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INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — The Missouri National Guard is seeking a few good people.

Guard recruiters are using social media to find them. On Monday, the Guard’s detachment in Independence used a Facebook-driven show-and-tell to summon new recruits. 

“It’s really neat to be able to talk to these guys,” SPC Megan Terry, a second-year Guard member, said while co-hosting the online demonstration. 

Terry and other active Missouri National Guard members demonstrated how serving our nation could turn into a career in the civilian world. Terry said it’s sometimes overlooked that job skills can be gained through service to the military, even at the local level served by the National Guard.

“You can get your training and serve your country here one weekend per month. Then, during your civilian life that you’re continuing to live here, you can work and use the same skills we’ve given you training for,” Terry said.

Terry and her comrades are typical of what the Guard is hoping for. The online demonstration they produced on Monday targeted young people with the promises of tuition and healthcare assistance. Some positions offered by the guard even offer bonuses of more than $10,000. Missouri National Guard personnel have been used to assist at COVID-19 testing sites during the pandemic.

“It’s going to give me the experience I need to better serve my soldiers and to ensure that I have all the experience that I would ever want,” Spc. J.P. Rodriguez-Espinoza, who said he intends to work with the National Guard as a career, said.

Guard restrictions say nearly anyone between ages 17-to-34 is eligible to enlist. They’ll even accepting high school juniors and seniors. Raytown High School student, and Private First Class, Tyrese Cunningham said it’s made a major difference in his life.

“It directed my path in life, and it got me better. It got me with better manners, better respect for people above me and it will help me in the future,” Cunningham said.

If it all works out, these young people will have their own success stories to show and tell. To learn more, check out the Guard’s Facebook page here.