The army hopes its gaming squad will go some way to make up the numbers.
The pandemic put a stop to face-to-face contact between recruitment officers and those interested in signing up, and this has led to the army falling behind in its annual target of 70,000 new recruits. The squad’s full-time job is to organize and take part in large-scale competitions involving the popular first-person shooter video game that can go on for several weeks.Īnd recruiters say they’ve had more success in attracting prospective recruits than by using more traditional recruitment methods, such as going into schools and attending fairs. US army recruiters, prevented from face-to-face contact with prospective soldiers because of the COVID-19 pandemic, have deployed a new specialist squad to take the recruitment process online – by fighting in Call Of Duty (COD) tournaments.
