CORAOPOLIS, Pa. – Increasing numbers of soldiers are deciding not to join the Army National Guard after they leave active duty, a trend so troubling that the Guard is hiring 1,400 more recruiters to reverse it.
The Guard’s new recruiters – plus its 2,700 already on the job – will primarily target high school students and those in their 20s.
For the 2004 fiscal year, the Guard expected 7,100 soldiers to sign up after active duty tours. Instead, only 2,900 did – not even half of the goal. As a result, what’s supposed to be a 350,000-member organization had 342,918 soldiers when the year ended on Sept. 30.
“If a soldier is near the end of their term of service and looking to stabilize their life, they know the likelihood is they’re going to be deployed if they join the Guard,” said Lt. Col. Mike Milord, spokesman for the National Guard headquarters in Arlington, Va.
In Pennsylvania, recruiters are enlisting just 200 of the 300 soldiers statewide they must sign up every month to keep the Pennsylvania Army National Guard up to 16,000 soldiers. Right now, according to spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver, it has 14,982.
The National Guard is similar to the reserves in that soldiers sign up for part-time duty. While reserve troops are always under the president’s command, each state’s Guard troops answer to the governor unless they are called to active duty.
What’s changed the face of the Guard is the increased likelihood of active duty deployment since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Recruiting younger civilians continues to be a challenge, though officials say those numbers are holding steady and should grow because the new recruiters will be targeting them.
The Guard used to sell recruits on the idea of spending just one weekend a month, plus two weeks in the summer, in uniform.
“On average, right now, its 100 days a year,” said Cleaver, noting that the average is skewed by some 4,500 Pennsylvania Guard troops in Iraq. “If you sign up, we are probably going to need you to go (to Iraq), or at least be in an environment where you’re going to be needed more often.”
“This is not your father’s National Guard. The big joke used to be, ‘It’s one weekend off a month,’” Clever said.
But while the war in Iraq may be chasing former soldiers away, recruiter Sgt. 1st Class William Merriman said many younger recruits welcome their almost certain deployment.
Pvt. Frank Kelly, 22, was married with a 1-year-old daughter and new house when he signed up in April. He will probably ship out to Iraq with the 128th Forward Support Battalion by February.
“I didn’t want nobody else fighting for my family, and I wanted to fight for my country,” Kelly said. He likes the service so much he may enlist full-time when he returns home.
“Basic training, they could have pushed you harder. It wasn’t (tough) like it is in the movies,” Kelly said. “I joined to get pushed to the limit, and my limits weren’t pushed yet.”
“When he walked in the door, I didn’t have to do any sell on him at all,” Merriman said. “If they were all like him, I’d have the easiest job in the world.”
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