Father Robert Andersson
"They were working the crap out of him," his dad says. "I'd get calls from him at 9:30 at night 11:30 in Houston — and he'd say he was just leaving the recruiting office and starting on his 40-minute drive home."

Disbelief
"For the two years he was in Iraq," Robert says, "I'd turn down the street and be terrified there'd be a car with a set of government plates on it when I got home telling me that he'd been killed. Suicide was the last scenario I'd ever come up with."

Never Forgotten
In the week before his suicide, Andersson was ordered to write three separate essays explaining his failure to line up a prospective recruit. ...

Father Robert Andersson
"They were working the crap out of him," his dad says. "I'd get calls from him at 9:30 at night 11:30 in Houston — and he'd say he was just leaving the recruiting office and starting on his 40-minute drive home."

Disbelief
"For the two years he was in Iraq," Robert says, "I'd turn down the street and be terrified there'd be a car with a set of government plates on it when I got home telling me that he'd been killed. Suicide was the last scenario I'd ever come up with."

Never Forgotten
In the week before his suicide, Andersson was ordered to write three separate essays explaining his failure to line up a prospective recruit. On March 5, 2007, after arguing with his new wife, he killed himself with a gun.

Patches
Like all recruiters, Andersson trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and joined the recruiting force in 2005.

Same Battalion, Another Case
Nils Aron Andersson served two tours in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne. Awarded the Bronze Star for helping some buddies pinned down in a firefight, Andersson, photographed above with his mother Charlotte Porter, also worked in the Houston area as a recruiter.

Tough Job
Responsibility for providing troop replacements has fallen to non-commissioned officers who have chosen to make recruiting their career in the U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC). They, in turn, put pressure on front-line recruiters, many of whom themselves are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.