Obstacle

Obstacle © Bryan Lee 2023 / www.blee-arts.com

Acrylic, tempera, string, and tape on canvas

2023

My high school hosted a field day every year and among the carnival-style games and activities were information booths set up by local organizations. They were usually college students or marketing agents advertising higher education or potential job opportunities, but I always remembered the booth with the recruiters for the U.S. Army. They would have lots of free items to take like stickers and pencils, but sometimes they would give out nicer items like a bag or a t-shirt if you completed a task. One year the recruiters set up a small obstacle course that included a wire crawl. It was basically string tied to a bunch of sticks in a grid pattern. The string was three feet above the ground so it wasn’t a hard obstacle to get through. A lot of the students got really dirty because the course went right through a muddy patch of our sports field. I chose not to participate and stood off to the side while my classmates tried the obstacle course. One of the army recruiters asked if I was interested in enlisting after graduation and I said no because I planned on going to college. The recruiter said the military could help pay for college but I said I already had a plan that didn’t involve the military. They tried to get me to sign up for a newsletter and provide my contact info but I declined and said I was not interested. The recruiter gave me a sticker and said they would be in contact to discuss the matter further. I thought that was a strange comment and I didn’t know this at the time, but schools in the U.S. are required to provide the contact information for students and their families to military recruiters.

A few weeks after the school year ended, one of these recruiters called my home and asked my parents to put me on the phone. The recruiter tried to make the military seem like the best career opportunity for a high school graduate and they encouraged me to enlist when I graduated. I politely declined and asked that they not contact me again. They didn’t take no for an answer and said they would contact me later to see if I changed my mind. The recruiters called my home every year until I graduated and each time I or my parents would tell them not to bother us. The last time a recruiter reached out to me was several years after I graduated high school. I had been applying for jobs and I answered the phone thinking the caller was a hiring manager from a local business. To my surprise, it was a military recruiter wanting to give me their speech about the great career opportunities in the military for soon to be graduating high school students. I said I already graduated high school but the recruiter seemed confused and asked when I graduated. I mentioned the year and said I was in my mid-20s and through the phone I heard the recruiter flipping through some papers. After a moment, they thanked me for my time and then hung up.

I was cleaning out some boxes when I found that sticker the army recruiter gave me in high school. I don’t know why I kept it but it reminded me of the field day and the many annoying calls from the recruiters over the years. I modeled this art piece after the wire crawl obstacle from the field day. I thought about including a spider motif in some way and using the string like a web to represent the recruiters trying to snare students into joining the military. I didn’t use that idea because it might have looked like I was saying the recruiters had sinister motives.

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