“Hola, Don Dennis,” Rafael said. “How are you this morning?”
“It’s a beautiful day, Rafa,” I said. “When I met you last night you weren’t wearing a uniform. I didn’t know you are a soldier.”
“Ah, even us military kinds got to have days off. This week I am off work the whole week.”
Since I retired from playing music, Sherry and I have been doing some traveling. We were in Merida, Mexico when we met Rafa in a bar.
“What do you do in the military?” I asked.
“I am a recruiter,” Rafael answered. “I am the best recruiter in the whole Mexican army. That’s why they give me a whole week’s vacation.”
“What makes you so good?” I asked.
“It’s because I sell more of the extra insurance than any recruiter in the army. Soldiers get a little bit of free insurance for their family in case they get killed. The Mexican government offers another insurance policy that costs more. Ninety-nine percent of the people I recruit buy the expensive insurance.”
“What’s your secret?” I asked.
“Tomorrow I got a bunch of new recruits to sign in at the recruiting center. Come by and I’ll show you.”
At the recruiting center Rafa said, “O.K. men. The government has a free insurance policy that pays ten thousand pesos to a soldier who gets killed in action. They got another that pays one hundred thousand pesos but it costs you fifty pesos a month.”
“Sergeant, why would we want to buy the expensive insurance?” someone asked.
“Men, if you have the normal insurance and you get killed in the drug cartel wars the government has to pay your family ten thousand pesos. If you got the best insurance the government has to pay ten times that much. Now, which of this bunch do you think they gonna send to fight the cartels?”
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