After fighting to be a recruiter, Miller is named Indianapolis Station Commander of the Month

By Kathy A. Curry, Public Affairs Specialist, Indianapolis Recruiting BattalionMay 10, 2011

After fighting to be a recruiter, Miller is named Station Commander of the Month
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Sergeant 1st Class Eric Miller didn't become a recruiter and Station Commander of the Month by accident, he's had to fight for the privilege.

"When the time came for me to change my military occupational specialty (MOS) to recruiting, essentially I was forgotten about. In December 2005, I submitted a recruiting packet to the 'Recruit the Recruiter' team and was accepted but four months later I still did not have a school date," Miller said.

For the next few months everything was a struggle, according to Miller.

"I called everyone I could think of to help," he said. "I was a transportation coordinator at the time and my branch said they could not help me because they had already released me to [the U.S. Army Recruiting Command].

USAREC said they could not help me because I did not belong to them yet. Through a friend, I finally reached the right person. I called them and within two hours had a school date of September 2006."

But he still wasn't finished fighting. Miller started the process to convert to recruiting while still in the St. Louis Battalion, Central Illinois Company, Champaign Recruiting Station. His conversion packet got lost when the Indianapolis Recruiting Battalion took over part of the territory of the former St. Louis Battalion in 2008. It took another 10 months for him to be converted to a 79R, a career recruiter.

"It was a major test of my patience, but ultimately Command Sergeant Major Ed Lewis and the Indianapolis Recruiting Battalion staff helped me out," Miller said.

"Lewis was actually the one who had the faith to put me in a station commander position when I had such little experience in USAREC."

Miller became the Belleville Recruiting Station commander in March 2009 and he took advantage of the opportunity to take a completely new staff of six recruiters and turn it into a winning team.

"When I became station commander, everybody was new, including me. Although we were successful from the beginning, we still had to develop and grow," Miller said.

"What you are seeing now is that development and growth. My first day at the station I told them we are not going to settle for middle of the pack or among the best, but we would work to be the best."

Working as a transportation movement coordinator before coming to recruiting, Miller worked in small teams of 20 or less, training to run air, land, sea and rail transportation operations.

His inspiration to become a recruiter comes from his own experience and the desire to make every Future Soldier's experience a good one.

"Working with my recruiter back when I enlisted was a different Army experience than today," Miller said. "My recruiter put me into the Army Reserves as a junior in high school. I enlisted in January of 1996 and saw him once between my enlistment and the time I shipped at the end of May. During my senior year it was about the same until I decided to go active duty prior to graduation.

"I brought them my release from my Army Reserve unit and they told me that they would see what they could do."

A month later, after Miller was told by his Army recruiter he could not go active duty, he visited a Marine Corps recruiting office. As he began filling out the paperwork for the Marines, an Army recruiter came into the office and disputed the Marine Corps recruiter's contact with Miller. Despite the disagreement between services, Miller was placed on active duty within two weeks.

"The experience I had when I enlisted was not what the Army is about," Miller said. "You should not have to go through a negative experience to serve your country. I wanted to make an impact on the lives of people interested in joining the Army and give them a positive experience to start off their Army careers."

Now 15 years later, Miller is doing what he set out to do. Being named the Indianapolis Battalion Station Commander of the Month for March honors Miller's work.

"I appreciate the honor of Station Commander of the Month but I don't work alone. Everyone at our station comes to work with a natural energy. All I do is focus that energy on the task at hand and that is enlisting people in the Army," Miller said.

Miller stresses his team is a self-motivated group, wanting to achieve mission each month, usually by the second week of the recruiting calendar month.

"They don't want incentives, they just want to succeed and be the best. We are not going to fail so we strive monthly to be number one," Miller said.

Indianapolis Battalion Command Sgt. Maj. Marcus Robinson said Miller came in as a young sergeant first class and became the leader of one of the largest stations in the battalion.

"He took an average station and took it to totally new heights and made it one of the best in the brigade," Robinson said.

Fairview Heights Company Commander Capt. Aron Scott said: "Miller is an exceptional Station Commander who leads by example, from the front as a station commander, but also takes time to mentor his Soldiers to be top performers. He has consistently performed for the Fairview Heights Company and is truly a station commander who operates at a level well above his pay grade."

Although Belleville Station has a place in the high schools now, before Miller's arrival there were only civilians working as recruiters and they were not active in the high schools. Miller and his recruiters started a JROTC club in Belleville East School, which now has 30 members. Their efforts have also yielded a 50 percent increase in the number of Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Aca,!" Career Exploration Program tests given in the area schools.

"All of the schools are cooperative with the Belleville Company. They know we help the kids, and we are afforded the same privileges colleges and technical schools have in the high schools. There are only a couple of private schools that don't have us there," Miller said.

While bringing that standard and his own style and techniques to the job, Miller said, "It is not the number of contracts they sign but the quality."

"We are going to continue to succeed here in Belleville," he said. "If you ask my guys they will tell you, I am a direct and aggressive leader. I definitely have a passion for the job and I love being in recruiting. The greatest reward of being a recruiter is meeting people and making an impact on their lives. That is the reason I came."

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