Army missing recruitment goals

[Hawkmoon]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/army-recruiting-tech-industry-seattle.html

This is hardly a surprise, IMHO. But I wonder if they are going after plugging the gap in a constructive way.

Early in 2018, the 18-year-old daughter of a friend across town surprised her family by announcing that she had enlisted in the Army -- as Infantry! I'm fairly friendly with the father, and I've eaten dinner with the family a few times, but I don't know the young lady well at all. She's not a raving beauty but even my jaundiced eye would consider her "attractive," slender, shy and quiet. And not much on physical sports. The family was gobsmacked that she had enlisted, but she did it without consulting them. I tried to help prepare her mentally for Basic Training, but I made clear that a lot had undoubtedly changed since 1966.

Everyone did their best to be supportive, but it wasn't enough. Five weeks after she left, she was home. She washed out and was discharged. I think the official classification was "Unable to adapt."

Reading this article, seeing that the Army has an $11,000 bonus to sign up for Infantry, I think the recruiter dangled that in front of her and suckered her in. He may have gotten a bonus, too. The problem was, of course, that she wasn't a good fit for military life, and she definitely would not have been a good fit for the infantry. But I'm in an uber-liberal enclave in a generally liberal area of the country, so I'm sure the recruiters are sucking wind and looking for any way they can to get people to sign up.

If she had made the grade, though, she might have been a good soldier (probably never a good infantry grunt, though). She's reasonably intelligent, comes from a decent, church-going family, doesn't do drugs. By the numbers, the recruiters would seem to have better success looking at the inner city high schools. The problem there, of course, is that most of the inner city kids (whether or not they're heading for college) are probably using drugs and are probably members of a gang.

I don't have a good answer to the problem.

[Jocassee]

I have a acquaintance, an SSG I believe, who is recruiting in Charlotte Mecklenburg area. According to him, the middle class white kids can't be tempted for the money (Charlotte is not the traditional Souf of yore) and the underprivileged youf are either too dumb or have priors.

Seems like a difficult job across the board...especially if you're honest.

[Scout26]

Yep, and it sucks to try to make mission each month.   This is always a problem when the economy is good.  When it's bad, making mission is easy.

It's shame about that young lady.  The recruiter tried to sell her on the "Adventure" as opposed to "Career Training".     But he probably had to make mission of filling an 11 series slot.

[Hawkmoon]

It's shame about that young lady.  The recruiter tried to sell her on the "Adventure" as opposed to "Career Training".     But he probably had to make mission of filling an 11 series slot.

That's the way I see it, too. It's unfortunate all around when forcing a square peg into a round hole constitutes "mission accomplished." Especially since that slot didn't get filled anyhoo.

[T.O.M.]

Out of curiosity,  when does a recruiter "earn" the credit for an enlistment?  When the ink is dry on the contract?  After the recruit completed basic, or graduated AIT (which would makes sense to me, especially for bonuses)?  If it was post Basic/AIT, it would seem to cut down on some of the square peg/round hole recruiting tactics.

[Scout26]

IIRC, all they have to do is ship, and it counts as making mission.

[RoadKingLarry]

Been a few years but when I signed up the recruiter either didn't get full credit till you graduated basic or if you got held back or dropped it counted against his current quota.

Little brother did a tour as a Navy recruiter on some kind of "home town" gig, it didn't end well. I don't remember all the details but it pretty well shanked his chance at a career and it wasn't because of any kind of misdeed on his part, his command was just seriously *expletive deleted*ed up.