You've got to think about this in the context of the time, too. This was actually almost exactly me - I graduated in 2002; I had fine grades, but this was immediately following 9/11, and the fact of the matter is that patriotism was being pushed hard from every angle. We were being fed propaganda from every media outlet. It wasn't just recruiters pulling the normal bullshit, they were using 9/11 to spin a narrative where the country is in danger and only we, as that time's 18 year olds - could possibly save it, and if we didn't enlist, we were basically personally responsible for whatever happened. That, on the backs of our parents' encouragement - you've got to remember that many of our fathers had fought in wars themselves, and many had glorified it in stories, and we were simply not equipped to look at any of it critically yet - made it very hard to say "No".

I enlisted; I spent 3 months in boot camp, 2 months of that with pneumonia and eventually they sent me home, and frankly I think that's the most fortunate thing that's ever happened to me. I wouldn't have been fighting - I would have been sitting behind a desk writing code - but I don't think that matters much in the end.

It's really easy for someone who wasn't in that position to say "Oh, yeah, anyone who falls for that is just stupid", but the fact of the matter is, propaganda is effective. That's why it continues to be used, all over the world, and at that particular time, the propaganda was driving patriotism and paving the way for military enlistment and the addition of laws that stripped away rights and made everyone think mass surveillance was good and necessary, and it did its job.