COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch
Patriotism dwindling, Army turns to cash in search of recruits
Jason Rhyne, The Raw Story
December 3, 2007
For enterprising young people hoping to pay down their mortgages or
start up a business, they can talk to their banks -- or they can try
their local Army recruiter.
Starting in January, five US cities will serve as test markets for
the Army Advantage Program, a new recruitment incentive package which
will dole out $40,000 to enlistees willing to fulfill a five-year
commitment in the service, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer's
Patrick O'Donnell. The money must be applied to mortgages or used to
benefit a registered business. Lower-dollar amounts will be offered
for shorter stints.
"The old patriotic reasons aren't quite pulling in recruits for the
Army as well as they used to. So the Army is adding a new financial
incentive to the college tuition benefits and bonuses it already
offers," writes O'Donnell. Cleveland joins Albany, NY; Montgomery,
Ala; Seattle and San Antonio as the first to offer the incentive.
"The money is available to soldiers after they finish their
enlistment and they show proof to the Army that they are trying to
buy a house or have registered a business with their state,"
O'Donnell reports. "If the house purchase or business start-up does
not go through, they may keep the money."
A spokeswoman for the Army told the paper that the new program would
give the Army tools to compete with private sector opportunities
available to potential recruits.
"This is a very difficult time to recruit for an all-volunteer army,"
she said. "We have to compete with the other options that are out
there in the civilian world. This is a way of competing."
O'Donnell reports that one former local Army recruiter, David Hack,
was surprised by the new bonus -- but said he didn't think it would
be the deciding factor in whether young people decided to sign up.
"This is just icing on the cake," Hack told the paper. "The main
selling point for a young man or woman is duty...You can't pay a
person to put the uniform on. You can't pay him to run up the hill
and charge live ammo."
The program is just the latest in an array of Army efforts to boost
surging recruitment requirements. In August, the Army instituted a
"quick ship" bonus that offered $20,000 in cash to recruits willing
to begin their training within weeks of sign-up. According to the
Plain Dealer, such bonuses cannot be added to the mortgage/business
payout if a recruit is already receiving the $40,000 maximum amount.
In addition to bonuses and incentives, the Army has also recently
lowered their recruitment standards in a push to meet goals. As
reported last week by the Boston Globe, the Army has "accepted a
growing percentage of recruits who do not meet its own minimum
fitness standards. The October statistics show that at least 1 of
every 5 recruits required a waiver to join the service, leading
military analysts to conclude that the Army is lowering standards
more than it has in decades."
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