Those who know me or who have read my articles over the past eight years won't be surprised to hear that my top three pet peeves are (1) applicants who lie about their qualifications to get into the military, (2) recruiters who encourage them to lie and (3) recruiters who lie to applicants.

A few years ago, I extensively addressed the first two issues in my article, I Cannot Tell a Lie, in which I bespeak the consequences of false statements on enlistment documents. It's past time I addressed my final top irritant.

Let me preface this article by saying I personally know dozens of military recruiters. The vast majority of recruiters are hard-working, honest, and trustworthy; tasked to do one of the most difficult jobs in the military.

However, military recruiting is a numbers game, pure and simple. Recruiter careers are made and broken based on whether or not they can meet their monthly quotas (called "goals" in the recruiting world). Keep in mind (depending on the service branch), most recruiters are non-volunteers. They never wanted the job in the first place, but -- once selected -- are told that the prospect of returning to their previous jobs after three or four years of recruiting duty with an unblemished service record depends primarily upon making their goals.

This unforgiving system of numbers have caused some recruiters (in my opinion a small percentage) to lie and cheat in order to "make their nut."