Guard would give bonuses to bolster ranks

[rainbow4321]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NATIONAL_GUARD?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT



WASHINGTON (AP) -- Looking for new ways to bolster its thinning ranks, the Army National Guard is seeking legal authority to offer $15,000 bonuses to active-duty soldiers willing to join the Guard - up from $50 now.

Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters Tuesday that the Guard is 15,000 soldiers below its normal strength of 350,000, and he expects further short-term declines despite recent gains from tripling re-enlistment bonuses for Guardsmen deployed abroad.

Blum offered two main reasons the Guard has found it harder to get active-duty soldiers to switch to the Guard. Many are prevented from leaving the active Army even after their contracts are up or their retirement dates have arrived because the Army invoked a special authority known as "stop loss" that freezes soldiers in place for months at a time. Also, those who can leave active duty are sometimes less interested in joining the Guard if they believe that their prospective Guard unit is in line for a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.


"I did not envision being in Iraq in 2005 with 44 percent of the (total Army) combat forces," he said. "That was not in my wildest scenario on the crystal ball that I was looking at."

[Cornjob]

1. Gonna take a lot more than $15k per signup!!!

More like $250,000!

[Scooter24]

2. $50?!?!

My god...Why did they even have a bonus if it was only $50? That figure is laughable considering all the hard work they do, not to mention the danger our Guard is exposed to both domestically and internationally.

Given what we know today however, $15,000 isn't going to look so hot when they consider the realties of accepting it.

[rainbow4321]

7. You could earn that in a garage sale...

and not be DEAD afterwards.

[Massacure]

3. If they get 100,000 people, that will cost them 15 billion dollars.

[MrSlayer]

4. Yeah but then Guard members do not get paid full pay or full benefits.

Most of the recruiting commercials I see are for the guard, because they don't have to compensate them as well as they do regular soldiers, plus they can keep them indefinitely. An insidious plan.

[Magleetis]

5. This is what shrub

had in his mind when he said no draft at the debates. The neocons think they can buy their way out of this problem. I've been waiting for this. So a human life is worth a max of 15k to them.

[rainbow4321]

6. More bribery....

I posted this a few days ago but given this most recent article I thought it adds to the explanation that shrub is getting desperate and will throw lots of "deals" out there to bribe people into joining:



http://www.kotv.com/main/home/stories.asp?whichpage=1&id=76447

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The Oklahoma Army National Guard is increasing incentives in an effort to get more recruits and to get more current soldiers to re-enlist.

New recruits will get a bonus of $6,000 or $10,000, depending on their field of practice. Officials say a drop in recruits is the reason for the incentives. Lieutenant Colonel Greg Davis says the state is about 350 soldiers below the required level.

He says the Guard has 6,785 soldiers and needs about 7,150 by the end of the fiscal year.

The Guard also offers 100% tuition assistance for its members attending state-supported colleges or technical institutes and a student loan program.

[tanyev]

8. $15K won't last very long if you

come back with an arm and a leg blown off and you can't find a job because all of the programs to help the disabled have been cut.