What is outrageous was the illegal use of taxpayer money. At least one of the Guardsmen went to prison over the wrongdoing.
And everyone should know by now - don’t trust anything that the recruiter tells you.
HA. That reminds me, a week or so before my son left for USMC boot camp, the next-door neighbor was chatting with him. The neighbor asked, “...so what kind of deal did you get? What did they guarantee you?”, and my son kind of shrugged, and I said I think the only thing he’s guaranteed is a haircut!
“And everyone should know by now - don’t trust anything that the recruiter tells you.”
As I recall from my friends. when you really “sign up”, it’s a CONTRACT between you and a branch of the government, not the recruiter. A contract is the foundation of all business conducted in a free economy, and there are long-established rules on contracts. If the person who offered it had no business offering it or signing it, the contract may be void, but considering that so many years have passed AND the government had freely and without strings paid the money so many years ago, if this were a normal business contract, the rules would favor the person who got the money (very strongly).
But, as we all now know, the “rules” don’t apply to the government, members of Congress, employees of the government, and so on.
I had a buddy that joined the Navy back in 80/81. Before the buildup.
The cadence in boot was: ‘Hey you, don’t be blue, my recruiter screwed me too.’