A recruiting sergeant is a British or American soldier of the rank of

sergeant Sergeant (Sgt) is a Military rank, rank in use by the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and in other units that draw their heritage f ...

who is tasked to enlist recruits. The term originated in the British army of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The playwright George Farquhar served as an infantry officer, and the characters in his play ''

The Recruiting Officer ''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two English Army officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where ...

'' (1706) are drawn from life. The unscrupulous methods used by some to trick the innocent have been the subject of several traditional songs composed by their victims as a warning to others, popular examples being the Irish traditional song ''

Arthur McBride "Arthur McBride" (also called "The Recruiting Sergeant" or "Arthur McBride and the Sergeant") is a folk song (Roud Folk Song Index, Roud 2355) probably of Irish origin, also found in England, Scotland, Australia, and North America. Describing a v ...

'' and the Scots ''Twa Recruiting Sergeants''. A recruit would be given the King's shilling as a mark of the contract made. The term has passed into the English language to mean any set of circumstances which recruits or fails to recruit volunteers to the army. See ''Daily Telegraph'' headline
The CIA is al-Qaeda's best recruiting sergeant
'

References

Drumming up business
The Soldier's Trade in a Changing World By Professor Richard Holmes. bbc.co.uk - Accessed February 2007
Definition at Free Dictionary
Military recruitment {{UK-mil-stub

See also

References