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Hello, athletic young women: are you "weary of being separated from boys and men in sports?" And eager to prove yourself "on a larger stage?" Well you're not going to make the WNBA, that's for sure. So why not do what 2,507 of your wisest female peers did last year and join the Marines [NYT]? In this period of difficult recruiting, the Few, the Proud are even putting in some extra effort to make their ads seem good to chicks like you!

In the 1990s, when the Marines Corps was having trouble reaching recruitment goals, it ran a scattering of ads in magazines like Seventeen and Sports Illustrated for Women, using tag lines like "You can look at models, or you can be one" and "Get a makeover that's more than skin deep." That outreach "wasn't as sophisticated as it is now," said Jay Cronin, management director of JWT, a unit of the WPP Group, which has been the Marine Corps' advertising agency for more than 60 years.

But now they're mongering their message out to athletic girls everywhere, because being in the Marines is much like a fun athletic competition. "The message is that the Marine Corps offers a unique opportunity to earn that title and be shoulder to shoulder with your male counterparts [WHILE BEING SHOT AT IN A FAR-FLUNG HELLHOLE FOR THE IMPERIALIST CAUSE]," said an ad exec.

So how are all the girls responding to all that taxpayer money being poured into magazine ads so far?

The magazine ads include reply cards, and, Mr. Harding said, they yielded more than 1,044 "qualified leads" in 2007, though only two turned into enlistments.

Bonus: Here's an ad The Marines ran during "American Idol" which supposedly has broad-based appeal. Though I didn't spot too many women in it.

[Disclosure: I once worked with Doug Quenqua, the reporter who wrote this story]