FORT MONROE, Va. - The cup ranneth over for the Army accessions mission in FY09. The U.S. Army Recruiting Command enlisted 70,045 new Soldiers against a requirement for 65,000. U.S. Army Cadet Command's mission of 4,500 new second lieutenants via ROTC was exceeded by 92. Of the Officer Candidate School's 2,450 graduates, Army recruiters accounted for 1,604 of them, the most ever for USAREC.
"Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. George Casey (Jr.), talks about how the Army is out of balance ... these guys (USAREC and USACC) have done a great job helping get the Army back in balance," boasted Lt. Gen Benjamin
Freakley, Army Accessions commander.
"ROTC made mission for second lieutenants for the first time since 2005. USAREC has not only made mission but greatly refreshed the 2010 delayed entry program, which is really significant."
The quality of the enlisted force took a leap as well. The number of recruited high school graduates jumped from 83 percent to 95 percent.
Sixty-six percent tested in the top half of the Armed Forces Qualification Test, up from 62 percent in 2008.
While the commanders of USACC and USAREC do not discount the U.S. economy as one factor in this success story, both general officers credit the resources available to them from the Army.
"In 2006, we got an influx of scholarship money and started to bring in more cadets. We didn't make mission in 2006, '07 and '08," said Maj. Gen. Arthur Bartell, USACC commander. "We made it in 2009 because it takes four years to make an officer through ROTC.
"In 2005 our mission was 3,900 officers. In four years, our mission went from 3,900 to 4,500 and we're projected to make our mission this year, which is increasing to 5,100. In 2011, we'll go to 5,350."
For USAREC, the year's expectations were a roller coaster, as Lt. Gen. Freakley explained. The mission went from 78,000 to 80,000 to 65,000 to 70,000 this past year.
That last 5,000 increment wasn't technically USAREC's mission; it was the 2009 share of the 22,000 temporary increase of Army personnel that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates approved in the summer. Maj. Gen. Donald Campbell, USAREC commander, received the order in July with concern.
"If you would have told me four years ago to go get 5,000 more in July, I would have probably had a heart attack. But the field didn't even blink an eye," Maj. Gen. Campbell recalled.
"We thought we would renegotiate with our pool for 2010, to pull them back into 2009. But it was virtually the opposite. We wrote all of those 5,000 this year. We only pulled very few of our 2010 pool into 2009."
A lot of what the Army has achieved falls squarely on the shoulders of approximately 8,000 recruiters around the world, and they deserve the credit for the 2009 success, the major general said.
"I think the most important thing that helps us with success - whether you're talking money, resources, or advertising - is having the right number of recruiters; (those) Soldiers, on the ground," he said. "That's what it
really comes down to."
Those recruiters enter FY10 with a delayed entry pool of 32,000, of which, Campbell reports, 99 percent are high-school graduates.
"We anticipate a mission of 74,250 for 2010, so we're pleased to be 46 percent there as we start the fiscal year," he said.
Lt. Gen. Freakley was pleased the 2010 delayed entry pool wasn't sacrificed to get the additional 5,000 Soldiers the Army needed as part of the SecDef's 22,000 plus-up of the force.
"We entered 2008 with 7,400 in the delayed entry program. We entered '09 with 11,000," he said. "That's a month and a half of recruiting, too low. We'd like to be at 25 percent going into a fiscal year."
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