This past Friday at ACC, you may have expected a relaxing day before the long weekend, so if you’re anything like me walking into school with a giganti

c and bulky semi-truck on our front steps was most likely not on your agenda. On March 28, ACC was visited by the Screaming Eagles themselves, the U.S. Army. Around 8:30 am, a huge semi truck pulled up to our frontdoor and let out a horde of soldiers armed with a dozen PC’s and a table full of miscellaneous merchandise. As one may expect, a crowd of students and teachers quickly gathered, and soon enough our parking lot was filled to the

 brim with students and staff doing pushups and planks. 

Each item on a foldable table was up for grabs, at a price, of course. Thirty pushups for a T-shirt or camo print hat with the army logo, twenty for a water bottle, ten for a lanyard, and five for a pen. Within an hour of the first lunch, every shirt was gone, and hats were running low. Students were nearly piling on top of each other doing pushups, situps, and planks.  By the time the third lunch came around, only a couple of lanyards were left. There were students decked out in gear like army-themed Christmas trees left and right. Although this was fun, it wasn’t the most interesting part of this surprise visit.

Inside this massive truck was a mystery that you had to sign a three-page waiver for to uncover. In groups of 10-20, students piled into the dark truck to gander at what was inside. After doing some investigative journalism in the merch section, my fellow reporter and I made our way in. 

It was a dark room with dozens of monitors, PC’s, gaming controllers, and more. The black ceilings and floors were lined with ominous green LED lights to add to the spy mission-y vibe. Outside we were high school students, but inside we were stealthy gaming masters. Each gaming console was loaded with a first-person shooting game on an ancient-looking map for a game called Halo. You were equipped with armor and a laser to defeat the rest of your peers in the truck. Although my colleague and I were not successful in defeating the enemies, we were successful in finding a story.

One day later, participants received a text reading, “I am one of the recruiters from the event last Friday. Let me know if you would like more information.” This leaves students wondering how effective this recruiting tactic is. One participant, Finn Barrett, claimed, “The van itself wasn’t a good reason to join the Army but more of an attraction to get kids to hear about their stories and more importantly to give them merch so the Army stays in their minds.”

Another student, Vincent Culbertson, reasoned, “I found it persuasive because there was a lot of expensive merch and they told us one of the parts of the army is traveling around the country and winning tournaments and keeping the money you get.”

After this exciting visit ACC was left with both a flood of army commodities and a new experience. We learned all about what these people do on a day-to-day basis, and how incredibly strong these soldiers have to be. 

Best wishes to the U.S. Army, we hope to see you again soon.