COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: General
Army Meets Yearly Recruiting Goal
Associated Press
September 22, 2006
WASHINGTON
- The Army is ending its best recruiting year since 1997 and expecting
similar success in 2007, despite the weight of grim war news from Iraq,
Army Secretary Francis Harvey said.
In an Associated Press interview Thursday, Harvey said the Army will
enlist its 80,000th Soldier on Friday, reaching its goal for the year
with eight days to spare. That is a considerable turnaround from last
year when the Army missed its target for the first time since 1999 and
by the widest margin in more than two decades.
At the start of this recruiting year, which began Oct. 1, 2005, many
questioned whether the Army would reach 80,000, given the many
alternative career options available to young people and the growing
unpopularity of the Iraq war. But a package of new financial
incentives, new recruiting approaches and a bigger recruiting corps did
the trick.
Army recruiters are making more use of the Internet to attract young
prospects, and the Army this year began allowing people as old as 42 to
enter the service; the maximum age previously was 35.
The Army also has accepted a larger number of recruits whose score on a
standardized aptitude test is at the lower end of the acceptable range,
and it has granted waivers to permit the enlistment of people with
criminal records that otherwise would disqualify them. The Army says it
does not grant waivers if there is a pattern of criminal misconduct or
for convictions of drug trafficking or any sexually violent crimes.
Harvey said the Army would stick with the formula it used over the past
12 months, while adding a few new wrinkles for recruiters.
He described himself as "moderately optimistic" about reaching the
80,000 goal again next year. It is too early to know the final number
for the current recruiting year, which ends Sept. 30, but Harvey said
it would be the highest in nine years. Last year the Army fell short of
its goal by the widest margin since 1979.
Harvey was flying to New York to personally enlist on Friday the
80,000th recruit - Shirley Salvi, 23, a Rutgers University graduate who
will report to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, to become an Army linguist
or intelligence analyst.
The trend in recruiting is particularly important for the Army now
because it is striving to expand its overall ranks. The expansion is
fundamental to an Army plan that increases the number of combat
brigades available for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby giving
Soldiers more breathing room between overseas tours.
The Army secretary said combat brigades now get, on average, only 14
months at home for every 12 months at war. The goal is 24 months at
home for every 12 months at war, but Harvey said they currently are
moving in the wrong direction. Not long ago, combat brigades were
getting 18 months between war tours.
By the end of the budget year on Sept. 30, the active-duty Army expects
to have a total of nearly 504,000 Soldiers, up from 492,000 a year ago.
A year from now it hopes to reach its goal of 512,000, but that will
not happen if recruiting slips again. Harvey indicated he expects
recruiting to remain strong in the coming year.
"We're sticking with all the improvements we made" over the past year,
including a beefed up recruiting corps, Harvey said. "If we start
seeing trends that we don't like, we may" add even more recruiters, he
said.
There are now about 6,600 recruiters for the active-duty Army, up from
6,401 a year ago and 5,119 two years ago. The Army National Guard and
Army Reserve also have greatly increased their recruiting corps.
The outlook for 2007 is brightened a bit by the fact that the Army
expects to begin the new recruiting year with about 14 percent of the
target number of 80,000 already signed up. Many who signed up this
month, for example, did so with the understanding they will not begin
basic training for several weeks or months. The Army began the 2006
recruiting year with about 12 percent of the year's total already
signed up.v
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