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"Join the Army," They Said: Difference between revisions
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** The most common variation being "Join up, they said...it's a man's life, they said..."
*** And then later stories included one soldier moaning that "Join the army they" only to be interrupted by another soldier saying something along the lines of "Belt it, we've all heard that before, and we're sick of it."
* A recurring theme in the old Marvel comic [[Strikeforce: Morituri]], largely because the process for converting people into supersoldiers had the minor flaw of being 100% fatal, and your survival time decreased sharply the older you were. Potential volunteers got asked a LOT of questions, but only one mattered: "Why do you want to die?" (A solution to the problem was found, but the last stage of the conversion process, that actually activated the superpowers, still had a high fatality rate, and couldn't be changed because only the lethality of the environment could bring out the powers.)
* In the 1970s [[Underground Comics]] "Merton of the Movement", one of the would-be radicals watching an Army recruitment ad thinks the prospect of world travel and $288 a month sounds pretty sweet, and goes to enlist. He's such a drugged-out little wizened husk of a guy, however, that he drives the interviewing desk sergeant into an apoplectic rage - when he asks "Ya got any openin's in Denmark?" the sergeant boots him out.
== Commercials ==
* The famous [[World War
** They now have their own trope: [[Uncle Sam Wants You]].
* From the [[World War Two]] period, [http://store.doverpublications.com/0486592170.html "Gee! I wish I were a man! I'd join the Navy!"], with lady in fetishistic navy uniform.
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* Gently prodded in the [[Discworld]] novel ''[[Discworld/Men At Arms|Men at Arms]]'', and with all Watch novels afterwards (and some that weren't), with Detritus being a particularly enthusiastic, if [[Malaproper|malapropism-prone]], evangelist of such slogans (as well as other military book/movie/TV cliches).
** Played brutally straight in ''[[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]''. The war is going so badly and has stripped such a large portion of the possible recruits from the population that not only is nobody joining up anymore, but the recruiters are only going through the motions. Things aren't helped by the fact that not enough of the men are coming back, and not enough of those that do come back is coming back.
* In [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s [[Warhammer
* [[Hand of Thrawn|Shada Du'kal]], high-quality bodyguard and commando (the two go hand-in-hand in Star Wars), while climbing a filthy wall to get in position to cover her employer for a transaction with someone.
{{quote|''Join a smuggling group,'' she thought darkly for about the fifth time since beginning her climb. ''Visit a side of the galaxy the tourists never see.''}}
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The Imperial Guard of ''[[Warhammer
{{quote|"Join the Imperial Guard! Travel to fantastic new planets! Meet exotic new life forms! And then shoot them! Serve the Emperor today - tomorrow you may be dead!"}}
* The ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' card [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=20396 Border Guard] parodies the "...and kill them" thing. "'Join the army, ''see foreign countries''!' they'd said."
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** Which only gets funnier when you find out how you can torture the crew of your destroyers by clicking incessantly until they complain you're rocking the boat making them seasick, and then throw up. They're ''[[Talking to Himself|even played by the same guy]]'', who hasn't even changed his voice for the role. You've got them coming and going...
** ''[[Warcraft]] III'' features footmen who, if clicked on enough, ''start spouting recruitment phrases''. "Grab your sword and fight the Horde!" "Uncle Lothar wants you!" They also have a "captain of the guard" special unit available in certain campaign missions and in the map editor, who muses that his job entails constant danger and lousy pay, but at least <s>[[Leeroy Jenkins|he's got chicken]]</s> he gets to hobnob with royalty.
** Similarly, repeatedly clicking on a civilian in ''[[
* Mocked rather cruelly in ''[[Star Wars|X-Wing Alliance]]'', where one of your emails is a recruitment poster for Red Squadron—the first into battle, and the first to replace the first who fall in battle. And this is what they sent ''Rebel'' pilots.
** In ''[[Star Wars Battlefront]] 2'', Imperial troopers occasionally mention the Imperial recruitment campaigns with a slogan which is a parody of this trope.
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* In ''Bloodmoon'', the second expansion to ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'', the the legionnaires at Fort Frostmoth will occasionally mutter to themselves:
{{quote|''""Join the Legion! See the world!" Freeze your arse..."''}}
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'' had '''Join The Military''' radio ads which by its very nature, a spoof of recruitment ads. see them [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSFQHtKGaE4 here].
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** However, why Donald, a water fowl, who normally wears a sailor suit, was not in the Navy or at least the Marines, makes no sense.
*** Especially since his stated goal was to be a pilot, so the Navy would've been the natural choice. (At the time the Air Force was part of the Army.) The closest he comes to flying is being tricked by Sergeant Pete into boarding a paratrooper training plane in "Sky Trooper".
* An odd episode of ''[[Time Squad]]'' parodied these commercials. (Mixed with a bit of infomercial.) It showed a Time Squad unit rescuing ''George Washington'' and his men from a Redcoat ambush. Fans of the show know that the team's average assignment is a lot less glamorous. The commercial even becomes [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] after the episode with the "[[
* ''[[Family Guy]]'' has "Aaaww Yeah" and "Actual experience may differ".
* In ''[[Evil Con Carne]]'', Skarr rants against his mother and the military while crawling up a hill.
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