July 31, 2007:
The U.S. Army
is, so far, on target to reach its recruiting and retention goals for the
current fiscal year (which ends on September 30th). While new recruits are
important, and get most of the media attention, even more important is
retention. This is getting people already in to sign up for another few years.
These are experienced troops of proven ability. To help get those who are also
in crucial job specialties to stick around, bonuses of over $100,000 are
offered to some highly experienced Special Forces operators. But the more usual
max bonus is $35,000. These are being offered to people in categories like; Air
Defense, Armor, Aviation maintenance, Engineers, Field Artillery, Infantry,
Mechanical maintenance, Medical, Military intelligence, Military police,
Quartermaster (logistics), and Signal (communications). But the highest bonuses
are being offered to those in the infantry, psychological operations, civil
affairs, recruiting, explosive ordnance disposal, intelligence analysis,
imagery analysis, satellite communications ground station operator, human
intelligence collector and cryptologic communications interceptor (finds and
records encoded enemy messages).