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Cobra's followers are primarily made up of the desperate and disillusioned masses.  Cobra recruits heavily from areas where crime, unemployment, and poverty are rife.  Cobra's most successful recruiters are often fronting as probation officers, unemployment office clerks, and welfare representatives.  When a potential Cobra recruit is found, they are instructed to apply for a job at specific business in the area.  These businesses are owned by Extensive Enterprises and are normally fronting as a legitimate business.  The recruit is subjected to a mock interview for a fake position within the company.  The purpose of the interview is to gather the necessary information to conduct a background check (Name, Address, Social Security Number, etc.)  Once a background check has been conducted and it is determined that the applicant is not an agent of the government or law enforcement, the applicant is then asked back for a second interview.  It is then that they are taken to a hidden room and given an offer to work for Cobra.

Cobra's employment offer on the surface is simple enough.  According to the contract, the applicant agrees to become a member of Cobra, which the contract describes as a secret organized global militia.  Under the contract, the applicant denounces their loyalty to their mother country and agrees to give all loyalty and faithfullness to Cobra (Later contracts were revised to include citizenship once Cobra Island became a sovereign nation.)  The service to be rendered by the applicant was to similar to, though definately not limited to, standard military service.  In return, Cobra agreed to pay the applicant a salary that was generally 30% better than what the US Military normally paid.

However, it should be noted that the employment contract included 10 pages of small-print legal mumbu-jumbo which few applicants ever read.  In fact, if the recruiters did their job and hustled applicants through the document to the signature page, no applicants should have read it.  Because if they did, they might realize that they were actually signing over their full identities to Cobra.  Once a member of Cobra, an enlisted soldier effectively became the property of Cobra.  Cobra could change their name, address, issue death certificates, or even reinsert a new person back into their country of origin under someone else's identity (a method often used by the Crimson Guard).  And then there were the unwritten rules which didn't officially appear in their contract but new members of Cobra soon learned, such as a soldier's family can face punishment for any transgression made by the soldier himself.

Once an applicant signs the contract, they are told to return to their homes and prepare for their departure within 24 hours.  The following day, the new recruit is picked up and transported to a "Filtering Station".  At the Filtering Station the recruits are inspected and briefed by a Cobra Official (usually a Cobra Officer, though Crimson Guardsmen have been known to make appearances at Filtering Stations if they happen to be active in the nearby area.)  There the applicants are subjected to a test. The Test varies from station to station but generally includes a test of physical stamina as well as determining how savy and cut-throat the recruits are when placed in a "dog eat dog" scenario.  It is not uncommon for one or more recruits to die or be killed during The Test.  Once the weak have been filtered out of the group, the remaining recruits are shipped off to a Cobra Base to start their training in Cobra's form of Boot Camp.