Insurance scams in the military? Say it ain’t so!

Jeeze, the Times’ takes nine pages to describe something that’s about as common as the jackrabbits running around Lackland. In other news, the sky is blue, the sun is hot, and people are still having sex.

Take a look around any military base. It’s usually surrounded by a ring of establishments whose sole purpose is to separate the young and stupid servicemember from his money. In just a short walk, you can get drunk, horny, tatooed, and pawn your stereo to get more drunk, more horny, and more tattoos. Most people see those places for what they are, but the 2% that don’t hopefully learn a life lesson.

I remember when I lived in the dorms, these girls would always come buy selling magazine subscriptions. I always thought that was pretty ballsy of them, not because it was prohibited, but because they had chosen to go into the Lion’s Den wearing tight shorts and revealing shirts to sell magazines. That takes some guts.

I think they were counting on the guys being so distracted by their nubile bodies, that their senses would take leave and they’d buy a shitload of magazine subsriptions without really thinking about it. It never really worked out that way. Within a matter of seconds, there’d be a request for sexual favors in exchange for a mag subscription, and the girl would usually try to turn the conversation to something else, but the guy would ask, “How bad do you want me to buy a magazine?” The girls would usually storm off and knock on the next sucker’s door. You gotta admire the guys for doing that, though. 99 of those girls would say no. But there’s always the one who’ll say yes. It’s the triumph of hope over experience.

I’ve been in a couple of these “captive audience” sessions mentioned in the Times’ article, but I’ve never signed any forms. Usually, there’s always someone in the room who’ll always call bullshit in a lovely sing-song voice. Bull-shit! I don’t know if that’s changed or not. Maybe there’s more stupid people around these days, but in my day, we thought it was cool to totally piss-off the pitchmen by asking an ever-escalating series of annoying questions to see how flustered we could get them. The people I’ve rolled with over the years have always been able to intuitively detect a scam when they see one, and I’ve yet to be in a situation where the salesman hasn’t been called out. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. Or maybe these other people are incredibly fucking stupid. When it comes to Marines and Army guys, though, I think they’re at a disadvantage because they’re conditioned to question nothing straight out of Basic Training. That’s unfortunate, but it’s a learning experience.