Army Offering $20,000 Bonus For 'Quick' Recruits

[xd9fan]

Army Offering $20,000 Bonus For 'Quick' Recruits
Bonus Goes To Those Willing To Ship Out Within Month

POSTED: 8:41 am EDT July 27, 2007
UPDATED: 6:45 pm EDT July 27, 2007

CINCINNATI -- As the U.S. Army continues to keep thousands of troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army recruiters have a new perk to offer new recruits.

The Army is now offering a $20,000 "QS" – or “Quick Shipper” -- bonus to new and prior service recruits joining, selecting any job and shipping out for training within 30 days.

"The Q.S. letters means "quick shipper," said Columbus Recruiting Battalion spokesperson Tom Foley in a news release. "And $20,000 means, well, it means a lot of seed money for new soldiers answering the Army's call to duty. The Army is growing in size and we simply need more recruits for training, now."
The $20,000 bonus is in addition to previous offers already in place.
The Army has had trouble meeting recruiting goals, especially in southwest Ohio, in the past few months as the Middle East conflicts continue.

Soldiers have often complained about the traditionally low pay as well.

Foley said some recruits could tally bonuses up to $40,000 during this period with enlistments of four years or more.

Students News 5 spoke to at Boone County High School said the money is appealing, but would not convince them to join.

"I don't think I would, for that reason, to go over to Iraq,” said senior Jared Snow. “I don't think it would be worth it to me, but it would appeal to me."

http://www.wlwt.com/news/13766925/detail.html

 

[hcddog]

Not sure how I'd feel about an Army filled with recruits who were in it for the bonus check.

Heck, I didn't receive a dang thing for signing up with USMC, no bonus, nothing, and I still loved it. Then again, I joined (and ended my term) when there was no major conflict going on.

 

[Beatnik]

Not sure how I'd feel about an Army filled with recruits who were in it for the bonus check.

Cool! Back to the draft!

Does this have anything to do with guns?

 

[frank23185]

What they don't tell you is that Uncle Sam will take back nearly half that bonus in taxes.

 

[TallPine]

Sort of like buying a lottery ticket, huh?

$20K versus a chance to lose your life or limb(s).

Or maybe more like Russian roulette

 

[Autolycus]

No wonder the cost of government is skyrocketing.

 

[Devonai]

I see a special appeal to prior-service guys who can't find well-paying jobs back in the private sector. I myself am strongly considering going from reserve to active duty in the face of nothing more than $8/hour job offers.

I have sent out 30 resumes/applications in the last year, and with two years of military experience, five years of security experience and a bachelor's degree, I can't find anything much better than working at Starbucks. I suspect my problem comes from potential employees worrying that I'll be deployed sooner than later and they'll lose me anyway.

I might as well quit delaying what everyone else thinks is inevitable and transfer to a deploying unit.

As far as fast-tracking new recruits who may only be in it for the bonus, I call foul. I find it hard to believe that any 17-year-olds and above are unaware of the risks of service in OIF and would consider any bonus monies alone to be worth it. They will still be willing volunteers.

 

[ServiceSoon]

The gov is hurting for men. I saw a news report that showed they are reclassifying anybody and everybody as infantry soldiers. Gov says, "Oh, you joined to become an engineer, tuff luck here is your rifle and grenades."

A report on Yahoo! this morning once again shows the logical upstanding US government is willing to sell millions of dollars of weapons to foreign governments, but I can't own a fully automatic machine gun.

 

[The Viking]

I'd join for a green card. Seriously.

 

[Greell]

Regardless their need, I feel that this promotes people to join the service for the WRONG reasons.

Joining and essentially going to war, to make a profit?!....I expect that from our government (And then to say it's only because we want peace in the middle east...not the oil...)...

But I didn't expect that feeling to come from soldiers!

20k is a nice little bonus, but I hope people don't just sign up for the money, because thats the wrong reason to join the military.

 

[glockman19]

Just become a contarctor.

They make more money in a shorter period of time and aren't tied to service for 2-4 years. I heard of a guy who was paid $150,000 for driving a fuel truck in a convoy for six months of work.

 

[Sistema1927]

ibtl

 

[Correia]

Regardless their need, I feel that this promotes people to join the service for the WRONG reasons.

And what is so bad about paying our soldiers more? It is a job. You get paid to do a job. You pay more, you get quality people, that's a pretty simple fact of life.

Joining and essentially going to war, to make a profit?!....

Like 20K is even that much money to begin with. Give me a break.

Contrary to the internet, where everything is good, and idelogically pure, and war should only be something like out of the 300, in real life soldiers have wives, kids, mortages, car payments, just like everyone else. I've known a lot of really good soldiers who retired because they just got tired of being really really poor.

Not all soldiers are 19 year olds that live in the barracks.

No wonder the cost of government is skyrocketing.

Big whoop. If I could make a list, in order, of all of the things the government wastes money on, I'm pretty sure paying a hiring bonus to soldiers wouldn't make the first three hundred pages.

And this is off topic, and has nothing to do with guns, at all.