There was a time not long ago that the US Army was desperate for any warm bodies with working (for now) limbs. Now they've got plenty of otherwise-unemployable Americans as soldiers, and they need officers. Hello, creative underclass!

It's quite perfect. What did your liberal arts education get you so far, job-wise? Jack shit. You are probably selling weed right this minute. Which doesn't disqualify you for the Army, these days! Don't ask don't tell, etc. The US Army needs educated elites like you to become officers and lead squads of new recruit grunts, 83% of whom have high school diplomas.

Now the Army has developed a sophisticated new ad campaign to lure you, the high-achieving academic, into the military ranks. Yes, the Army knows that professors at your hippie school may have told you the military is bad; but did you know that "Joseph DePinto, chief executive of 7-Eleven," was himself in the Army at one time? A-ha!

"We learned through research that when the ‘Army Strong' music came on in that first second of the commercial, those achievement-oriented students would reject it because they would think it was not for them," said George Dewey, executive creative director at McCann Erickson, the Army's creative agency. "When these kids find out that the Army has produced these superstars, it's an ‘aha' moment for them."

As usual, the Army's advertising campaign will attract the soldiers our nation deserves.
[NYT, by Doug Quenqua, my former editor. Pic of a hipster soldier just like you(!) via the website that will recruit you.]