What is being called an 'historic increase' in the enlisted ranks of the U.S. Army will lead to the largest in year mission increase in the history of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, and will also up the number of recruits who will be enlisted by the San Antonio Recruiting Battalion, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Kevin Bouren told News Radio 1200 WOAI's Morgan Montalvo that some of the increase of 16,000 soldiers will come from what are called 'stop orders,' which require Non Commissioned Officers who were slated to leave the Army to remain in uniform.
"Now we are going to retain a lot of those folks, because it's hard to grow those senior leaders overnight," he said. "It takes ten to fifteen years to grow those senior leaders."
But Lt. Col. Bouren says a number of major incentives will be offered to attract a new generation of America's young men and women into uniform.
He says educational benefits will be boosted for soldiers both while in uniform and once they are honorably discharged, and an innovative two year enlistment period is being expanded across the Army.
He says $200 million in incentive bonuses have been approved to help meet the recruiting goals.
"If you come into the Army, you are going to get college money, and we are going to make sure you get an education," he said. "This is something the Army is very passionate about."
But one thing Lt. Col. Bouren stresses is that the standards will not be lowered to make the recruitment quotas, which will go from 2894 recruits in the San Antonio Command in 2016 to 3038 before the end of 2017.
"As we have to grow an Army, there is always that danger that you'll be tempted to lower the standards to increase the number of people coming in, but that is not the route we are taking," he said. "We know that we have to have the nation's best and brightest."
That best and brightest is coming from an increasingly smaller pool of potential recruits Bouren says only 29% of America's recruitment age young people meet both the physical and mental qualifications required for military service today.