The military proudly reports that they are currently meeting their recruiting goals.
Despite the death toll for American troops in Iraq, recruiting efforts seem to be on target, say national and regional military officials. Staff Sgt. Will Price, a Marine Corps public affairs representative in Jacksonville, said the Marines have been meeting their national annual recruitment goals of about 37,000 to 38,500 new recruits since 2001.
What the military is not proudly reporting, however, is their interesting new recruiting tactics for replenishing the reserves, which have been hit hard by repeated mobilization and extended tours of duties overseas.
Recruiting pitch called scare tactic
By Tim Jones and Michael Kilian
Chicago Tribune (registration required)
Published May 23, 2004
MariAnn Curta said she was "freaked out" during much of her son's recently completed nine-month tour of duty in Iraq, where he drove a fuel truck in the Sunni Triangle.
But when she got the call from a recruiter last weekend warning that her 22-year-old son, Bill, now on the Army's inactive reserve list, could be headed back to Iraq quickly unless he enlisted in the Illinois National Guard, her emotion changed from fear to rage. "It's devious, it's deceptive, it's dishonest, it's valueless," Curta said. "I can't believe they'd pull this kind of fast trick on kids who have already served."
As part of an aggressive effort to bolster the dwindling pool of available reservists, Army and National Guard recruiting units throughout the country have called thousands of inactive reservists in hopes of persuading them to re-enlist in the active reserves or join their local Guard units. If they don't, many recruiters warned, they could soon be headed to Iraq. The warnings come by telephone, and they have been concentrated in four areas: Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis and Louisiana. "It then spread through the country, with the exception of New England," said Army Reserve spokesman Steven Stromvall.
Stromvall said some National Guard recruiters heard about this and then began using similar tactics. [...] Army Reserve commanders decided to try to identify members of the Individual Ready Reserve by pay grade and military occupational specialty and contact them about voluntarily filling vacant slots in the Selective Reserve. For each of the past few weeks, about 1,000 or more inactive reservists nationwide have been moving to the active reserve, a much higher number than usual.
Lovely. Just lovely. Now we're resorting to terrifying and threatening our own soldiers and their families in order to get them to reinlist.
[Lt. Col. Bob Stone, an Army Reserve spokesman] said the Army Reserve has ordered a stop to intimidating retention methods and informed personnel of the proper procedures to follow in dealing with reservists. "It was a mistake," he said.
Well, one would hope so, yes.
Posted by iain at May 24, 2004 12:43 AM
