"No amount of money is too much to retain combat experience in the corps, rather than starting over," said Maj. Mark Menotti, assistant head of enlisted retention for the Marine Corps.
Giving bonuses to encourage Marines to re-enlist is not a new program. But this year's bonus schedule marks the first time that "combat arms" specialties have received the largest of the bonuses. The top bonus for those specialties a year ago was about $7,000.
The plan is working, officials said. Fewer than two months into the fiscal year, Marine re-enlistment rates in several key specialties are 10 to 30 percent ahead of last year.
Officials are confident that by midyear they will have reached their target for encouraging re-enlistment among riflemen, the "grunts" who are key to the Marines' ability to mount offensives against insurgent strongholds such as Fallujah, Iraq.
In most cases, the young Marines are agreeing to stay in their current jobs for four years. In others, they are allowed to transfer into jobs that the brass considers equally vital: recruiters, embassy guards and boot-camp drill instructors.
Along with riflemen, machine-gunners and mortar-men, other specialties receiving sizable bonuses are those critical to success in Iraq — including intelligence officers and Arabic linguists.
Lance Cpl. Matthew Jee, 21, of Borrego Springs, Calif., received $19,000 to re-enlist for four years. An assault-man with expertise in firing the Javelin rocket, he plans to shift to the intelligence field.
"They need a grunt's view of what kind of intelligence you need when you're out there on the street," Jee said at Camp Pendleton, Calif., where he recently returned after seven months in Iraq.
The Marine Corps has earmarked $52 million in bonuses for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, up from $51 million the previous year. Officers — except in particularly difficult-to-retain specialties such as aviation and law — are not eligible for bonuses.
The amount of the individual bonus is determined by a formula involving the length of re-enlistment, how early the Marine makes the commitment to re-enlist and a multiplier determined by the commandant of the Marine Corps. If a Marine re-enlists while in Iraq, his bonus, like his regular pay, is tax exempt.
Among combat veterans, there is a sense they are being paid for having learned things that cannot be taught at the school of infantry. Many are eager to pass that knowledge on to others.
Cpl. William Jones, 22, of Tulsa, Okla., a rifleman, received $19,000 and now wants to teach Navy medical corpsmen how to handle combat. "The more Marines we have who've been over there, the better off the corps is going to be," he said. "It's going to cost money, but it will save lives."
Sgt. Joey McBroom, 30, of Lafayette, Tenn., a rifleman, said he had planned to re-enlist even without the bonus, but that the $28,039 "helped my wife to agree to my re-enlisting."
In an e-mail from Iraq, McBroom said he plans to put 40 percent of the bonus in a mutual fund, 30 percent in an account for his children's college education, 15 percent in savings and the remaining 15 percent for "a nice wedding ring for the wife, finally."
Another rifleman, Cpl. Anthony Mazzola, 23, of Fort Worth, Texas, has more immediate plans for his $21,700: "I plan to take all of my money to Vegas and have a crazy weekend," he said in an e-mail from Iraq.
No comments:
Post a Comment