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thedrifter
11-22-05, 12:43 PM
Reserve offering more, bigger bonuses
By John Hoellwarth
Times staff writer

The Marine Corps Reserve may as well hang a “now hiring” sign on its door, based on four Corpswide messages released in early November.

Officials said the enticements aren’t the result of retention concerns. Rather, the incentives for new officer and enlisted applicants offer the promise of a more robust force of junior Marines, they said.

Although three of the messages announced the continuation of ongoing programs to bring enlisted troops into the Reserve, one of those three marked the debut of an increased cash incentive for enlistees. The fourth was aimed at potential junior officers.

The Corps is willing to drop $10,000 apiece on civilians who sign up for a six-year enlisted stint in the Reserve in any military occupational specialty, according to MarAdmin message 525/05.

Half of the bonus will be disbursed in a lump-sum payment at the conclusion of the applicant’s basic and job-specific training. The rest will be doled out in six anniversary payments of $833.34. The bonus is $2,000 more than it was for fiscal 2005, said Maj. Francis Piccoli, a spokesman for Reserve Affairs.

Oct. 1 also marked the Corps’ adoption of the National Call to Service program for officer candidates. Corps officials hope the congressionally authorized program, which so far has solicited only two-year, active-duty enlistments, will now encourage officer applicants and bolster the Reserve’s junior officer ranks.

“Legislation authorizes enlisted and officers. We’ve done enlisted, and now we’re announcing the officers. We’ve got plenty of officers, but we don’t quite have the inventory we want,” said Capt. Joe Schumacher, a Reserve manpower planner with Reserve Affairs. “Every officer we have in the reserves comes from the active forces. We don’t have any lieutenants.”

The Reserve does have a handful of senior first lieutenants and two second lieutenants, both of whom are prior-enlisted Marines at The Basic School at Quantico, Va., Schumacher said.

But the National Call to Service program will increase this number by requiring new accessions to complete only 15 months of active duty after their initial entry-level training before beginning their two-year commitment as a drilling Reserve lieutenant, according to MarAdmin 522/05.

As an additional incentive, the program also allows applicants to choose a $5,000 lump-sum signing bonus or to opt to have the government pay off up to $18,000 of student loans.

Two other messages that came out in early November announced the renewal of Reserve incentives for prior-service Marines and illustrated the other half of the Corps’ push toward selling Reserve affiliation to both experienced leathernecks and raw Marine hopefuls.

The Reserve is targeting Marines who leave active duty after a single enlistment by offering lance corporals and corporals an automatic promotion, provided their new Reserve unit has an opening for a Marine with their MOS in the next higher grade, according to MarAdmin 495/05.

Officers who leave active duty after four years are being offered $6,000 to affiliate with the Reserve for three years in any MOS, according to MarAdmin 528/05.

“It’s kind of like a welcome-aboard bonus,” Schumacher said.