Sergeant First Class Clay Usie (left) in "The Recruiter."

The Iraq war years have often been a brutal challenge in the field, but also at home, where U.S. military recruiters have struggled to fill the ranks when young Americans know that if they sign up they are almost certain to go to war.

In shopping malls and school halls and family kitchens, recruiters go to incredible lengths to meet their quotas for a military gasping for fresh troops.

A new HBO documentary gets inside the lives and hard sell of recruiters and recruits in a small southern town. It is intense in there.

This hour, On Point: Dreams, despair, patriotism and raw battlefront need.

-Tom Ashbrook

* * *

Guests:

Edet Belzberg, documentary filmmaker, she’s the director of HBO’s “The Recruiter.”

Sgt. 1st Class Clay Usie, U.S. Army, former Army recruiter and subject of the documentary.

Cpl. Matthew Marks, U.S. Army, a recruit featured in the film, he’s now an Army recruiter himself.

September 16, Nisour Square, Baghdad. Heavily-armed guards from Blackwater USA, on the job, opened fire, and left seventeen dead: men, women, and children.

In the weeks since, the world has opened fire on Blackwater, and the exploding, multi-billion dollar realm of super-charged private armies that it represents. The “mercenary industry” is the new tag. Gunfire, and much more, for hire.

Critics say those muscle-bound men in the wrap-around sunglasses are a threat far beyond Baghdad, and to more than kids in cars.

This hour, On Point: investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill on what Blackwater means.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guest:

Jeremy Scahill, author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” He is a correspondent for Democracy Now, a national daily news program, and contributor to The Nation magazine.