The Army Announces New Enlistment Bonuses

The Army is looking for a few good men and women, at least 34,000 to be exact. And in order to reach their goal, they are offering new bonuses for those who sign up by the end of this fiscal year.

The U.S. Army Recruiting Command is offering a $20,000 "quick-ship" bonus. The recruits must not have any previous military experience, must enlist for a minimum of 2 year active service and must report for basic training no later than 30 days after they enlist. They must also enlist before Sept 30.

The Army fell short of its recruiting goals for June and that make it the second month in a row that they did not meet their goals. The Army has other recruiting incentives in place to help them meet their year end goals.

Among them are highlighting the two year enlistment program and the incentives that go along with it.

They are also going to establish a "super leads" program which will identify those who names they have on their leads list that are most likely to enlist without a recruiter , thus leaving the recruiters to work on those not likely to enlist.

They are setting a goal for each recruiter to write up six contracts before the end of September and four of the six joining before the end of the fiscal year in September.

Another focus is going to be on having soldiers who graduate from initial training to return to their hometown in the position of recruiter assistants Veterans who have completed their tour of duty overseas will serve as special recruiter assistants. They will tell their own personal army experiences in order to influence prospective recruits to sign up.

There will also be a new focus on the $2,000 referral bonus program

Also, up to 1,000 former recruiters who were very successful, are going to be asked to return temporally to give the existing recruiters a boost

Officers are going to be asked to help by making speeches in their home towns and in schools and colleges.

Even though the Army did fall short of its goals, 70,000 recruits did join the Army this year and there is a record number of re enlistments But only 16 percent of today youth have any inclination to join the Army, however they are very confident that not only will they meet their goals for the year, but next year as well.

Source; Department of Defense http://www.defenselink.mil/