COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch
Private recruiting bolsters Guard ranks
Associated Press
July 16, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS -- A nationwide program run by a private contractor thatpays soldiers who recruit others to join the National Guard has paid
off for the Minnesota National Guard.
Only 13 states have attracted more recruits than Minnesota through
the program, which pays a $2,000 commission for each recruit signed
up by Guard soldiers working as part-time recruiting assistants for
Docupak, an Alabama-based contractor that runs the program for the Pentagon.
Since the Minnesota Guard joined the program in February 2006,
members of the state National Guard have enlisted 915 Minnesotans
through the program.
The program was launched in 2005 and has helped the National Guard
restore troop strengths around the country. There are 105,000
part-time recruiting assistants signed up by Docupak nationwide,
including nearly 2,200 in Minnesota.
The Minnesota part-time recruiters have collected about $1.8 million
in bonuses.
"We've had great success just within this year," said Lt. Col. Ron
Walls, of the recruiting and retention division at the National Guard
Bureau in Arlington, Va.
He said many Guard members working as part-time recruiters are more
effective than full-time recruiters because they're only a few years
older than the prospective recruits.
"They are very easy to identify with and relate to, and there's a
trust factor associated with that," Walls said.
Minnesota National Guard Maj. Steve Burggraff noted the part-time
recruiters don't work for the state Guard itself, and he minimized
the importance of the bonus program.
The state Guard, he said, might have recruited as many people without
giving the incentives to its members to find them.
"In Minnesota, has it been a waste of money? No, because it ... is
another avenue for us to get those leads," he said. "Are we getting
any more enlistments because of the program? Not necessarily. "
Ron Krebs, an assistant professor of political science at the
University of Minnesota who has followed military issues, said that
despite his initial concerns about the bonus system, he has concluded
it's no worse than traditional recruiting.
For instance, unlike full-time recruiters, the part-timers serving in
the Guard may end up serving with the person they recruited.
"If you've misrepresented what it is they are going to be doing, and
they have a gun and they're standing next to you ... not a
comfortable situation," he said.
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