---shades of rumored medical draft...:scared:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8143733/Coolness under pressure and his experience with gun and knife wounds makes the 34-year-old the perfect candidate for another job, one the Army and Marine Corps are more and more desperate to fill these days. A few months ago, Wheat and several of his colleagues here were approached by a Navy recruiter who promised a
“tax-free $120,000 bonus” if they agreed to sign on as medical consultants with a Marine Corps unit in Iraq. Luring trained veterans like Ed Wheat back into the medical corps is a full-time headache for the military, which even in peace time is compelled to offer bonuses and perks that would compare with those available in the private sector.
These days, with conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the military attempting to add more than 40,000 new soldiers over the next few years, the challenge is more acute than ever.“What’s happening with our combat medics is not so much a recruiting problem as it is keeping up with the Army’s expansion,” says Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army’s surgeon general. “We’re standing up entirely new brigades, and that has added to requirements, so we’re having to hustle to continue to recruit highly qualified men and women who can make it through courses and get into the field.”
While media reports have focused on the problems the Army and Marine Corps are having with recruitment,
the retention of highly trained specialists is as serious, if not more so, for the long-term ability of the military to sustain operations around the globe. Kiley notes that some 36,000 medical staff – doctors, nurses, technicians — have deployed to southwest Asia from the Army alone in the past four years. That is not only time away from home, but in some cases an interruption of their training as internists or medical students.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
