"What'll it take to get you in this uniform today?"

It's kind of nice to take a break from stories of ugly election campaigns and, of course, the infuriating blanket coverage of John Kerry's non-story. On the other hand, it'd be nice if the "break" from those stories was less unpleasant.

ABC News and New York affiliate WABC equipped students with hidden video cameras before they visited 10 Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

"Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?" one student asks a recruiter.

"No, we're bringing people back," he replies.

"We're not at war. War ended a long time ago," another recruiter says. (. . .)

During the ABC News sessions, some recruiters told our students if they enlisted, there would be little chance they'd to go Iraq.

But Col. Robert Manning, who is in charge of U.S. Army recruiting for the entire Northeast, said that new recruits were likely to go to Iraq.

Funny-yet-sad low point:

"It's hard to believe some of things they are telling prospective applicants," Manning said. "I still believe that this is the exception more than the norm. … I've visited many stations myself, and I know that we have many wonderful Americans serving in uniform as recruiters."