This postcard came in the mail for Margaret, and I made her promise not to roundfile the thing before I got a chance to scan it.

During the wind-down of her veterinary education, Margaret spoke to one of the recruiters for the armed services. Actually, what they were offering was a pretty good deal: instant promotion to Captain, a salary that was on the low side but came with good bennies, plus a signing bonus and a mixture of student loan deferment/payback. Margaret gave the idea some consideration. Ultimately she decided against it, having resolved that she neither felt optimistic about her chances of adapting to the Army lifestyle nor comfortable supporting the military-industrial complex. She was also less than thrilled about the fact that her chances of practicing any actual medicine during her term of service were pretty slim: the most likely vocation for a DVM in the Army is inspecting meat-packing facilities. Only a precious few end up caretaking police dogs or wash-and-waxing the General’s horse.

Ultimately, despite the unfortunate circumstances of her first job out of school (boss was an ossified old fart who cared more about sucking up to the clients who most needed a severe ass-kicking than he did about practicing good medicine), I am extremely grateful that she chose not to “jine up”. And not simply because I have trouble imaging myself chatting over the backyard fence with the other military wives. Given the current, deadly idiocy in which our Commander-In-Chief has our military embroiled, the mere thought of Margaret having a more elevated—and legally binding—presence in the collective consciousness of the Army is enough to make me shit my pants and/or revoke my citizenship. Does New Zealand take deserters?

But the thing that makes this note from our friendly neighborhood recruitment office such a head-scratcher is why they chose to send her a little “howdy!” at this particular point in her veterinary career. Margaret has been out of school for thirteen years. The ad copy on the other side of the card started with the headline: “Get Unique Veterinary Experience and up to $80,000 For your Student Loans.” I know that the price of higher education (particularly anything that results in the use of the title “Doctor”) is oppressively high and getting higher every year, but thirteen years? If Margaret were thirteen years out of school and still 80 grand in debt for her student loans, would she really be the kind of person the Army wants joining their ranks? Of course, while general recruitment targets for all of the armed services seem to have been effectively met for the last couple of years, the targets for specialists like veterinarians may be a tougher row to hoe. At this point in American history, the kind of vet the military can hope to recruit under a best-case scenario might possibly be “a patriotic go-getter”. On the other hand, such a person might instead very well be identified as, “competent but desperate”. Or maybe, “a skilled practitioner with a gambling problem”.

The picture on the front of the card says it all. The soldier depicted here can’t be more than twenty-four. Just the way she’s beaming lovingly up at her horsey makes me think she’s still pretty wet behind the ears. I don’t think a lot of large animal vets still look that starry-eyed after a few semesters with their hands up the other ends of these critters. This is definitely a person with a few years left under the oh-so-benevolent thumb of Sallie Mae. For someone under these circumstances, a turn in the Army might not be such a bad idea, same as it might have been for Margaret as a new grad. At this stage in her career, though—completely ignoring the state of the world—it seems like a non-starter.

The very fact that the Army would take the time to bulk-mail these things out to 38-year-old vets well-established in private practice would seem to imply something unfortunate about their recruitment/retention rate for medical specialists. I wish them the best of luck….with someone else’s wife.