Wow !!! - Recruitment Must Be Getting Really Tough !!! - $45,000 Bonuses Possible !!!

[WillyT]

<snip>

WASHINGTON - Need a down payment for your home? Seed money to start a business? The Army wants to help — if you’re willing to join up.

Despite spending nearly $1 billion last year on recruiting bonuses and ads, Army leaders say an even bolder approach is needed to fill wartime ranks.

Under a new proposal, men and women who enlist could pick from a “buffet” of incentives, including up to $45,000 tax-free that they accrue during their career to help buy a home or build a business. Other options would include money for college and to pay off student loans.

An Associated Press review of the increasingly aggressive recruiting offerings found the Army is not only dangling more sign-up rewards — it’s loosening rules on age and weight limits, education and drug and criminal records.

It’s all part of an Army effort to fill its ranks even as the percentage of young people who say they plan to join the military has hit a historic low — 16 percent by the Pentagon’s own surveying — in the fifth year of the Iraq war.

<snip>

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20205033/

Ho_Lee_Crap !!!

:shrug:

[fed-up]

1. the recruiter that called a few days ago for my son and that I wasted a good 30 min of his time

said that since jobs were so hard to find in Chico and surrounding areas, that maybe if my son enlisted he would be financially secure.

I said if our dear Pres hadn't wasted $1-2 TRILLION on this illegal war, there would have been plenty of money for our government to invest at home and help provide jobs for our youth. Heck, maybe if they invested in alternative energy then * wouldn't have an excuse for this bloodbath.

I have decided that I may start looking up recruiter's phone numbers and calling them, because as long as they are on the phone with me they can't talk some poor teenager into signing up.....

[Yukari Yakumo]

2. Bonuses? *snicker*

They don't give you bonuses. They creatively call it "Incentive Pay". The difference is bonuses would be tax exempt, Incentive Pay is not.

[eweaver155]

3. Blood money