HGRazorR
03-03-2009, 12:46 PM
Today the House Armed Services Committee held a meeting to discuss military recruiting, retention, and end strength.
One of the the interesting points made discussing recruiting and the high rate of suicides by the Army reps. The USAR and USARNG along with the Active Duty are discussing completely removing the active component from having to do recruiting, but instead filling in those positions with Active Guard/Reserve personnel to do the recruiting for both the Active Duty and the Reserve components.
Point being, Guard and Reserves can stay in their hometown where they have a local connection and a strong base of support while they recruit there, rather than taking an active component guy and throwing him out there on his own in a place unknown to him.
This is also to curtail the suicide rate, where active duty guys come back from deployment and then are taken away from their unit and sent out to a recruiting depot without that strong level of support that he could have if he had stayed with his unit after his deployment.
A pilot program is going to be started up soon.
Thoughts? I think there's some sense to it, but I can see this not really helping the Active Component simply because how is a Guard/Reserve guy supposed to be able to articulate the active duty experience, culture, etc., which is in some respects much different than that of active duty. Granted a substantial number of Guard and Reserves come from active duty, is this going to be made a requirement for these recruiters?
On another note, there was some encouragement that the Army start thinking outside the box of how to incorporate Reserve Officers. The Marine Corps method was hinted at where officers serve on active duty before moving into the reserves.
One of the the interesting points made discussing recruiting and the high rate of suicides by the Army reps. The USAR and USARNG along with the Active Duty are discussing completely removing the active component from having to do recruiting, but instead filling in those positions with Active Guard/Reserve personnel to do the recruiting for both the Active Duty and the Reserve components.
Point being, Guard and Reserves can stay in their hometown where they have a local connection and a strong base of support while they recruit there, rather than taking an active component guy and throwing him out there on his own in a place unknown to him.
This is also to curtail the suicide rate, where active duty guys come back from deployment and then are taken away from their unit and sent out to a recruiting depot without that strong level of support that he could have if he had stayed with his unit after his deployment.
A pilot program is going to be started up soon.
Thoughts? I think there's some sense to it, but I can see this not really helping the Active Component simply because how is a Guard/Reserve guy supposed to be able to articulate the active duty experience, culture, etc., which is in some respects much different than that of active duty. Granted a substantial number of Guard and Reserves come from active duty, is this going to be made a requirement for these recruiters?
On another note, there was some encouragement that the Army start thinking outside the box of how to incorporate Reserve Officers. The Marine Corps method was hinted at where officers serve on active duty before moving into the reserves.