Patriotism, Incentives Boosting Army Re-enlistment

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — Quintin Sterling, a 2006 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta currently serving his first tour in Iraq, re-enlisted this week for five years.

"The Army's been good to me," Sterling said. "I didn't want to go to (college) and my sergeants helped me make a decision."

He took a re-enlistment oath along with 207 soldiers at a ceremony at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in Baghdad, now headquarters for American forces in Iraq.

Health benefits are one perk, he said, along with teaching personal discipline.

Despite virtual guarantees of future deployments in Iraq, soldiers are re-enlisting at rates that exceed war planners' goals. Retaining enlisted soldiers and grooming non-commissioned officers — considered the backbone of the Army — are crucial to maintaining troop strength as the war grinds toward its sixth year.

Last year, 70,000 troops re-enlisted in the Army, 12.2 percent above the retention goal. In 2006, there were 67,300 re-enlistments, 4.8 percent above the target.

"Our soldiers continue to volunteer, even with the demands inherent in wartime service," said Maj. Nathan Banks, an Army spokesman. "We have consistently met or exceeded our retention goals as our soldiers answer the call to serve."

Beyond the devotion to service, troops have been attracted by incentive packages.

More than 16,000 Army captains are eligible for a $25,000 bonus if they re-enlist. Officers commissioned in critical skills like the use of armor or ordnance my receive up to $30,000 in bonus money, and certain types of intelligence officers qualify for a re-enlistment bonus of up to $50,000.

The House Armed Services Committee has asked the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office to review the incentive packages to find out how well the money is being used and how long the Pentagon can afford to keep up the sweeteners.

"It's one thing to do it for a year," said the GAO's Brenda Farrell, director of defense capabilities and management, "but how long can you keep doing that?"

The GAO looked at the issue three years ago and found that, while retention numbers over all were holding up, the Army was having trouble retaining many of the special skills needed to conduct counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism missions of the sort that have become the bread and butter of ground troop operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"That's when you'll see they're short," Farrell said.

Moreover, she said, "The bonuses were going to just about everybody, they weren't targeted to the occupations they were supposed to be targeted to."

The GAO's current study, she said, is aimed in part at determining whether those shortcomings have been addressed.

"What," she asked, "are we getting for our money?"

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more than 931,000 U.S. Army and Marine Corps service members have deployed overseas, mostly to Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the same time, the Pentagon has increased the length of Army deployments from 6 months to 15 months to maintain sufficient force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The increased toll of troops has placed an added premium on re-enlistments.

At Monday's ceremony in Iraq, the enlisted soldiers agreed to serve between two and six additional years, collecting a total of $2.5 million in bonuses, an average of $12,019 per person.

"Some cynics would say you're doing it for the tax-free money," Gen. Richard A. Cody, Army vice chief of staff, told the soldiers before they took the oath.

"We put the bonuses out because we want to one, let the soldiers know that they're value-added," Cody said in an interview. "Soldiers don't re-enlist in combat for money ... they re-enlist because they're proud of what they're doing. They re-enlist because they know they're making a difference in this part of the world. And they also know they're making America more secure."

In interviews, several soldiers said bonuses were secondary in their decisions to a sense of patriotism or career opportunity.

Army brass point to the re-enlistment numbers as evidence that morale is high, and, although there is a general sense among soldiers that the situation in Iraq is improving, they also complain of austere conditions in combat outposts and patrol bases, added as part of the strategy to bolster security in neighborhoods.

Soldiers also complain of the extended 15-month deployments, which Cody recognized were "too long," and said the Army is working to recalibrate tours to one year.

Last fiscal year, the American command in Iraq signed up 18,721 soldiers for additional enlistments, 2,200 above the target.

Less than five months into the 2008 fiscal year, Task Force Marne, which comprises 17,000 soldiers, mostly from the 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, Ga., has obtained re-enlistment contracts for 2,300 soldiers, which is 68 percent of the year's target, said Master Sgt. James Nicolai, who runs the division office for re-enlisting.

This is perhaps more remarkable considering all of these soldiers are currently deployed in Iraq.

"Most of them understand they'll come back (to Iraq) at least one more time depending on what the political situation holds," he said.