Saturday, April 25, 2009

Mission Reduction

I'm not sure how credible how this is, but the author is usually dead on. The Army has reduced its enlistment mission from 78,000 to 65,000. Needless to say the only reference to this is a mention in About.com. I doubt I'll be seeing that "Army recruiting felons" story this year. I'm kind of sad really. Those always made for a good read.

As SSG K had mentioned a while ago, since things are rough in the civilian world, the military, and the Army specifically, is flourishing as a result. People who has considered the Army their "last option" are finding that the option is saying "Thanks, but no thanks. I've got plenty of people more qualified than you looking to enlist." I don't envy the recruiters currently working in this environment at all. More power to them. Enjoy the mission success. With this reduction and the influx of qualified people, I do hope that recruiters and USAREC are taking the opportunity to focus on pushing people into the commissioned officer side of the house. While the enlistment and retention numbers are rocking I know that the Army Reserve, at least, is still hurting for junior officers. I do hope that the recruiting companies are taking advantage of these tough times to push those college-educated folks with a clean background and a qualifying ASVAB to do an OCS packet.