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thedrifter
04-02-09, 08:54 AM
Bonuses to Drop as Corps Races to Target

April 01, 2009
by Bryan Mitchell

When it comes to growing the Marine Corps, it appears that more is less.

The Corps' rapid expansion to 202,000 active-duty Marines will have profound effects on financial incentives for both enlisted and officers.

"More stuff is going onto the chopping block," said Brig. Gen. Robert Milstead, the Corps' top recruiting officer, in a recent conversation with military bloggers.

"We had the college loan replacement program. We had a signing bonus for officers. There were some re-enlistment bonuses," Milstead explained. "My instinct tells me that this next year you are going to see fewer and fewer bonuses."

Aggressive recruiting and strong retention means the Corps plans to hit the 202K mark this summer -- two full years ahead of schedule. That also means the Corps needs less recruiters on the streets.

Milstead said the Corps will be recalling 134 of the roughly 600 additional recruiters brought in to increase the size of the Corps back into fleet duty.

Potentially more important to current Marines, Milstead predicted that increased competition for re-enlistment.

"Three years ago when we kicked this off, the guys fired out of the cannon and everybody went hauling ass. Now the aperture is closing down," he said. "Unfortunately, we are going to see good Marines not be able to re-enlist."

Milstead was less forthright in discussing how the Corps could eventually downsize. For now, 202,000 Marines helps the Corps meet its missions abroad and provide sufficient dwell time. But the financial reality is that 202,000 Marines might be untenable for the long-term.

No doubt the Corps will work hard through what Milstead dubbed "a controlled descent" to avoid the heartache caused by the drawdown the Marine Corps experienced in the early 1990s.

Despite the success in growing the size of the Corps, Milstead said the recruiting command still faces considerable challenges. Chief among them is the push to increase diversity.

In recent years, the Corps has had tremendous difficulty in recruiting blacks for both enlisted and officer positions.

Milstead boasted of bringing the number of black ascensions up to 10 percent of the Corps, but in recent years it had fallen to as low as 8 percent, which diminishes the odds of blacks becoming senior enlisted leaders five, ten and 20 years from now.

To put these numbers in perspective, blacks represented 25 percent of Marine Corps recruits in 1979.

The numbers are even more troubling for the officer Corps, where blacks represented less than five percent of second lieutenants in 2007. In 1998, by comparison, roughly 10 percent of new officers were black.

Milstead said the Corps has launched an advertising campaign focused on minority recruiting.

During February's Black History Month, the service ran a series of commercials highlighting the accomplishments of two of the Corps's most successful black officers as well as a commercial focusing on Montford Point, where the first black Marines were trained for service in World War II.

Lt. Gen. Frank Peterson served as the first black pilot while retired Maj. Gen. Charles Borden Jr., used his career in the Corps to launch him into space.

Many attribute the unpopularity of the Iraq War in the Africa-American community as the primary obstacle in recruiting black Marines.

Milstead said the sinking economy has had very little impact on enlisting recruiting, but has provided a slight boost to recruiters working to bring officers into the Corps. He said more college grads facing tough job prospects are walking into recruiting centers inquiring about opportunities as a Marine Corps officer.

He underscored the difficulty in recruiting black officers with some staggering statistics. Only 5.9 percent of college grads are black, while 67 percent of those are women, Milstead said.

"It's a very small target of opportunity for us," he said.

But for young men and women wanting to enlist in the Corps, a wider target than ever means the Corps can afford to grow more selective.

"We can be a little bit more picky," Milstead said.

That means all you wannabe Leathernecks out there need to graduate from high school, avoid brushes with the law and think twice before you ink up your sleeve.

Ellie