COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch
New Future Soldier program pays high schoolers who sign up early
Ashley Meeks, Las Cruces Sun-News
November 19, 2007
LAS CRUCES - Mark Guthrie and Miranda Lenderman were just starting
sixth grade when they witnessed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
They're the kind of contemplative young adults who said they've
always known they would end up in the Army. Now 18 and 17,
respectively, the Mayfield High School seniors are among 10 Las
Cruces high school seniors who have signed up for an Army incentive
program so new it doesn't even have pamphlets or promotional material.
The Future Soldier Training Program, announced by national recruiting
headquarters Oct. 26, allows high school juniors and seniors to earn
$1,000 a month, plus $1,000 for earning a diploma, for joining the
Army after they graduate. It's hoped that the new program helps - the
Army exceeded its recruiting goal of 80,000 by just 400 recruits this
last year.
"Future Soldiers" don't get the money for doing nothing - it's paid
after they take the oath of enlistment, as are bonuses from $6,000 to
$40,000 for occupational specialties and bonuses for referring others
to enlist.
Sgt. Michael Miranda is the station commander at Las Cruces' Army
recruiting center with almost 14 years in the Army, including a
deployment with combat support in Saudi Arabia after the 2001 attacks.
He started out in Corpus Christi, Texas, as a referral, and one with
a much more vague plan of where he wanted his life to go.
"I really didn't know what I wanted to do," Miranda said. "And I had
friends who were like, "Let's just hang out forever.'"
But he couldn't picture himself stuck in small-town Texas forever -
and he's grateful he made the decision he did, for reasons that go
far beyond the incentives, which, including the GI Bill and the Army
College Fund, can come out to around $73,000 in incentives per recruit.
"That's money in the bank," Guthrie said.
And for Future Soldier recruits, it's training in the bank, too. They
meet monthly to learn how to read maps and paint camouflage, compete
in relay races and physical fitness tests. By the time they take
their oaths, they've got a higher rank and pay grade than if they had
made the decision on the spur of the moment.
But the two Mayfield students say they've known for years that they
would join the Army, even end up in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"It's a chance you've got to take," said Lenderman, who plans to work
in the medical field in the Army and eventually earn a nursing license.
Guthrie plans to pursue aeronautical engineering in college after
doing intel work in the Army as a signals collector or analyst.
He came from a military family, his grandfather a veteran of the
Korean War whose tales were unfailingly negative; she will be the
first in her family to join. The reactions from their families have
been wildly different as well.
"They're proud," Lenderman said. "Not many kids do what we're doing."
Even her worried female cousins and childhood friends, people who
have shed tears over her decision, say they admire the decision they
say they could never make, she said.
But Guthrie's journey has made him more independent, he said, and not
all in a positive way.
"One uncle's not talked to me since I've joined," he said, and male
friends of his have said they could never join the military during a
time of war. "Some people tell you that you're dumb, you're going to get shot."
With support from the Army community, those reactions don't faze
them, they say.
"If I could, I'd leave right now," Guthrie said. "Ever since
September 11, seeing that my country was hurt like that pushed me.
I've got too much adrenaline in me."
As for that bonus money? The typical teen would probably be
salivating to spend it on a new car or stereo system. But Guthrie and
Lenderman are both planning on putting into savings and investments.
Their decisions, they say, weren't made because of questions of war
or peace or bonuses.
"I would do it anyway," Lenderman said.
"One, it's one of the biggest honors," Guthrie explained. "Two,
someone's got to do it."
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