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By Charles Davis

April 27, 2014 | 1:45 pm

This article originally appeared on VICE.

The calls started when I was a junior in high school — always in the evening, always after The Simpsons and always with an older gentleman on the other end of the line.

“Charles, there's someone who wants to speak you,” my mother would yell from the kitchen.

She showed no concern as she handed me the phone, no alarm in her eyes over all the calls she was getting from strange middle-aged men looking to chat up her vulnerable teenage son.

That's because these creepers called themselves “colonels” and “sergeants,” which lent authority to their predation. These men were military recruiters — and the bed they wanted to get me in was housed in some barracks.

A report from 2004: This publication seeks to better understand the realities facing boys and girls who “volunteer” for participation in armed conflict, highlighting personal, socio-economic and political factors that motivate their decisions to participate. It is based on in-depth interviews with young soldiers and ex-soldiers from around the world, including the conflict situations in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Congo, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

Source: Quaker United Nations Office

A record number of Japanese flocked to a trade show for military paraphernalia and gaming that attracted recruiters for the country’s Self-Defense Forces, the latest sign Japan is shaking off its postwar pacifism.

About 4,000 people, including a growing number of women, attended the March 30 “Victory Show” and related “ASGK Festival” in Tokyo to shop for military uniforms and model weapons, take target practice with air guns and show off their prowess at the World of Tanks video game. That’s the largest crowd since the now-quarterly event started in 1981, when it drew about 80 people, organizers said.

“About 10 times more people come to our booth here than at ordinary venues,” said Nobuaki Sato, one of four SDF members from the northern prefecture of Iwate staffing the recruitment stall. “You can feel the interest.”

Photo: Samantha Swindler/The Oregonian

Members of the U.S. Marine Corps have visited Gaston Jr/Sr High School three times this year, but only one of those visits was considered to be for recruiting.

For two separate days in May, Marines volunteered on a school cleanup day and to run P.E. classes for high school students. During the classes, of which some opted out of participating, students went around to stations and did typical P.E. activities such as running and hitting a ball. Students also did group exercises such as dragging a peer on the ground or carrying a classmate over their shoulder. 

Those military style group exercises sparked concern from some community members.