Army National Guard focuses recruiting efforts on nonmilitary

The Army National Guard is refocusing and overhauling its recruiting efforts after falling short of its enlistment goals for the first time in a decade.

Guard officials had set a target of 56,000 recruits for fiscal 2004, but will probably sign up 51,000 when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The shortfall was attributed mainly to stop-loss orders that have been implemented in the regular Army. Those orders prevent some soldiers from leaving the service, even after their initial commitment ends. The National Guard typically recruits a large number of their members from the ranks of departing active-duty personnel.

"The shortfall is primarily due to the active-duty transition from the active-duty army," said Scott Woodham, a National Guard spokesman. "There are 5,000 that we would have potentially gotten if it hadn't been for stop-loss."

Recruiting officials have decided to shift their strategy and now focus more on civilians with no military experience and service members who left the Defense Department years before.

Lt. Col. Mike Jones, deputy division chief of National Guard Recruiting and Retention, said the deficit represents "one of the challenges of recruiting in a wartime environment with a peacetime strategy," but personnel officials "are going to focus more of our attention on nonprior service individuals."

Jones said three key initiatives are planned to help maintain personnel levels. The National Guard is looking to hire between 500 and 1,000 new recruiters, boost retention levels and jump-start its advertising campaign. Personnel officials are also looking to increase financial incentives and educational assistance bonuses for recruits. Some of these efforts will require congressional approval.

"A great deal of it does depend upon congressional action. Part of the advertising campaign has some incentives, some bonuses that we do not have authority on, but we are seeking that authority," Jones said. "Our bonuses are very restrictive as to the amount we can offer. We asked for that to be increased."

The news was not all bad, he added, noting that the National Guard has recruited more than 50,000 people during fiscal 2005, "three years into a hot war." Jones said current retention levels, factoring out the effect of stop-loss orders, still exceeded initial target levels.

He also promised that when recruiters and advertising campaigns reach out to nonmilitary recruits, they would not sugarcoat the Guard experience. He promised what he termed a "very honest, very frank portrayal."

"It is a ready force," Jones said. "It's not working at your local convenience mart, this is a difficult, challenging job."