Army meeting its recruiting goals

It looks as though the fact that our soldiers are busy fighting the least bloody war in American history isn't dissuading new recruits from joining the Army, which is exceeding its recruiting goals. Added sign-on bonuses are definitely helping, but critics are predictably complaining about them. I don’t see why it is so difficult for some to believe that making the Army financially tenable for more individuals would allow more to join. The current financial structure, where soldiers start out making less than $20,000 a year, makes it impossible for many who have made financial commitments to their families to afford to join up. Adding a signing bonus isn’t bribing these individuals; it’s giving them an opportunity to join up when they wouldn’t have been able to do so before.

Army Signing Bonuses Bring in Recruits
CBS News

New York - Twenty-nine-year-old Joan Marte thinks that now is the right time to join the army.

"I get to travel, basic training sounds like fun," he says.

Yemin Ko, 24, who describes himself as a patriot, is also signing up.

"I wanted to do something important," he says.

The Army needs them both to meet its enlistment goals for this year.

It surpassed its July recruitment targets by more than 200 new soldiers, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports, by adding recruiters — and with an unprecedented incentive: $20,000 signing bonus given to soldiers willing to ship out to basic training within a month.

"The intent of the bonus is to get folks to ship quickly so they can attend basic training and we can meet the end strength the army is required to have," says Lt. Col. Joseph Feliciano.

In New York, recruitment commanders say they're already seeing better numbers this month since the signing bonuses were put on the table. And the army hopes to pump up those numbers by September 30th, the end of the fiscal year.

"Is this what we really want? To bribe people to get them to go and fight an unpopular war?" says Larry Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration. Korb, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says the new policy will be bad for the army.

"They've already lowered the standards. Last year, when they did meet their recruiting goals, they had lowered the educational and aptitude standards," says Korb.