

Actually, it's most likely because Dad is a soldier, so Army stuff is cool, apparently. When Dad was a Marine, he thought Marine Corps commercials were cool. I still love MC commercials. I hope they never abandon "The Few, The Proud, The Marines" as their slogan.

Even before I joined the Marines, I thought they had the best commercials. And I stll love them, even to this day.

OOOH RAH! :o)

The Marines have excellent commercials. I'm former AF, and I cringe at some of the stuff the AF puts out. "Are you too stupid to get out of the way of an approaching tornado? You're Air Force material!"

Besides the recruiting ads, the Marines (well, the Marine Corps Reserve) have that awesome Toys for Tots ad where the little boy asks the Marine if he's Santa. Turns me into a puddle of mush, that one does.

I know this is unpopular, but I adore the Little-Girl-Transfixed-by-the-Tornado ad. It seems to me that American culture (especially recently) doesn't respect curiosity. But this ad really celebrates the child's interest in the world around her. She sees something powerful and fascinating, and her mind is trying to wrap around it. And then this trait serves her well as an adult. I love that the Air Force is acknowledging that curiosity and intellectual involvement in the world are good things.

As a former smurf myself, this made me laugh.

I could not agree more. I don't cry very easily, but I need a tissue when I see that one.

My favorite AF ad is the one with the cops in a partol car approaching a group of teenagers who look like they are up to no good. It turns out the cop was looking for this kid because he was having trouble with his laptop and the kid fixes it. Then the "we've been waiting for you" thing and you see airmen doing computer stuff.

I'm surprised that no one has brought up the old Army ad: "We do more before 9 am than most people do all day." Whenever I saw that one, I wanted to shake my head and say, "Dude. I've had jobs like that. Not a big selling point."

When I was in Singapore a couple of years ago I saw the most surreal military add I ever experianced. Missiles were approaching Singapore. People ran around screaming in panic. Some military guys dressed in white coats standing in front of huge screens pushed a button. The missiles were blown to pieces before they could reach Singapore. The message was to trust in the military or something. I wish I could see it again, just to know I didn't dream it up. But I couldn't find it on youtube...

MethodActor05 wrote:I'm surprised that the Navy hasn't come up with an ad campaign along the lines of: "The U.S. Navy. Because Iraq is almost totally landlocked." ;-)

Edited to clean up punctuation

And the National Guard commercials? "One weekend a month, two weeks during the summer" really means "18 straight months away from home".


Hee!