Army Experience Center to close doors
After almost 2 years, $12 million, 40,000 visitors and 235 recruits, the Army Experience Center is shutting it’s doors at Philadelphia’s Franklin Mills Mall. Of course, the hippies are taking credit for the closure;
Lepley said the demonstrations had nothing to do with the decision to close the center, but activist Elaine Brower, of Staten Island, N.Y., said she was thrilled. She had been particularly galled by the center’s mall location, between a skateboard park and an arcade.
“We really consider this a major victory for us,” Brower said. “We are happy that they are not going to be in the mall.”
The statistics should teach the hippies a lesson about their fears. Thirty-nine thousand seven hundred and sixty five visitors to the center decided not to join the Army. So what were the hippies scared of?
This Ain’t Hell has covered the protests at the Center over the last few years and the protests were as anemic as they were baseless.
I’d wager that Elaine Brower’s Baby Killer video did more harm to the troops than the Army Experience center ever could.
Category: Antiwar crowd, General Whackos, Usual Suspects
235 recruits in 2 years? I know large (4 recruiters plus a RINC) stations who would have been thrilled with that kind of production over a two-year period.
Sparky,
I was kinda thinking that for 12 million 235 nubes isn’t so cost effective. Over $51,000 per recruit? Not very cost effective, I’m guessing that’s the reason it was closed down…
Yeah, I’ll agree the $12 million part was rather daunting. But IIRC, that’s something like 1 percent of the Army’s ad budget from FY 06-11. Yeah, I know–over a billion dollars for “Army Strong.” And last time I checked, the CNRC budget (Navy-wide) for ONE YEAR was $620 million.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/business/media/11adco.html
When we finally leave Iraq, whenever the hell that will be, they will take credit for it as well.
The Army spends quite a bit for each person that joins. Sadly, most of the people I’ve put in came to me; all the thousands of dollars of sponsorships, assets, giveaways and the like I’ve seen come and go do not produce much. I am all for community awareness and love working some community events with local assets such as a rockwall. I despise wasting my weekend at a homecoming game at a HBCU set up outside of the stadium with a TAIR team and two big rigs loaded with helicopter simulators and a physical fitness challenge, not to mention numerous DA civilians to help run things. The former lets my small community know we support them while minimizing costs, the latter lets us spend who knows how much to try to impress a bunch of people looking to tailgate and watch a game.
Anyway, this was one of the first subjects that brought me here. We received an email about possible demonstrations last September and I Googled some of the organizations taking part. Oddly enough, the first page of results led me here. 🙂