U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

44–450 PDF 2008

S. HRG. 110–503

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON MILITARY RECRUITING

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JANUARY 31, 2008

Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services

(

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

JOHN WARNER, Virginia, 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

MEL MARTINEZ, Florida 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

RICHARD D. DEBOBES, Staff Director 

MICHAEL V. KOSTIW, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WITNESSES 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON MILITARY RECRUITING

JANUARY 31, 2008

Page

Bostick, MG Thomas P., USA, Commanding General, U.S. Army Recruiting 

Command .............................................................................................................. 4

Kilkenny, RADM Joseph F., USN, Commander, Navy Recruiting Command ... 9

Vautrinot, Brig. Gen. Suzanne M., USAF, Commander, Air Force Recruiting 

Service ................................................................................................................... 13

Tryon, Maj. Gen. Richard T., USMC, Commanding General, Marine Corps 

Recruiting Command ........................................................................................... 17

Britton, SSGT James M., USMC, Active Duty Recruiter ..................................... 32

White, MSGT David B., USAF, Active Duty Recruiter ........................................ 32

Brummer, MCPO Travis P., USN, Active Duty Recruiter ................................... 32

Webb, SFC Ricky Lee, USA, Active Duty Recruiter ............................................. 32

(III) 

(1)

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON MILITARY 

RECRUITING 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m. in room 

SR–232A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator E. Benjamin 

Nelson (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Committee members present: Senators E. Benjamin Nelson, 

Webb, McCaskill, and Chambliss. 

Committee staff member present: John H. Quirk V, security 

clerk. 

Majority staff members present: Gabriella Eisen, counsel; and 

Gerald J. Leeling, counsel. 

Minority staff members present: Diana G. Tabler, professional 

staff member; and Richard F. Walsh, counsel. 

Staff assistants present: Jessica L. Kingston and Ali Z. Pasha. 

Committee members’ assistants present: Frederick M. Downey, 

assistant to Senator Lieberman; Andrew R. Vanlandingham, assistant to Senator Ben Nelson; Gordon I. Peterson, assistant to Senator Webb; Stephen C. Hedger, assistant to Senator McCaskill; 

Jennifer Cave, assistant to Senator Warner; Lenwood Landrum, assistant to Senator Sessions; Mark J. Winter, assistant to Senator 

Collins; and Clyde A. Taylor IV, assistant to Senator Chambliss. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR E. BENJAMIN NELSON, 

CHAIRMAN 

Senator BEN NELSON. Good morning. The subcommittee will 

come to order. 

Senator Graham, the ranking member of this subcommittee, is 

unable to be with us this morning and so Senator Chambliss has 

graciously agreed to take his place today. This brings back very 

pleasant memories. I was the ranking member when Senator 

Chambliss was the chairman of this subcommittee. We worked very 

well together then as a team and I know we will continue to do so. 

Thank you for being here today, Senator. 

Our hearing today is focused on military recruiting. Recruiting 

and retention is the core of this subcommittee’s business and successful recruiting is critical to the continued success of the All-Volunteer Force. Everything that we do on this subcommittee is designed to care for our servicemembers and their families. Our goal 

is to make military service an attractive option to all young AmeriVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:39 Sep 18, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\44450.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
2

cans and a desirable career for those who choose to serve and continue to serve. 

I welcome our witnesses here today. We’re privileged to have on 

our first panel the commanders of each Service’s recruiting command: Major General Bostick, the Commanding General of the U.S. 

Army Recruiting Command; Rear Admiral Kilkenny, Commander 

of the Navy Recruiting Command; Brigadier General Vautrinot—I 

hope I said that close. 

General VAUTRINOT. ‘‘VOE-tri-noe,’’ sir. 

Senator BEN NELSON. ‘‘VOE-tri-not,’’ ‘‘VOE-tri-noe.’’ 

—Commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service; and Major 

General Richard Tryon, Commanding General, Marine Corps Recruiting Command. We’re delighted to have all of you with us this 

morning. 

Our second panel consists of military recruiters and I’ll introduce 

them when their panel is seated following the testimony of the first 

panel. 

Recruiting is a challenging duty even in the best of times. These 

are not the best of times for our military recruiters. I’m aware that 

the pool of young Americans from which our recruiters recruit is 

shrinking. Only about three of ten young Americans are qualified 

for military service for varying reasons, including medical conditions, criminal records, lack of education, and low aptitude test 

scores. Declining high school graduation rates and obesity are national issues that directly impact the national security of the 

United States because they limit those who are eligible to serve in 

the military. 

We also face a significant challenge in recruiting medical officers, 

which we need in order to provide for our troops. I understand that 

all Services have met their Active Duty recruiting goals last year 

and that they’re doing well so far this year. But I know that this 

has been a particularly tough time for the Army, and I’ll be interested in hearing about the experiences from all the Services. 

I know the Army has increased the number of waivers for such 

things as medical conditions and criminal convictions. I also believe 

that the Army is accepting more enlistments of soldiers scoring in 

category 4 of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery 

(ASVAB). We’d certainly be interested in hearing more about this. 

This subcommittee has and will continue to be responsive to your 

requests for legislation to achieve your recruiting mission and I 

hope that you’ll let us know if there is anything else that you need 

from Congress to make your mission a little easier. 

Senator Chambliss, perhaps you have an opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It’s 

an honor to be here with you once again at the head of the table 

at this important hearing of the Personnel Subcommittee on military recruiting. Senator Graham asked me to fill in for him. He’s 

otherwise occupied with a military hero and expresses his regret to 

you and to our witnesses that he could not be here. But I’m certainly glad to be with our members of the Armed Forces who are 

in charge of making sure that we continue to have our fair share 

3

of the very finest young men and women that America has to offer 

in every branch of the military. 

I enjoyed our partnership during the 108th Congress, when I was 

chairman and you were ranking member. We had a lot of good 

times and accomplished an awful lot of positive things. We also 

paid an awful lot of attention then, as you have done since, to our 

men and women of the Armed Forces who have sacrificed so much 

and have performed so magnificently in the global war on terrorism. 

The changes we helped bring about during those 2 years were 

many and included substantial pay raises and increased bonuses 

for military personnel, reform of the survivor benefit plan to eliminate the old two-tier system for payment of benefits, elimination of 

many of the barriers to the concurrent receipt of both military retired pay and veterans disability compensation, expansion of 

TRICARE coverage to reservists; significant increases to servicemembers’ group life insurance; and other benefits for the survivors 

of these brave men and women who die while serving on Active 

Duty. 

I recall our field hearings at both Robins Air Force Base in Georgia as well as Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where we heard 

directly from military spouses and families about the challenges 

they encounter in their daily lives. As you, I, and Senator Webb 

know, the families make just as many sacrifices as the men and 

women who serve on Active and Reserve duty. 

I congratulate you and Senator Graham for continuing that tradition and also on the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, which was signed into law a few 

days ago, and for the many benefits and improvements in quality 

of life for servicemembers, including the landmark bipartisan legislation to aid wounded warriors and their families. 

I join you in welcoming the witnesses today and look forward to 

hearing from these senior leaders and from the line recruiters on 

our second panel. I assure our witnesses that I and all the members of this subcommittee appreciate your challenge. We place 

enormous value on your efforts in sustaining the All-Volunteer 

Force or, as you have said in your written statements, the All-Recruited Force. 

I conclude my remarks here, but I do want to thank each of you 

and all members of your recruiting teams for the sacrifices and 

dedication you bring to this vital mission. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you. 

Senator Webb, do you have some comments? 

Senator WEBB. Mr. Chairman, I have a conflicting hearing on the 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We have a full committee 

hearing this morning with respect to the situation in Afghanistan. 

But I wanted to come down here and reaffirm not only my support, 

but also my very deep interest in these issues. 

Speaking of military families, I grew up in the military. My father was a career military officer. I spent many years working on 

these issues inside the Pentagon. We have a strong interest on our 

staff in working toward different sorts of analysis to try to ensure 

4

that we get the highest quality of people coming into our military 

with the most efficiency. 

I’m going to have to leave here in a few minutes, but I’m leaving 

two staff members behind and I would ask consent if we could submit a series of questions at the end of this hearing that we could 

get responses to. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Without objection. 

Senator WEBB. We look forward to working on these issues in 

some detail in the future. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for being 

here. I think we all understand conflicts. We have to be at two different places at the same time and try to do that. Thank you. 

I think what we’ll do is we’ll just go ahead and start with General Bostick and we’ll move this direction with this panel, and the 

next panel we’ll move the other direction, if that would meet with 

your satisfaction. 

General Bostick? 

STATEMENT OF MG THOMAS P. BOSTICK, USA, COMMANDING 

GENERAL, U.S. ARMY RECRUITING COMMAND 

General BOSTICK. Good morning, sir. Chairman Nelson, Senator 

Chambliss, and distinguished members of this subcommittee: 

Thank you for the opportunity today to talk about Army recruiting. 

I also want to thank you for all of your support throughout this 

past year on the many initiatives that we have to attract the best 

young men and women to our Army. 

I’m very proud of our soldiers, our civilians, and our families that 

are involved in the recruiting mission, both within my command 

and outside of my command. As you pointed out, the All-Volunteer 

Force is actually an All-Recruited Force. The mission of manning 

this force is one that is not a challenge just for the Army, but a 

challenge for our Nation. 

We continue to face an environment that is marked by decreasing influencer support and the lowest propensity to serve in two 

decades. Nonetheless, last year the Active Army, the Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard combined to enlist 170,000 

soldiers during a persistent period of conflict. This is the size of the 

entire city of Fayetteville, NC, or Newport News, VA. I’m confident 

that we will again achieve our mission this year and in so doing 

we will strive to meet Department of Defense and Department of 

the Army goals for high school diploma graduates and aptitude. 

We’re recruiting men and women who are raising their right 

hand and volunteering to serve during a period of combat. They 

will join the best Army in the world. Many will deploy and serve 

in harm’s way. Some of these soldiers will have General Equivalency Degrees (GEDs). Some will have waivers. But all will be 

qualified to serve in our Army. 

I feel very comfortable about the soldiers in our Army. We are 

very careful in who we select to serve. Some have made mistakes 

in the past, but have demonstrated that they can serve this Nation 

proudly. The more serious waivers go through 10 levels of decisionmaking, ultimately arriving on the desk of a general officer to approve or disapprove that waiver. 

5

The Army is reviewing the long-term impact of the lower number 

of high school diploma graduates and the increased waivers on the 

effectiveness of an Army at war. But in talking to soldiers and drill 

sergeants and our Army leaders, there’s a common theme that the 

quality and the skills of our initial entry training graduates remain 

high. 

We’re working several initiatives to increase our recruiter efforts. 

All of our soldiers are equipped with laptop computers and on that 

computer we have a system called Future Soldier Remote Reservation System. Today, recruiters like Sergeant First Class Webb can 

go into the home of a parent and a prospect and they can sit in 

the confines of that home and decide what his specialty is going to 

be, what his bonuses will be. They can lock that specialty in for a 

period of 7 days and buy in with the parents, the family, and 

friends, buy in that decision together. 

We’re working hard in the area of education that you mentioned 

with several programs, including one called March to Success. 

Many potential soldiers that are high school graduates and even 

some college students have a tough time with our test. March to 

Success is a free of charge online test preparation program that assists our prospects with the ACT, the SAT, and the Army military 

tests. Over 95,000 signed up for this March to Success program last 

year. 

In addition to that, we instituted a tutor program, one-on-one tutoring where we’re asking the people of America, the citizens of 

America, to stand up and support this Nation by helping to tutor 

young men and women that are interested in joining our Army. 

We continue to develop and foster partnerships with business 

and industry through a program called Partnership for Youth Success, where our young men and women that sign up to the military 

also sign up for a guaranteed interview with that company. We 

want to continue to partner with America. Today we have over 260 

in the Partnership for Youth Success program. 

As you pointed out, America is also challenged by an epidemic 

of obesity. To address this challenge, we developed a program 

called the Assessment of Recruiter Motivation and Strength 

(ARMS) program, where we recognize that some young men and 

women are going to be 2 to 3 percent over body fat and we’re going 

to bring them into the Army. As long as they meet and can pass 

this ARMS test, we’re going to put them into basic training and 

we’ll give them a year to lose the weight. We’re finding that their 

attrition rate is no different than the other soldiers that we bring 

in. 

We’re going to roll out next month the Army Advantage Program, which will provide our soldiers an opportunity to buy a 

house or start a small business later on in life. 

We created a Super Leads Program. Since the Super Leads Program started, we’ve made over 7.6 million phone calls. Those are 

phone calls that we’ve taken off the backs of our soldiers, for them 

to have to make, and that gives them more time. 

We are transforming in the way that we recruit. We’ve added automation. We’ve changed our structure. We’ve looked at our processes, all of this to help our recruiters to save time, so that they 

can tell their story in the home towns across America. 

6

We know that our recruiters are ambassadors for the Army and 

they take this responsibility very seriously. They are committed to 

accomplishing the mission. They’re committed to maintaining the 

warrior ethos. They’re committed to maintaining their Army values 

and accomplishing this mission. 

I look forward to the rest of the discussion today. Thank you for 

the opportunity to be here. 

[The prepared statement of General Bostick follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT BY MG THOMAS P. BOSTICK, USA 

Chairman Nelson, Senator Graham, and distinguished members of the committee, 

thank you for providing me the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf 

of the Army’s recruiting force. I also want to thank you for supporting our initiatives 

to improve incentives and bonus programs to attract the very best soldiers. I take 

tremendous pride in saying that today’s All-Volunteer Force is actually an ‘‘all-recruited’’ force and they are proudly representing our Nation throughout the Army. 

In fiscal year 2005, the Army did not achieve its regular Army recruiting mission 

by accessing 73,000 of its required 80,000 mission. Additionally, the Army achieved 

19,400 of the required 22,175 Reserve mission. The U.S. Army Recruiting Command 

(USAREC) was then reinforced with additional manpower, resources, and incentives, and as a result, enlisted 13,000 more soldiers for the regular Army and Army 

Reserve in fiscal year 2006 than in fiscal year 2005 to achieve the 80,000 regular 

Army mission and 99 percent of the 25,500 Army Reserve mission. We built upon 

this success in fiscal year 2007 to achieve both the 80,000 Regular Army and 26,500 

Army Reserve missions recruiting an additional ∼107,000 soldiers for our Army. The 

regular Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard combined to enlist 170,000 

soldiers into our Army during a period of persistent combat. We knew what we 

needed to do, and clearly made the right adjustments at the time. However, adequate resources are not always enough to ensure success. 

Fiscal year 2008 will be another challenging recruiting year. We have the support 

of the total Army as we work to achieve the fiscal year 2008 mission of 80,000 accessions for the regular Army and 26,500 accessions for the Army Reserve. These accession missions support reaching established Army end-strength goals. We are on 

glide to achieve our 80,000 accession mission for the regular Army; however, we are 

slightly behind established monthly objectives for the Army Reserve. We are aggressively working with the Army leadership to develop the way ahead to achieve our 

Army Reserve mission for this year. 

We have a committed recruiting force and the necessary tools to achieve our recruiting missions this year. We need your continued support to help the Army mobilize the Nation behind this effort. 

RECRUITING ENVIRONMENT

For the first time since the implementation of the All-Volunteer Force, we are recruiting during a period of protracted combat. Today’s recruiting environment is incredibly challenging. Less than 3 out of 10 of our Nation’s youth are fully qualified 

for service in the Army due to disqualifying medical conditions, criminal records, 

lack of education credentials or low aptitude test scores. The Army competes head 

on with industry, the economy, and with higher education for the same high-quality 

youth. Today, parents and influences are less likely to encourage their family members and other young adults to join the military. Propensity, the desire to enlist in 

the Armed Forces, is at its lowest point in two decades. 

Despite the challenges in the current environment, 170,000 Americans stepped 

forward to enlist in the regular Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard last 

year. In my conversations with commanders throughout the Army, it is clear that 

our soldiers are proudly serving with distinction. They are also re-enlisting in large 

numbers, particularly those in combat. No amount of money would be enough to 

convince them to continue to serve, if they did not believe in what they were doing. 

We have the best trained, best equipped, and best led Army in the world. Our volunteer soldiers are re-enlisting because they believe in their Nation, they believe in 

their flag, and they believe in each other. Each of these soldiers became heroes for 

this Nation the day they decided to enlist in our Army. 

Recent congressional incentives for recruiting such as the $2,000 referral bonus 

program and increased enlistment bonus caps have provided the Army the necessary tools to attract the men and women who want to serve our great Nation during these challenging times. There are many good news stories that do not make 

7

it to the evening news, so we rely heavily on important public influences, including 

strong support from Members of Congress, to help us tell the Army Story. I am confident that, with your continued support, we will continue to meet the needs of our 

All-Volunteer Army. 

FUNDING

The administration, Congress, and the Department of Defense with the Army and 

its senior leadership have provided Recruiting Command the support we have asked 

for to accomplish our mission. Fiscal year 2008 funding levels allow the Command 

to satisfy all recruiter support requirements. When additional resource requirements are identified and made known to the Senior Army leadership, they have 

taken immediate action to meet those requirements. The challenge is often one of 

timing. As the environment changes, we must be able to adapt quickly. Train-up 

of new recruiters and the development of new advertising, for example, require long 

lead times. We must continue to improve our understanding of the market and the 

recruiting environment, and implement those actions necessary to mitigate risks to 

the mission. 

TRANSFORMATION

We are constantly innovating and improving our recruiting programs to address 

changes in our market. Ongoing transformation efforts within USAREC span across 

four major areas: policy and process, personnel selection and training, quality of life 

initiatives and force structure. USAREC is in the final stages of an extensive force 

structure transformation as a result of significant changes in market trends and 

population demographics. As part of this transformation, USAREC realigned and/

or restructured its 41 enlisted recruiting battalions and their respective boundaries. 

The purpose of this realignment was to make the battalion spans of control more 

consistent across the command. This corrected existing imbalances in mission responsibilities by reducing the size of some large battalions and added responsibility 

to some smaller battalions. As a result of this realignment, four battalion headquarters were recommended for inactivation to the Department of the Army. Three 

of the inactivation recommendations were approved, with the final decision pending. 

In addition to boundary realignments, we formed a Special Missions Brigade to 

handle the administration, logistics and special missions for all subordinate brigades, so that the rest of the command could focus on training, leading, and mission 

accomplishment. We formed a Medical Recruiting Brigade to provide the necessary 

command and control, and focus necessary for our five medical recruiting battalions. 

At the conclusion of these transformation initiatives, USAREC will have five enlisted recruiting brigades consisting of 38 recruiting battalions, a Special Missions 

Brigade, and a Medical Recruiting Brigade. We believe this force structure gives us 

the best opportunity to achieve our assigned missions in this challenging recruiting 

environment. 

QUALITY

All soldiers serving in our Army are qualified to serve. We strive to achieve the 

goals of the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army, which are 90 

percent high school diploma graduates (HSDGs), 60 percent test score category I–

IIIA, and with no more than 4 percent test scoring category IV. The Army does not 

accept applicants scoring in the lowest category on the Armed Services Vocational 

Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), test score category V. In fiscal year 2007, the regular 

Army met Department of Defense goals for category I–IIIA and Category IV, but 

fell short in the area of HSDG, achieving 79 percent. The Army Reserve met Department of Defense goals for Category IV but fell short in the areas of HSDG and 

category I–IIIA achieving 86 percent and 57 percent respectively. 

Field commanders are very pleased with the men and women now serving in their 

formations, some of whom are not HSDGs or may have received a waiver to serve 

in our Army. While the Department of Defense goal for HSDGs is 90 percent, the 

national average for high school graduation is 70 to 80 percent. In some urban areas 

of the country, the graduation rate is less than 50 percent. 

The Secretary of Education has called the graduation rates in this country a ‘‘Silent Epidemic.’’ High school graduation rates are of significant concern to the Army. 

Additionally, there are those who want to serve in our formations, who have graduated from High School but cannot pass the ASVAB. The Army has established education programs such as March2Success and our GED Education Plus Program to 

provide an academic second chance for the youth of America to give them an opportunity to serve in our Army. 

8

Another significant issue that is affecting recruiting is the emerging obesity epidemic in the country. More and more of our youth are not exercising and have poor 

eating habits. We have developed a program called the Assessment of Recruit Motivation and Strength test which will allow those who pass and are a few percentage 

points over Army accessions body-fat standards to serve. They have up to 1 year 

to lose the weight from the time they ship to Basic Combat Training. We began this 

program across the country in April 2006 and initial results indicate these soldiers 

are performing well and in a similar manner as those not participating in the program. 

All of the soldiers that we recruit are qualified to serve in our Army. I have witnessed their outstanding performance first-hand during my own deployment to Iraq, 

and commanders in the field are extremely proud of their soldiers. 

WAIVERS

We have a very solid process for reviewing and approving all waivers. We place 

special emphasis in carefully screening those applicants who have been charged 

with a felony. Conduct waivers for applicants with felony charges are approved at 

the General Officer level. These requests are reviewed by 10 different decisionmakers to determine whether or not it is in the best interests of our Army to allow 

the applicant the opportunity to serve. 

We are not recruiting hardened criminals. Those with felony convictions made the 

kind of mistake that a general officer has determined does not indicate deep rooted 

discipline or values issues and the person has demonstrated that they have overcome their prior mistakes. 

We are seeing an overall increase in waivers. We believe this increase is partly 

a result of changes in society, changes in policy and our improved processing procedures. In the past few years, we streamlined the waiver process from weeks to days, 

providing recruiters with less reason to turn away applicants who need waivers and 

resulting in more applicants staying with the Army enlistment process. 

We conduct a very thorough examination of the facts, circumstances, and the legal 

disposition of the charges prior to allowing individuals to enlist in our Army with 

a conduct waiver. These men and women are raising their hand, asking for a chance 

to serve their country. They are asking to not only be a productive member of society, but are willing to defend the Constitution of the United States on behalf of their 

fellow citizens. They enter our Army, grow and mature as a result of Army training, 

teamwork, exposure to Army values and to the warrior ethos. I am confident that 

our process is sound and in the best interest of the applicant, the Army and our 

Nation. 

In our continuing efforts to define what constitutes a ‘‘quality’’ soldier, the Army 

is evaluating whether soldiers enlisting with waivers perform on par with nonwaivered recruits over time. We expect preliminary results of this research effort 

in September 2008. 

RECRUITER MISCONDUCT AND IMPROPRIETY

Recruiters are the Army’s ambassadors across the Nation and hold a position of 

trust with the young people and influencers in our communities. There is a small 

percentage of the force that violates that trust. As a result, we take very seriously 

allegations of recruiting misconduct and impropriety. We investigate every allegation and take appropriate action, as necessary. In fiscal year 2007, 185 of our 8,200 

recruiter force had substantiated allegations. 

We have a multi-pronged approach for preventing recruiter misconduct: starting 

with the recruiter selection process, a prescriptive training program, routine standard inspections and enforcement down to recruiter level, and reinforcement of discipline through command information and command presence on a weekly basis. We 

have instituted a ‘‘buddy system,’’ where a recruiter must be accompanied by another recruiter when in the company of an applicant of the opposite gender. Our 

leadership is required to conduct proactive and regular discussions of Army Values 

and what they mean in a recruiting environment. We also schedule an annual Army 

Values/Safety Stand-down Day with all command personnel, to reinforce what it 

means to be an American soldier. 

Each year, our recruiters have millions of contacts with the American public. Our 

ability to recruit successfully depends upon the public’s confidence in our commitment to recruiting with integrity. 

MEDICAL RECRUITING

A very important part of our mission is to recruit medical professionals for our 

Army. In 1995, the USAREC began recruiting all medical professionals. Today, our 

9

medical recruiting force is made up of enlisted professional recruiters, enlisted medical soldiers, and officers from the Medical Service Corps, Nurse Corps, and Specialist Corps. We also engage both regular Army and Army Reserve health care professionals to assist in our recruitment efforts. 

We have made dramatic changes in how we execute our Medical Recruiting mission over the past several years. On October 2, 2007, we activated a Medical Recruiting Brigade Headquarters to provide command and control over our five Medical Recruiting Battalions. This effort will ensure we have the right levels of emphasis and expertise working this critically important mission. Initial results of this 

transformation have been positive. We are ahead 122 accessions compared to our 

performance over the same time period last year. This remains one of our most challenging areas, but we are making significant progress. 

We continue to work with the Department of the Army Office of the Surgeon General to ensure the Army offers competitive benefits to encourage today’s medical professionals to explore the challenges and rewards of Army service. We appreciate 

your continued support of our medical recruiting programs. 

RECRUITER ACCESS TO SCHOOLS

The No Child Left Behind Act provided Armed Forces recruiters access to student 

recruiting information and the same access to students enjoyed by colleges and prospective employers. Under current legislation, however, the military can be singled 

out when students or parents ‘‘Opt-Out’’ from having their contact information released to the military. In the same schools, there is no opt-out option against postsecondary schools or prospective employers receiving contact information. In addition, there is no established timeframe for a school to provide the student information upon request by the military recruiting services. We have instances where 

schools have promised repeatedly to provide the list, but ultimately give it to our 

recruiters too late in the year to be of much use. We desire the opportunity to tell 

the Army story to young adults and let them decide for themselves whether or not 

service in our Army is the right choice to help them reach their full potential. Access 

to our Nation’s schools and student information is critical to this effort. We need 

your help to ensure all our Nation’s youth have the opportunity to hear what the 

Army has to offer. 

CONCLUSION

I am confident that our recruiters will maximize the resources you have given 

them in order to achieve our mission. While public support for our soldiers remains 

strong, we need more Americans to step forward and serve our Nation, a nation at 

war. I thank you for your commitment to assist Army recruiting, and ask for your 

continued support to encourage Americans to answer our Nation’s call to duty. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today and I look forward to answering your questions.

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, General. 

Admiral Kilkenny? 

STATEMENT OF RADM JOSEPH F. KILKENNY, USN, 

COMMANDER, NAVY RECRUITING COMMAND 

Admiral KILKENNY. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the 

Personnel Subcommittee: I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to appear today to update you on the Navy’s total force recruiting. Despite an increasing challenge in the environment as you 

alluded to, sir, I’m pleased to report that my outstanding team of 

7,500 total force recruiters is succeeding in quality and quantity. 

Today we are successfully competing with America’s top employers, colleges and universities, Federal agencies, and our fellow uniformed Services for the sharpest minds of our millennial generation, those with the highest aptitudes and natural leadership skills 

who are most likely to succeed and excel. We’re reaching out to a 

new generation of potential recruits whose primary social lifestyles 

are experienced through the Internet, instant messaging, text messaging, and interactive social networking Web sites like FaceBook 

10

and MySpace. Millennials experience the world on a global scale 

24/7. We must use modern tools and methods to reach today’s 

youth and let them know the exceptional opportunities awaiting 

them in the United States Navy. 

Military service is often not first among career options 

millennials consider. Today’s influencers, most of whom never 

served, are often not inclined to steer them toward a military option. We are responding to this challenge by meeting millennials on 

their terms, appealing to their search for something more, their 

sense of service, their spirit of volunteerism, and their interest in 

the world around them. 

Fiscal year 2007 marked the 9th consecutive year we met overall 

Active component accession mission, attaining 101 percent of our 

enlisted accession goal, with 93 percent high school diploma and 73 

percent in test categories I through III-Alpha on the Armed Forces 

Qualification Test. This year to date we have attained 112 percent 

of the first quarter accession goal, with 92 percent high school diploma grads and 75 percent test score categories I through IIIAlpha. 

This past year we made significant progress on our number one 

recruiting priority, Navy Special Warfare and Special Operations. 

We made dramatic inroads in recruiting and retaining high performing youths in our most elite programs by hiring former SEALs 

and Special Operations personnel to assist in selecting, testing, 

educating, and mentoring new recruits. Requiring candidates to 

pass the physical screening test before accessing them has contributed to improving the pass rate from a historic norm of 28 percent 

to 78 percent in just 1 year. A $40,000 enlistment bonus has proven an exceptional incentive 

and we thank you for your staunch support for such critical enlistment tools. 

We achieved 100 percent of our Reserve component accession 

goal in 2007, compared to 87 percent the previous year. Much of 

the fiscal year 2006 shortfall was in ratings directly supporting the 

global war on terror. By realigning the proportion of non-prior service sailors accessed into global war on terror ratings through our 

new accession training program, streamlining our transition from 

the Active to the Reserve component, and implementing a transition bonus of up to $20,000 to convert to global war on terror ratings, we attained 115 percent of overall accession goal, 122 percent 

of prior service goal, and 103 percent of new accession training 

thus far in fiscal year 2008. 

We’ve had mixed results in officer recruiting, meeting 19 of 23 

Active component community goals in 2007, including all unrestricted, restricted, and staff core goals. We’ve increased our focus 

and taken steps to enhance our chances of succeeding in the four 

remaining communities: Chaplain Corps, Chaplain Student Programs, Naval Reactors Engineers, and Medical Profession Student 

Programs. 

Our number one priority in fiscal year 2008 is medical officer recruiting. We’re executing a comprehensive medical recruiting strategy to address shortfalls in this area. Many incentives enacted in 

the 2007 and 2008 defense bills will help us keep competitive and 

move us forward toward sustained success in recruiting medical 

11

professions. With the help of an increase in the Nurse Corps accession bonus to $30,000, we are currently 30 percent ahead of last 

year’s very successful recruiting season. Enhanced direct accession 

bonuses for medical doctors and dentists and a $20,000 accession 

bonus for medical student programs have contributed to our identifying 35 percent of our accession goals to date compared to 21 percent this time last year, keeping us on pace to make all Active officer accessions in fiscal year 2008. 

The Reserve officer market continues to pose significant challenges. Faced with an accession mission requirement for 72 percent 

prior service personnel, we achieved just 52 percent of the overall 

2007 accession mission. Accordingly, we reduced our 2008 prior 

service requirement to 51 percent of the accession plan in many 

designators and implemented several initiatives, such as a $10,000 

affiliation bonus and 2-year mobilization deferment, to attract prior 

service sailors to the Reserve component. Thus far in 2008, we’ve 

attained 36 percent of non-medical Reserve officer, compared to 

only 51 percent for the entire fiscal year in 2007. 

In Reserve medical recruiting, we’ve attained or selected 53 percent of our annual goal so far, compared to only 57 percent for all 

last year. 

With your continued support, I’m confident we will be able to 

continue in the successes we are currently enjoying and in addressing existing shortfalls. 

I thank you for your unwavering support for Navy recruiting and 

I look forward to responding to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Kilkenny follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT BY RADM JOSEPH F. KILKENNY, USN 

Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the 

opportunity to appear today to offer an update on the state of Navy recruiting, both 

Active and Reserve. It is an honor for me to lead the 7,500 Total Force sailors who 

are dedicated to the Navy’s recruiting efforts to enlist the best and brightest young 

men and women to succeed in today’s Navy. I am pleased to tell you that we are 

meeting our mission requirements in both quality and quantity and we intend to 

continue to do so. 

Recruiting for the military is a significant challenge. The Navy is competing with 

private sector employers and colleges for the best and brightest from our Millennial 

Generation, a generation whose outlook has been fashioned by dramatically different technology and experiences than that of previous generations. During childhood, this generation witnessed acts of terrorism on American soil. Traumatizing 

events, such as school shootings, combined with the persistent threat of terrorism, 

have stimulated parents’ natural instincts to be increasingly protective of and more 

involved in their children’s lives and decision making. With the advent of the Internet, e-mail, cell phones, instant messaging and even more recent developments like 

interactive social-networking websites, such as Facebook and MySpace, Millennials 

experience the world on a global scale, 24/7. They share their experiences with, and 

seek information from others whom they have never met except through virtual social networks. Their pressure to succeed is internally focused and they are motivated to take jobs that help people in need and make a difference to society at large. 

These young men and women view education and a civilian job as the way to get 

ahead. Military service is typically not on their radar screens. Most Millennials’ 

influencers have never served in the military and are generally not informed about 

the features and many benefits of a military career. In many cases, influencers 

today often paint a neutral or sometimes negative picture of military service adding 

to the challenges of recruiting this generation of young Americans. To attract 

Millennials to join the Navy, it is vital that we relate to them on their terms and 

appeal to their search for something more, their sense of service, their spirit of volunteerism and their interest in the world around them. 

12

ENLISTED RECRUITING

Despite the many challenges, fiscal year 2007 marked the 9th consecutive year 

we achieved overall Active component accession mission, while surpassing DOD 

minimum recruit quality standards. In fiscal year 2007, Navy met 101 percent of 

Active enlisted accession goal, with 93 percent High School Diploma Graduates 

(HSDG) and 73 percent in Test Score Categories (TSC) I–IIIA on the Armed Forces 

Qualification Test. So far in fiscal year 2008, we have sustained this success, achieving 112 percent attainment of first quarter accession goal with 92 percent HSDG 

and 75 percent TSC I–IIIA. 

Last year, our number one recruiting priority was Naval Special Warfare and Special Operations (NSW/NSO). These elite programs provide some of the most demanding training in the world and require exceptionally bright and physically fit 

individuals. The health of these communities is very important to Navy’s contributions to our Nation’s successes in the global war on terrorism and demands that we 

place special emphasis on recruiting well-qualified applicants with the aptitude and 

capacity to successfully complete the extremely arduous training. To enhance the 

likelihood of candidates succeeding, we hired former NSW/NSO personnel to assist 

in selection, testing, education, and mentoring new recruits. Since the first hurdle 

for these recruits is passing the Physical Screening Test (PST), we require NSW/

NSO recruits to successfully complete the PST with a passing score prior to accession. These measures dramatically increased PST pass-rates for recruits at boot 

camp, increasing from the historic norm of 28 percent to 78 percent in 2007. The 

impact of the $40,000 enlistment bonus cannot be overstated in its contribution to 

our success in NSW/NSO recruiting. We would like to thank you for your past and 

continued support in improving the incentive packages available to the Navy. 

In fiscal year 2007, the Navy achieved 100 percent of the Reserve component accession goal compared to 87 percent the previous year. Much of the shortfall for fiscal year 2006 was in those ratings which directly support the global war on terror. 

The traditional reliance on prior service sailors to the meet this mission made it difficult to meet the requirements. A mismatch exists between the skill sets and number of personnel transitioning from the Active component to meet Reserve component requirements. To address this challenge, Navy aligned the mission mix to accept recruits without prior military service through the New Accession Training 

(NAT) program exclusively into global war on terror ratings. Additionally, Navy has 

streamlined the procedures to transition sailors from Active component to Reserve 

component. We also implemented an aggressive program that allows transitioning 

sailors to receive up to a $20,000 bonus upon completion of apprenticeship training 

necessary to convert to global war on terror ratings. The enlistment incentives you 

authorized for our Reserve component have been and continue to be critical to mission attainment. 

Our success with the Reserve enlisted mission continues this fiscal year. For the 

first quarter, we attained 115 percent of overall accession goal, while exceeding both 

prior-service (122 percent) and NAT (103 percent) goals. 

OFFICER RECRUITING

Fiscal year 2007 produced mixed results in the area of officer recruiting. We met 

19 of 23 Active component officer community goals, including all unrestricted line, 

restricted line, and staff corps community goals. Chaplain Corps, Chaplain Student 

Program, Naval Reactors Engineers, and Medical Professions Student Programs 

were the only officer communities that did not achieve annual goal. We increased 

our attention to officer recruiting across the board and initiated several programs 

and incentives to attract applicants in this competitive market. 

We established Medical Officer Recruiting as our number one priority for fiscal 

year 2008 and are executing a comprehensive Medical Recruiting Strategy that we 

developed last fall to attack shortfalls in our medical programs. To attract quality 

medical and dental professionals, a significant amount of work has been completed 

to include incentives in legislation. Many of those incentives were authorized in the 

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (NDAA 2007), while others 

are in planned authorizations for 2008 legislation and beyond. 

Your continued support in funding incentives that keep us competitive with the 

civilian marketplace will move us toward sustained success in the recruitment of 

medical professionals. The competitive nursing market is a good example of the effectiveness of comprehensive financial incentives for recruiting Health Professionals. 

The 4-year active accession bonus was increased from $15,000 in 2005 to $20,000 

in 2006 to $25,000 in 2007. Correspondingly, our Active component Nurse Corps direct accession goal attainment improved from 55 percent to 82 percent to 103 percent in those same years. 

13

To overcome the national nursing shortage and increasing civilian sector competition, we increased the nurse accession bonus to $30,000 which will help sustain our 

success. So far in 2008 we are 30 percent ahead of last year’s very successful recruiting season. Initial indications are that we should see similar results from the 

authorities granted in NDAA 2007 to pay up to a $400,000 accession bonus for direct accessions of medical doctors and dentists, as well as a $20,000 accession bonus 

for our medical student programs. To date we have identified 35 percent of our accession goal, compared to 21 percent at this same time last year—a direct result 

of accession incentives. We are seeing similar improvement across the board and are 

on pace to make all active officer accession goals in fiscal year 2008. 

For Reserve officers, we achieved 52 percent of our overall accession mission in 

2007. Seventy-one percent of our accession requirement is from communities that 

require prior-service experience. That market continues to pose significant challenges since most people leaving the Active Navy are leaving for reasons that are 

not relieved by simply switching components. Recruiters are facing the same arguments Active-Duty Commanders face when trying to retain personnel. In fiscal year 

2008, we reduced our prior-service Navy requirement to 51 percent of the accession 

plan, though designators that demand prior Navy experience will continue to be 

challenging. Several initiatives have been put in place to attract prior service sailors 

to the Reserve component including a $10,000 affiliation bonus and a 2-year mobilization deferment. Your continued support of legislation that provides us with the 

appropriate Reserve affiliation incentives is bearing fruit. Already in 2008 we’ve 

seen a tremendous turnaround in Reserve officer recruiting. We have attained 36 

percent of non-medical Reserve officer goal so far in fiscal year 2008 compared to 

only attaining 51 percent for the entire fiscal year 2007. Reserve Medical Recruiting 

is our greatest success in fiscal year 2008 to date, having already attained or selected 53 percent of annual goal compared to the 57 percent we accessed in all of 

2007. We attribute this success to the affiliation incentives, restructuring of our accession requirements and a renewed focus on the officer recruiting mission. 

Overall, we are cautiously optimistic that with your continued support and the 

dedicated efforts that we have made in officer recruiting, we will move towards sustainable success. 

CONCLUSION

In spite of an extremely challenging recruiting environment, Navy recruiting is 

well-positioned to succeed in the upcoming year. We have a sustainable, agile, and 

adaptive recruiting force dedicated to recruiting the very best talent our Nation has 

to offer. We ask for your continued support for the many recruiting incentives necessary to meet mission requirements for our Navy, today, tomorrow, and far into 

the future.

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, Admiral. 

General Vautrinot. Am I getting closer? 

STATEMENT OF BRIG. GEN. SUZANNE M. VAUTRINOT, USAF, 

COMMANDER, AIR FORCE RECRUITING SERVICE 

General VAUTRINOT. I go by ‘‘V–8’’ and you’re welcome to use it. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. Chairman, honorable members of the subcommittee: Thank 

you so much for affording your Air Force the opportunity to talk 

about our robust and very experienced recruiting force, our successes, and our challenges. Mr. Chairman, as you pointed out, we 

are in a tough environment and, like all Air Force missions around 

the globe, our recruiting resources are severely constrained. We 

continue to succeed, but in order to do so we’ve had to get leaner 

and much more efficient. 

I’m honored today to represent our Nation’s smallest military recruiting force, all volunteers, men and women like Master Sergeant 

Dave White back there, who are working long hours, each covering 

thousands of miles, in an environment that’s not always welcoming, with the full support of their families every step of the 

way. 

14

Air Force recruiters are creative and enthusiastic. But more than 

that, they embrace the Air Force’s highest core value, integrity 

first. Word of mouth—recruiters telling others exactly how it’s 

going to be in their basic training, in their first job; and then those 

recruits have an extraordinary experience and they call home and 

they tell their friends and they tell their families. 

We want their training and their education to match what their 

recruiters told them, and we want their positive Air Force experience to make them want to stay. This is perpetuation. It’s what allows us to recruit and to retain effectively. 

The Air Force attracts recruits with a simple but powerful message: We’re a well-trained, highly technical force, a global team defending the Nation in the war on terrorism, while simultaneously 

executing humanitarian missions around the globe. Above all, new 

airmen look forward to doing amazing things in vital air, space, 

and cyberspace missions, making a real difference to the future of 

their Nation. 

The quality of our recruits remains far above DOD benchmarks. 

Nearly 80 percent of our recruits scored in the top half of the 

ASVAB last year, a number that has remained above 75 percent 

since 2000. Additionally, every airman enters with a high school 

education or equivalent and 91 percent of our new airmen enter 

without a waiver. Finally, more than 15 percent of Air Force enlistees enter with at least a year of college credits, a clear indicator 

that we’re attracting a mature and well-educated young American. 

Recruiting Service recruits a diverse, high quality volunteer force 

to fill jobs that are vital to accomplishing our Air Force’s worldwide 

mission and despite as high as a fourfold increase in requirements 

for Air Force hard-to-fill categories, such as our Special Operations. 

Fundamentally, every single opening for combat controller, 

pararescue, survival, evasion, resistance and escape, our explosive 

ordnance disposal, our tactical air control parties working with the 

Marine Corps and the Army, and our linguists, every job filled for 

7 years. 

After all this is accomplished, despite the fact that the likelihood 

that Americans will serve their country has dipped to its lowest 

point in decades, as General Bostick and Admiral Kilkenny have 

pointed out, but also the likelihood that parents, teachers, coaches, 

and clergy will recommend military service has significantly 

dropped. Moreover, as you mentioned, nearly three-quarters of 

America’s youth do not meet basic eligibility standards. Finally, an 

increasing number of communities and high schools are less likely 

to welcome recruiters. Still, your Air Force recruiters succeed. 

We are making adjustments in health professions recruiting and 

we expect to be able to hurdle challenges in this area. To do that, 

we’ve carefully looked at where we’ve been successful and have adjusted to play to those strengths. First, we’ve decided it’s more effective to grow our own physicians, dentists, and nurses, specifically student-based accessions. We are focusing our recruiters and 

our core efforts in areas where colleges and universities feed to 

medical, dental, and bachelor of science nursing schools. We will 

fill both our student-based and fully qualified health professional 

accessions using the incentive programs your committee has so 

generously supported. Thank you. The Air Force Chief of Staff has 

15

directed that next year’s health professions incentives will reflect 

this adjustment. 

Moreover, recruiting has teamed with the Air Force’s medical 

community and now has career field champions—experienced medical professionals in each one of our core specialties that pair and 

partner with recruiters as they go to conventions and schools. The 

recruiter is able to talk about the benefits of the Air Force and the 

health professional is able to talk about the specific benefits, the 

higher education, the specialized residency, in their medical professions. 

These changes are critical to the care and sustainment of our Nation’s military members, highlighted by the fact that over 8,000 Air 

Force medical officers have deployed in support of the global war 

on terrorism. 

Unique to Air Force Reserve component recruiting is the fact 

that they’re primarily a local force, uniting the civilian and the 

military work forces. Their units, many in your communities, take 

time to build, and as the Guard and Reserve respond to the BRAC 

and the Total Force Initiative and embark on new highly-skilled 

missions in intelligence, space, cyberspace, medical support, and 

other areas in communities across the country, it takes time to find 

the right people to put in the right place. 

Transformation initiatives will be effective in the mid-April timeframe and this should serve as a positive turning point in the Air 

Force’s recruiting efforts, particularly officers. 

The bottom line is your Air Force total force recruiting team continues to bring in quality men and women because it matters. We 

recruit to retain, so we recruit the brightest candidates possible, 

then provide them with tough, highly technical training so that 

they, America’s Air Force, can help secure the future of this great 

Nation. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Vautrinot follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT BY BRIG. GEN. SUZANNE M. VAUTRINOT, USAF 

Mr. Chairman and honorable members of this committee, I want to thank you for 

affording the Air Force an opportunity to discuss its robust recruiting mission. It 

is with great pride that I represent the world’s finest Air, Space, and Cyberspace 

Force and all of the airmen who are engaged every day in the joint fight providing 

rapid response during conflicts and humanitarian relief across the world. 

As the Air Force transforms to a leaner and more agile force to meet today’s global challenges, our recruiters continue to succeed in their primary goal of finding the 

right people with the right skills at the right time. 

ACTIVE COMPONENT RECRUITING

The Air Force exceeded its enlisted recruiting goal in 2007 for the 8th consecutive 

year, and for the 77th straight month. 

Since 2000, the Air Force has enlisted 258,166 airmen against a goal of 254,753 

for 101 percent of mission accomplishment. For 2008, the active-duty requirement 

is 27,800 and the Air Force is well on its way toward meeting its goal for the 9th 

straight year. 

The quality of our recruits remains significantly above Department of Defense 

benchmarks in all primary indicators, consistent with the high Air Force standards 

of the last two decades. Seventy-nine percent of our enlistees scored at or above the 

50th percentile on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test 

last year, a number that has remained above 75 percent since 2000. Additionally, 

every single Air Force accession enters the service with at least a high-school degree 

or an equivalent education. Furthermore, 91 percent of our recruits enter without 

16

requiring a waiver for moral, drug, or criminal issues. Finally, more than 15 percent 

of all Air Force enlistees entered with more than a year of college credits last year—

nearly a 30-percent increase from 2001. 

Recruiting Service continues to recruit a diverse, high-quality volunteer force to 

fill jobs vital to the Air Force in accomplishing its worldwide mission. Our hard-tofill, critical warfighting career fields are always at the forefront of this effort. Over 

the last 7 years, despite increased requirements in all Air Force ‘‘special ops’’ categories, every single opening for Combat Controller; Pararescue; Tactical Air Control 

Party; Explosive Ordnance Disposal; Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape; and 

Linguist has been filled. Congress has provided assistance to these hard-to-fill positions in the way of an initial enlistment bonus ranging from $1,500 to $13,000, depending on the job and length of enlistment. No other job skills enlistment bonuses 

are offered. 

Officer recruitment programs, with the exception of our medical career fields, 

have met with continued mission success. On the medical side, last year the Air 

Force recruited just under half of its fully qualified healthcare target. Broken down 

by specialty, it amounted to 68 doctors (17.4 percent), 45 dentists (25.5 percent), 222 

nurses (62.5 percent), 125 biomedical scientists (62.8 percent), and 34 medical administrators (97 percent). This need is made all the greater because the Air Force 

has deployed over 8,000 medical officers in support of the global war on terror since 

2001. 

Air Force Recruiting Service and the Air Force Medical Service have partnered 

to reduce the shortfall in medical officer recruiting. At the forefront of our medical 

accessions plan is an increase in health professions scholarships and a realignment 

of health professions recruiters to major American medical education centers. As a 

result, Recruiting Service has placed more emphasis on bringing in student-based 

accessions versus fully qualified professionals. While civilian medical facilities struggle with the same challenge of maintaining a viable medical corps, assistance from 

Congress to support our efforts has come in the form of authorization of accession 

bonuses for fully qualified medical professionals. Similarly, we have significantly increased available medical scholarship opportunities. 

Air Force Recruiting continues to hurdle other challenges, including the dynamics 

of the recruiting environment, limited resources, and the quality of the age-eligible 

demographic. 

The propensity for young Americans to serve their country, coupled with a drop 

in key influencers—such as teachers, coaches, and family members—recommending 

Service, is at its lowest point in 35 years. Moreover, nearly three quarters of America’s youth do not meet eligibility standards to serve in our Nation’s military, so the 

Air Force must compete for qualified candidates not only with the other Services, 

but with colleges and industry as well. Making that task even more difficult is the 

fact that an increasing number of communities and high schools are less likely to 

welcome recruiters. 

A reduction in both recruiters and money has made it a tough playing field, but 

one on which Air Force recruiters continue to excel. The Air Force Recruiting Service consistently stays 6 months ahead of the game in filling its enlistment job contracts (our ‘‘job bank’’), with 70 percent of our flights and 90 percent of our squadrons making their recruiting goals. This indicates teamwork at ‘‘full production.’’ 

Air Force recruiting efforts have benefited from strong perpetuation—by our airmen whose positive recruitment experience was followed by good opportunities in 

training, education, and duty during their enlistments, who then spread that message back home. We believe our success in this regard is strongly tied to the Air 

Force’s core value of integrity. 

The Air Force has also initiated creative approaches in targeted recruiting, primarily focusing on events that young Americans attend such as extreme sporting 

venues like motorbike racing, snowmobile racing, and surfing. 

RESERVE COMPONENT RECRUITING

In addition to our Active Force, our Air Reserve component is experiencing successful recruiting efforts while facing additional recruiting challenges. 

The Air Force Reserve met its recruiting goals for a 7th consecutive year. That 

being said, a 10-percent reduction in personnel planned over the future years defense program (FYDP), coupled with the impact of base realignment and closure 

(BRAC) initiatives, presents significant future recruiting challenges for the Air 

Force Reserve. With the personnel reductions brought about by the realignment and 

closure of Reserve installations due to BRAC and Total Force Integration, approximately 20 percent of the force will be directly impacted by the planned changes 

through new and emerging missions, and mission adjustments to satisfy Air Force 

17

requirements. In light of all these changes, they expect the recruiting environment 

will be turbulent, dynamic and challenging. 

It’s important to remember the Air Force Reserve is a local force and that growing 

units will face significant recruiting challenges when considering the availability of 

adequately qualified and trained personnel. As has always been the case, they will 

focus on maximizing prior service accessions. Regular Air Force reductions over the 

FYDP may prove beneficial to their recruiting efforts, but will not be the complete 

answer since only the Regular Air Force critical skills closely match those in the 

Reserve. Non-prior service or ‘‘other prior service’’ individuals accessed by the Reserve will inevitably require extensive retraining which is costly. 

The Air National Guard achieved 99.3 percent of its recruiting goal for fiscal year 

2007. 2008 is off to a great start for enlisted recruiting, but officer recruiting is 

short, largely due to the issues associated with BRAC and Total Force Initiatives. 

Overall, these initiatives will make tremendous improvements in the integration of 

the Active and Reserve components, but these initiatives have caused some shortterm recruiting challenges. The impact of these transformation initiatives within the 

Air National Guard cannot be understated, as many Air National Guard units were 

faced with challenges regarding their future mission and personnel requirements, 

making if difficult to accomplish the full recruiting mission during that time. 

The good news is that all transformation initiatives will be effective in the April 

timeframe and this should serve as a positive turning point in the Air National 

Guard’s recruiting efforts. While many opportunities still exist in the traditional 

fighter, air refueling, airlift and special operations missions, there is an increasing 

need for talent in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, unmanned aerial 

systems, space, cyberspace and expeditionary medical support. The Air National 

Guard recruiting force is now engaged in a dramatic effort to attract the nearly 

9,000 enlisted personnel and 2,700 officers it will need to perform the Air National 

Guard missions of the future. 

To ensure separating Active-Duty personnel have every opportunity to continue 

service in the Reserve component, we request that any future legislation enacted to 

assist Services with drawdown efforts should encourage or incentivize continued 

service in the Reserve component. Retaining our separating Active component members is the best investment the country can make for our Reserve component because it ensures a force that is ready and able to go to war at any time. 

CONCLUSION

Our Nation is facing challenging times. The Air Force has been in continual combat operations for the last 17 years. Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan 

have tested our ranks and national polls indicate that young American’s are less 

likely to consider joining the military, but well-qualified young men and women 

keep on serving—a testament to the tremendous quality of our countrymen, our Air 

Force, and our all-volunteer recruiters. 

The bottom line is our Total Force—comprised of Active-Duty, Air Force Reserve, 

and Air National Guard—continues to bring in quality men and women because it 

matters. We recruit to retain, so we recruit the brightest candidates possible, then 

provide them with tough, highly-technical training that gives them the right skills 

to sustain the combat capability of America’s Air Force.

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, General. 

General Tryon? 

STATEMENT OF MAJ. GEN. RICHARD T. TRYON, USMC, COMMANDING GENERAL, MARINE CORPS RECRUITING COMMAND 

General TRYON. Good morning, sir. Mr. Chairman, distinguished 

members of the subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to 

appear before you today and to provide information on the state of 

Marine Corps recruiting. 

I’d like to begin first by expressing the Marine Corps’ appreciation for your continued support of our recruiting effort. Our commitment to you and to the American people is that we will strive 

to recruit quality young men and women who meet the high standards expected of America’s marines. 

18

Today’s recruiting environment, as you have alluded to earlier, 

is both competitive and challenging. It’s tough. Our recruiters, like 

Staff Sergeant Britton, who has accompanied me here today, work 

long hours and experience difficulties in finding young men and 

women who are mentally, morally, and physically qualified with either the inclination or ambition to serve their country. Additionally, our recruiters find that they must invest considerable time 

with parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and others who influence today’s youth as they consider their post-high school opportunities. 

During the past fiscal year, the Marine Corps achieved its recruiting objectives in both quantity and quality. This was a result 

of the hard work performed by marines assigned to recruiting duty 

and those committed to accomplishing their mission. I attribute the 

success that we achieved this past year to the strong positive image 

that the Marine Corps enjoys with the American public and to a 

quality recruiting force, one that is screened, well-trained, and 

properly resourced for the mission. 

We are currently meeting our objectives for fiscal year 2008 for 

both officer and enlisted recruiting and, while recruiting is fraught 

with uncertainties, I anticipate that we are on track to achieve our 

assigned mission for fiscal year 2008. 

Thank you again for your support and for the opportunity to appear before you today. 

[The prepared statement of General Tryon follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT BY MAJ. GEN. RICHARD T. TRYON, USAF 

RECRUITING

Chairman Nelson, Senator Graham, and distinguished members of the subcommittee; I am pleased to report that despite the current challenges in the recruiting environment, our recruiters continue to make their recruiting goals in all areas 

in support of our total force recruiting mission. This past year, our recruiting mission was increased as part of a series of milestones to ‘‘grow the force’’ and build 

an Active component 21st century Marine Corps with an end strength of 202,000. 

Fiscal year 2007 was a year of change for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command. 

Our focus in fiscal year 2008 is to continue to recruit quality men and women into 

our Corps as we expand our ranks. 

Recruiting is the lifeblood of our Corps. The recruiting environment remains competitive and challenging as we recruit during sustained combat operations and compete with our sister Services and the private sector for the best eligible men and 

women our country has to offer. We believe that detailed planning, precision execution, and unwavering commitment to quality by our recruiting force will yield results. The professional character of our recruiters, exhibiting our core values of 

honor, courage, and commitment, must continue to earn the trust and respect of the 

public. Leadership and accountability define our Corps and are essential to preserving the relationship we have with the American people. 

To meet the challenges of the current recruiting environment it is imperative that 

we maintain our high standards both for our recruiters and those who volunteer to 

serve in our Corps. The Corps must continue to be comprised of the best and brightest of America’s youth. We must also remain mindful that the Marine Corps needs 

to reflect the face of the Nation and be representative of those we serve. Today’s 

youth, now more than ever, must exhibit the leadership potential, moral character, 

native intelligence, and physical attributes in order to succeed in the Corps. Our 

image of a smart, tough, elite warrior continues to resonate with young people seeking to join our Corps. Our ethos that every marine is a rifleman is inherent in our 

recruiting themes. Therefore, it is no surprise that our Marine recruiters receive 

more requests for infantry programs from applicants than any other program in our 

inventory. Clearly, our enlistees know and fully understand the magnitude of their 

decision and that in all likelihood, they will be called upon to serve on front lines 

in the war against terrorism. 

19

As alluded to earlier, enlisting quality men and women only strengthens our 

Corps as we expand our ranks. Equally important, it helps to preserve our unique 

character. There is a direct correlation between enlisting quality youth today and 

the long-term effects it has on reducing attrition at the recruit depots, increasing 

retention, and improving readiness in the operating forces. These factors contribute 

to ensuring that the Marine Corps remains the Nation’s premiere force in readiness. 

Total Force 

The Marine Corps is unique in that all recruiting efforts (officer, enlisted, regular, 

Reserve, and prior-service) fall under the direction of the Marine Corps Recruiting 

Command. Operationally, this provides us with flexibility and unity of command in 

order to annually meet our objectives. In fiscal year 2007, the Marine Corps 

achieved 100.1 percent of the enlisted (regular and Reserve) ship mission (accessions). Over 95 percent of our accessions were Tier 1 high school diploma graduates 

and over 66 percent were in the I–IIIA upper mental group testing categories. In 

short, we accomplished our recruiting mission achieving the Commandant’s standards and exceeding those of the Department of Defense (DOD). To meet the Marine 

Corps’ proposed end strength increase, annual total force accessions missions will 

steadily grow from 40,863 in fiscal year 2007 to over 46,000 in fiscal year 2010. Fiscal year 2008 total force accessions mission is 42,202. As of 1 Jan 2008, we shipped 

(accessed) 8,117 applicants. This represents 103.3 percent of our total force mission 

fiscal year to date. Although recruiting is fraught with uncertainties, we expect to 

meet our annual recruiting mission to include our quality goals. Additionally, we 

continue to achieve our contracting goals for this fiscal year which ensures we have 

a population of qualified individuals ready to ship to recruit training as we enter 

fiscal year 2009. Our Officer Selection Teams were also successful in fiscal year 

2007, accessing 1,844 second lieutenants for 101 percent of their assigned mission. 

In fiscal year 2008, we are continuing efforts to increase the population of officer 

candidates and commission second lieutenants commensurate with our force structure and the growth in end strength. To assist our officer selection officers in meeting their officer accession missions, we have implemented new programs such as the 

College Loan Repayment program in order to attract prospective candidates and remain competitive in this difficult recruiting environment. 

Reserve Component 

For the Reserve component, the Marine Corps achieved its fiscal year 2007 Reserve enlisted recruiting goals with the accession of 5,287 non-prior service marines 

and 1,591 prior service marines. As of 1 Jan 2008, we accessed 893 non-prior service 

and 1,308 prior service marines, which reflects 21 percent and 29 percent of our annual mission respectively. Again, we expect to meet our Reserve recruiting and quality goals this year. 

Officer recruiting for our Selected Marine Corps Reserve (SMCR) units is traditionally one of our greatest challenges. To help address this issue, we initiated a 

Reserve officer commissioning program. Under this program, individuals complete 

all their initial training and return to a Reserve unit to serve as a drilling reservist. 

This past year the program showed promise by commissioning 48 second lieutenants 

directly into the SMCR. To date this fiscal year, we commissioned 27 Reserve Officers and anticipate positive growth in this new initiative through fiscal year 2008 

and beyond. 

Accomplishing the Mission 

The Marine Corps understands that the ‘All-Volunteer Force’ is in fact an ‘‘AllRecruited Force’’ and that the Marine Corps Recruiting Command is on the front 

lines engaged in a mission vital to the long-term health of our Corps. In order to 

meet end strength goals, continue to maintain the high Marine Corps and DOD 

quality standards, and attain a diverse entry level population representative of national demographics, we must be ever vigilant in our focused approach of enlisting 

only the best America has to offer. 

The success achieved during the past fiscal year is attributed to a quality recruiting force; one that is screened, well-trained, and properly resourced to meet mission 

requirements. Every marine assigned to recruiting duty is evaluated based on his 

or her fitness to perform the demanding duties of a marine recruiter. The Headquarters Marine Corps Recruiter Screening Team (HRST) conducts annual visits to 

bases, stations and installations to interview prospective recruiters. Additionally, 

commanding officers must certify a marine’s fitness for independent duty. Once 

screened, marines attend a 7-week Basic Recruiter’s Course before reporting to their 

Recruiting Station. Training continues in the form of Proficiency and Review (PAR) 

training during the first 6 months on recruiting duty as a canvassing recruiter and 

subsequently as directed by the commanding officer of the recruiting station. 

20

Resourcing the Marine Corps Recruiting Command also has been a priority of senior 

marine leadership. During fiscal year 2007, 200 additional recruiters were assigned 

to recruiting duty. Another 200 recruiters have been added in fiscal year 2008. The 

recruiting force has received the necessary tools in the form of additional offices, vehicles, computers, telephones, etc., in an effort to set the conditions for success. 

These increases have come with proper funding, increased marketing and advertisement initiatives, and recruiter performance recognition programs. Collectively, these 

efforts produce a quality recruiting force designed to support the projected increase 

in the Marine Corps end strength. 

A key factor in our mission management is ensuring clear and direct responsibility and oversight. The Commanding General of Marine Corps Recruiting Command reports directly to the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The Commanding 

Generals of our two Marine Corps Recruit Training Depots also serve as the Commanding Generals of our Eastern and Western Recruiting Regions. Having the same 

individual responsible for quality recruiting and entry-level basic training is crucial 

to successfully recruiting and making marines. Consistent with this, our recruiters’ 

commitment to recruiting a quality Corps is further reinforced by the fact that they 

are held accountable for their recruits’ performance throughout the entire process 

as they earn the title marine, from the time they enlist in the delayed entry program until they complete ‘‘boot camp.’’ 

Although marine recruiters need and use tangible incentives (e.g. bonuses, college 

funds, etc.), we primarily achieve our success by emphasizing the Marine Corps first 

and foremost. We strongly believe that our core values distinguish us as an elite 

force and that once you earn the title marine, you are a marine for life. 

We thank Congress for their continued support of legislation that provides recruiters access to high schools and student directory lists. This access remains critical 

to recruiting quality applicants. Without it, our marine recruiters would lose one of 

their most efficient and productive means of conveying the opportunities of military 

service. This would have an immediate, adverse impact on our ability to accomplish 

our mission. Maintaining access to high schools and student directories remains a 

top priority for ensuring continued success. Further, Congress’ continued support in 

funding for enlistment bonuses and advertising is appreciated. 

The ability to advertise is essential in the era of the All-Volunteer Force. Raising 

public awareness and extolling the virtues and benefits of serving one’s country is 

important in today’s society. 

In closing, recruiting is the strategic first step in making marines just as it is the 

first step in growing the Corps. As we expand our ranks and increase our officer 

and enlisted populations, we must never lose sight that our most effective weapon 

is the marine recruiter. In all that we do, we must remain faithful to our promise 

to make marines, win our country’s battles and return quality citizens back home: 

citizens who—once transformed—will be marines for life.

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you very much, General. 

Senator McCaskill, would you have any opening remarks that 

you might like to make before we go to the questions? 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Senator Nelson. 

Just briefly, I hope we can stay long enough to ask a few questions. All of us are, I know, juggling lots of stuff this morning. But 

I did want to just focus on misconduct in the area of recruiting. I 

know and am familiar with a problem that we had in St. Louis 

where someone actually went in from a news station posing as a 

recruit and taped the recruiting session, and of course then it was 

shown on the television in St. Louis. It was ugly. It was disappointing. 

Particularly, I know the pressure that’s on the Army in terms of 

the numbers, and this was, in fact, an Army recruiter. I want to 

visit with you, hopefully if I have time, about the pilot project that 

is ongoing about cameras in the recruiting room. I know you’ve 

done the buddy system, but cameras and looking at what the costs 

of that would be and when the reports expected on the pilot project. 

I think it’s really important, with the pressure that is bringing 

to bear on recruiting numbers, that we are very, very careful about 

how we’re handling recruiters who are maybe saying things that 

21

are just frankly not true. This incident, clearly the impression was 

being given that if you sign up you would not have to go to Iraq 

or that Iraq was safer than downtown St. Louis. Obviously, that 

not only I think is a misstatement, it’s clearly offensive to the people of St. Louis, likening their community to a war zone where 

very, very brave men and women have obviously lost their lives because people want to kill them because of who they represent and 

what they’re trying to do. 

So I am very impressed with all of you and the efforts that are 

being made. I have such respect for our military. I understand 

these are a few bad apples, a very, very few. But we have to be 

careful because, with the pressure that’s being brought to bear, we 

have to make sure we have a system in place to ferret out those 

bad apples and make sure that we get them out of the recruiting 

process and appropriate action is taken in terms of accountability. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, Senator. I would hope that we 

would have some time to talk directly to the recruiters so that you 

might be able to address the question to them, because I suspect 

that they, as truly the boots-on-the-ground in recruiting, they’re 

certainly going to be aware of what is going on. Thank you. 

I guess this goes to all the witnesses. Everyone’s aware that the 

President vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act as passed 

by Congress last December. Congress quickly revised the bill to address the President’s concerns and modified it to make sure that 

the military pay raise and authority to pay bonuses were retroactive, so no servicemember would lose pay. 

Now the President signed that legislation and did so last Monday. The question I have is, did the uncertainty created by this 

delay in enacting the bill affect recruiting in January, because of 

just the uncertainty, is it going to be signed, are they going to be 

able to do it, will the pay raise go through, will it be retroactive, 

the uncertainty that comes about without having legislation in 

place? I just wonder if you had any experience related to that. I’m 

not anticipating that it was significant. 

Admiral KILKENNY. Sir, I’ll answer for the Navy, sir. We took 

precautions when we knew it wasn’t going to get passed. Thank 

you for your support on making everything retroactive. I think 

most of us are coming up at the end of the month, but I can tell 

you that it has had no impact on Navy recruiting for the short 

speed bump that I say occurred, and we appreciate your quick addressing of that information. 

We all probably feel that if it went longer that it may have an 

impact on us. But the brevity of the time, sir, had no impact on 

the Navy’s perspective. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Did anybody else have any reaction to 

that, any experience? 

General VAUTRINOT. Sir, we were very pleased with our recruiters, who were able to work with each of the new candidates, those 

that are in our delayed enlistment program and were going to be 

coming in after the first of the year. Every single one of them 

signed the addendum, recognized what was going on in Congress, 

and I’m sure every one of them thanks you, because they signed 

that on good faith and based on the good relationships they had 

22

with their recruiters. So making that possible and making it retroactive was very supportive. 

In addition, the language in that bill also helps us in the health 

professions recruiting area for continuing the bonus and the incentive programs. 

Senator BEN NELSON. General? 

General TRYON. Sir, we did not experience difficulties associated 

with the veto. Our recruiters strive first and foremost to emphasize 

the value of service to both Corps and country. We seek youngsters 

who want to be marines first and we place a premium on those intangibles that are associated with service to Corps and country, 

such as patriotism, pride of belonging, and the image of a smart, 

tough, elite warrior. 

That said, the 13 skill bonuses that we do have are certainly useful in filling the low density, high demand Military Occupational 

Specialty (MOS) skills that are required in our Service today. 

Senator BEN NELSON. General? 

General BOSTICK. We saw no impact in the Active Duty Army 

and the Army Reserve. There was some impact visible in the reenlistment end of things, and that will pick up, I’m sure, with the 

passing of the law. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you. 

The reliance on a high school diploma or its equivalent as a quality indicator has really been historical for all of the branches. 

They’ve all testified that a high school diploma is a key quality indicator, and certainly I would not want to dispute that. But are 

there other indicators in the absence of a high school diploma or 

its equivalent that might lead you to believe that you wouldn’t 

have to put that as the centerpiece for recruiting? 

General Vautrinot? 

General VAUTRINOT. Sir, we are very proud of the 99 percent 

high school graduate and equivalent. I think that OSD has helped 

us in defining equivalency. Equivalency is a GED plus 15 successful college credit hours. It is also home school with specific credentials, numbers of hours of contact in that home school program, 

plus a score above 50 on the vocational aptitude battery, which is 

equivalent to what your universities and colleges would accept as 

a program that was college-bound or an ability to work in a controlled environment, to learn in that environment, and be successful. 

The correlation we look for in the Air Force is that these individuals will be successful in their highly technical training and because they are successful in training be successful in that first job, 

and therefore want to stay, be retained in the United States Air 

Force. That’s why the high school diploma or equivalent as defined 

are so important to us. 

General TRYON. Sir, I would echo my Air Force counterpart’s 

comments and say that for Marine Corps recruiting we strongly 

emphasize the importance of a high school program and one that 

focuses on contact, not only with the students, but also with the 

guidance counselors, the teachers, the coaches, the music instructors. Each year the Marine Corps Recruiting Command hosts 12 

educator workshops on each coast, entertaining educators from 

across the country, providing them with a perspective on what we 

23

do and how we do it at our recruit training, introducing them to 

the culture that we have in our Corps. We find that to be particularly useful and more often than not they return back home to 

their respective schools and communities with a very positive message with respect to the opportunities that await their students 

after high school. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Any other thoughts? 

Admiral KILKENNY. Sir, the Navy has been very keen on the high 

school diploma. However, we’re always looking at opportunities to 

open the aperture. I’ve asked Center for Naval Analyses to do a 

study for us on GED grads because I think we need to look at a 

big picture of the society that we live in. Many of the students 

today work two and three jobs to support their families. Sometimes 

they can’t go to high school, yet they get a GED and they score 

very high on the ASVAB. I think we need to look at taking some 

of those folks in. 

Sometimes just the education testing doesn’t always determine 

the heart of the lion and their ability to want to serve a greater 

cause. So I think we have to look at every one of those opportunities. 

Senator BEN NELSON. We don’t want to miss a standard and we 

don’t want to misapply a standard to the exclusion of people who 

tested otherwise and might demonstrate the skills necessary to do 

even greater work than those who come in with the requisite stamp 

of approval with a diploma or a GED. 

General? 

General BOSTICK. Mr. Chairman, we’ve looked at this very closely. We’ve taken in more of the GEDs and the tier 2 this past year, 

with 79 percent high school diploma graduates and the others filling out in GEDs and other categories. The high school diploma 

benchmark was set because of this word ‘‘sticktoitiveness,’’ that 

they would stick to it through basic training and their first unit of 

assignment. 

One of the things to get at what you’re talking about we’ve 

worked out with OSD was the tier 2 attrition study, to give a test, 

an additional test, to our GEDs, the assessment of individual motivation, to measure their motivation to succeed and to see if that 

GED would seem like, act like, attrite like a high school diploma 

graduate. What we found in the first look at this is our high school 

diploma graduates’ retention rate through 12 months is about 89 

percent. Those that pass the Assessment and Individual Motivation 

(AIM) test, these GEDs, the tier 2 attrition study, retain at 85 percent. Those that don’t pass retain at 83 percent. So there is something that we can look at. 

I think there are other skill sets within the ASVAB. My dad was 

a mechanic in the Army for 261⁄2 years, master sergeant, and I 

don’t know what he scored on the test. I never asked him. But I 

know he was a darn good mechanic, and I don’t know how his 

English skills were or his math skills, which are predominant 

measurements on that test. 

A lot of these kids that we find in the GED program have gone 

to vocational schools or otherwise have special talents in specific 

areas. What we’re doing now is looking downrange and taking a 

look at those that have been in the Army with GEDs and deterVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:39 Sep 18, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\DOCS\44450.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
24

mining, have we impacted negatively the Army in any way by 

bringing on a greater number of GEDs. I think the initial indications from the field is that they’re performing very well. 

Senator BEN NELSON. I remember discussing with Admiral 

Vernon Clark when a point that he was making about the Navy 

was that different skill sets were going to be required as the Navy 

progresses forward, and that in order to do that you would have 

to have different ways of measuring potential skill capabilities 

other than the traditional methods. So I applaud all the efforts to 

try to get outside the box and take a look and make sure that we’re 

not using a test that by itself is—while I’m certainly not advocating 

against high school diplomas—I think they make a great deal of 

sense, obviously. But that’s not the only test and I’m glad that 

you’re looking at other ways of doing that, so that we don’t miss 

opportunities and we don’t foreclose opportunities for others who 

might want to be part of the military but for lacking this credential 

or that credential. 

Senator Chambliss, do you have some thoughts that you might 

like to share or questions? 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me continue down that line of education, because I know 

from talking to folks on Active Duty, as well as folks in the Guard 

and Reserve, that the desire to obtain money for a college education has been a key motivator for young men and women and has 

been a key in successful recruiting also. The Services have not only 

attracted individuals who want to obtain an education, but have 

also retained individuals for careers while enabling them to achieve 

educational goals. 

New proposals regarding the Montgomery GI Bill and other education benefits have been raised. The President on Monday night 

talked specifically about the ability to transfer unused GI Bill benefits to dependents. 

Let me ask you, how important do you view education benefits 

in attracting recruits? Do you think that the combination of educational benefits, including the so-called kickers or enhancements 

available, provide a sufficient benefit in balancing the goals of recruiting and retention? What changes in education benefits would 

you recommend? General Bostick, let me start with you, please, sir. 

General BOSTICK. This is a very, very important area. I was an 

instructor or professor up at West Point in engineering. My wife is 

a principal at an elementary school. So we talk about education all 

the time. But education is very important for the United States 

Army and we are working it in several fashions. 

I talked about March to Success—that program for the Army to 

do something in the area of education. We’re doing that from the 

testing end. We’re also looking at an Army prep school down at 

Fort Jackson. This is an opportunity to bring highly qualified 

young men and women that don’t have an education credential, to 

go into Fort Jackson, our prep school which is going to start in 

May, and earn their GED. Long-term we want this to be a high 

school diploma-producing institution. 

We’re also working with places like a location, a mall school in 

Pittsburgh. At this mall school, what they’re able to do is those 

that drop out of school go to this mall school and at the mall school 

25

they earn their degree from the high school that they dropped out 

of. So we’re working with that, that organization, to try to proliferate that in other locations throughout the country. 

Now, as to college, most youngsters want to go to college and 

most parents would like them to go to college. So all of the college 

benefits that we have are very helpful for the United States Army 

and I think for all of our Services. 

Some of the challenges for our soldiers have been, especially in 

this high tempo of operations environment, to continue on with 

their education and to serve the United States Army in the way 

that they’ve been asked. I was talking to Command Sergeant Major 

Sparks who is working at our Training and Doctrine Command. 

He’s leading an effort to build the College of the American Soldier, 

where when you sign up with the United States Army you’re going 

to sign up for college at the same time. That’s going to be very powerful. 

With the advent of the Internet and the many colleges that are 

involved in partnering with the Army, to take the work that they 

do in basic training, in Advanced Individual Training (AIT), and 

credit those as legitimate college credits, whether they’re medics or 

mechanics or signaleers—we’re working with institutions to ensure 

that they can earn their college degree; they can be in the Army 

at the same time. 

So all of these benefits are very, very important to us. 

Senator BEN NELSON. In that regard, I just wanted to ask one 

question. Do you find that retention improves once you have a career established for them, where they get their education, they get 

to be in a field that they’re interested in? Does that positively effect, as I would hope that it would, retention? 

General BOSTICK. We think it’s very important. I don’t have the 

correlations directly to retention, but I can give you—for example, 

we had about 260,000 soldiers taking tuition assistance courses 

last year. So while they’re in the Army, some of them in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, 260,000 soldiers. We spent about $140 million on tuition assistance. 

So education is very important. We talk to the soldiers about it. 

We encourage them to do it while they’re in their careers in the 

Army. Now, some take this on after they leave the Service. In 

working with the Veterans Department, we’ve had over $1 billion 

that has been spent on regular Army veterans to earn their education. So whether they do it inside the Army or post their Army 

career, that’s up to them. But we’re trying to build a pathway 

throughout their career where they can earn it from day 1, and 

whether they end up with a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree 

or a Ph.D., that’s really up to how hard they would like to work 

in their career. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Senator Chambliss? 

Senator CHAMBLISS. While we are talking about the issue relative to primarily Army soldiers serving in Iraq while taking college courses over the Internet, I was amazed, general, at the number of young folks who I have talked to on every visit I have had 

over there that are doing exactly that. That was one reason for my 

question. 

26

While it may have seemed that I was honing in on Montgomery 

GI Bill benefits, I am particularly interested in Active Duty benefits that you are giving to these young folks and the opportunities 

that you are giving them also. I should know the answer to this, 

but I don’t, but I’m assuming that is independent of Montgomery 

GI Bill benefits; is that correct? 

General BOSTICK. The tuition assistance? 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Yes. 

General BOSTICK. Yes. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Okay. 

Admiral KILKENNY. Sir, we completely value education in the 

Navy. What we attempted to do this past year was look at where 

we think there’s some interest, particularly in the community college market. We think it’s very big. We started a program called 

Accelerate to Excellence, where we will pay for two semesters of 

community college while in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP). The 

recruit will then attend boot camp, an additional semester of college and A school in the United States Navy. Upon completion of 

A school, the recruit will have earned the required credits for completion of an associates degree. 

Last year we did it with aviation ratings down in the Pensacola 

area. We partnered with the junior colleges to allow them to get 

credit on their associate’s degree for some of the courses they’re 

taking and their skill sets in the Navy. We’re finding that there’s 

an active interest in that program. Again, this year we want to collect some data to determine how much of a market there is. But 

there’s a lot of folks who can’t afford to go to 4-year colleges who 

go to community colleges for the reasons I alluded to earlier. 

They’re staying around to help mom and dad, earn a little bit of 

money. I think there’s an opportunity. 

But clearly, every brief we get on the young generations of today, 

the millennials, education is talked about from the time they’re 

about 4 years old. So it’s clearly very important in their world, and 

it’s very important for us to find ways to get an education prior to 

them coming in, when they’re coming in, and when they decide to 

leave. It’s very important. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. General? 

General VAUTRINOT. Sir, let me point out first that recruiting 

falls under the Air Education and Training Command, all working 

together. Air University has had some great, great success in both 

the efforts that we have for recruiting and the retention that Senator Nelson mentioned. 

First let me talk about Community College of the Air Force. In 

1972 it was started. We’ve graduated over 320,000 young airmen 

with associate degrees, over 17,000 last year alone. That is a fully 

accredited associate degree. More importantly, the Air University 

has just started a program called the Associate Baccalaureate Cooperative, over 25 universities with 45 majors that provide the opportunity for each airman with a Community College of the Air 

Force degree, an associate degree. Twelve clicks on your computer 

and you are a junior in college, every one of your associate degree 

credits toward your bachelor’s degree. 

It is entirely portable. As you point out, all our airmen in the 

field, all those that are deployed, have the opportunity to continue 

27

their education toward that baccalaureate with every single one of 

those credits counting. That program is in addition to tuition assistance. 

I want to thank you also, sir, for your work on military health 

care and for the Montgomery GI Bill, which helps them if they decide to leave the Air Force. This program helps us to retain them 

and have them better educated to meet the new mission. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. General Tryon? 

General TRYON. Sir, our emphasis on education begins with attracting the quality youngsters from high schools and bringing 

them into the Marine Corps. We, like the other Services, have a 

raft of programs which permits our youngsters to continue, our marines to continue on with their education in a variety of areas. 

The online education we find these days is incredibly advantageous to our forces, particularly given the fact that so many marines are deployed in an expeditionary profile. Being able to get online and to access through tuition assistance programs or other programs on advanced education is very, very useful for us. 

As a discrete incentive for recruiting, again we concentrate on attracting those youngsters who want to be marines first and foremost, not specifically for the purpose of continuing a college education. However when they come to us, 96 percent of them are high 

school graduates. They’ve been raised in an environment and a culture where they prize the value of an education. So we are in a position with the benefits that have been provided by this committee 

to help them achieve their goals. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Very good. 

This subcommittee recognized shortfalls in medical professionals 

back in 2006 and responded with enhancement of bonus authorities 

and stipends for medical and dental corps officers in both Active 

and Reserve components. I have two questions for you on this. 

Number one, are the expanded authorities being utilized and 

funded by the Services? Second, is money enough? In other words, 

based on your experience with recruiting in the medical field, are 

there other non-monetary incentives that either the Services by 

policy or Congress should adopt to improve our recruiting successes? 

Again, General Bostick, let’s start with you. 

General BOSTICK. First, I’d like to thank you for the language 

that included and focused on the medical professionals. This has 

been a very challenging area for us. We’ve worked it very hard. 

Last year there was a good improvement in our nurse corps. We’re 

still challenged in our dental corps and we’re challenged in our 

medical corps, especially in the 4-year scholarship, the health professional scholarship program. So this is very important. 

The bonus that you approved for the critical skills bonus that is 

available to those that I just talked about, it is very important to 

them. Also important in this language is the mandatory service obligation, the reduced mandatory service obligation, particularly for 

our Army Reserve medical professionals. 

Also important in this language is that we have a 2K referral 

program. It doesn’t seem like much maybe in the medical profession, but a lot of them, they know friends, they know other associates that might want to join, and word of mouth really helps us 

28

in recruiting, and having that 2K referral—just like we have for 

the enlisted—on the officer medical side is going to make a difference. It may be something we want to look at increasing in the 

future if this works out well for us. 

But this is a challenging area. We continue to work it very hard, 

but we appreciate the support that you’ve provided to us. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Admiral Kilkenny? 

Admiral KILKENNY. Sir, absolutely your support of us and these 

initiatives has been very beneficial. I alluded to in my statement 

that in the last 3 years, based on your authority given to us to increase nurse bonuses, we succeeded in mission last year. Every 

year that we increase the stipend, we’ve increased our numbers. 

We’re happy to report that this year, based on the initiatives that 

you’ve authorized us, we’ve seen an increased activity that we 

haven’t seen in the past, particularly in the Health Profession 

Scholarship Program for the medical students. 

Right now we’re anxiously awaiting the February to March timeframe—when most of the medical schools make a determination on 

the students that they are going to accept. But we’ve seen an increase in activity and interest in the Navy’s medical program based 

on what you’ve given us, and we’re very appreciative of that. 

General VAUTRINOT. Let me begin with scholarships. We have 

been very successful in the Grow Your Own program I discussed 

and in scholarships. We’ve been able to meet 100 percent of those 

scholarships, and this year it looks like we’re going to increase 

those as well. The Air Force did support the increase in scholarships and intends to do so next year as well. So thank you for your 

support and your help. 

In addition, particularly with our medical professionals, there are 

different areas that they like to see supported. We’ve seen success 

in the financial assistance program for physicians. That’s the combined 42,000 a year. We had 22 of the 33 available used last year. 

With regard to the accession bonuses for dentists, in the previous 

year we filled all of those slots for dentists. While there is no accession bonus this year, the loan repayment is working very well. 

Then of course, as my compatriots have pointed out, we’ve done 

very well in the nursing programs. 

We find also that the ability to more rapidly bring those folks 

into the United States military is very important. The processing 

for medical professionals is somewhat long and tends to be very serial. So anything that you could do on your committee that could 

either put legislation for parallel processing or could perhaps put 

some words in the policy that allow our general counsels to bring 

those folks through a little more quickly would be very much appreciated. So we are continuing to expand that and we thank you 

for your support. 

General TRYON. Sir, I defer to Admiral Kilkenny with respect to 

the medical recruiting. I applaud his great efforts. 

I would also just pass along that the quality of the doctors and 

the corpsmen that work with and serve along side marines is absolutely superb. We thank the Navy for that. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. General Vautrinot? 

General VAUTRINOT. If you could think of the engine instead of 

tomato juice, sir. [Laughter.] 

29

Senator CHAMBLISS. There you go. 

It is interesting you make that comment about speeding up the 

process. That is something surely, Mr. Chairman, that we ought to 

be able to work on. I just tell staff, let’s be sure we look closely at 

this and work with all of you with respect to seeing how we can 

make sure that whatever paperwork or whatever holdups in the 

bureaucracy can be eliminated, not circumvented by any means, so 

that we do everything we can to try to speed that process up. That 

should be easy for us. 

General VAUTRINOT. Thank you. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. So thank you very much for that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you. 

Senator McCaskill. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I will begin with General Bostick. Tell me what recruiters get in 

terms of compensation or possibilities for advancement or promotion, in terms of how well they do at recruiting? What incentives 

are there for recruiters in terms of how they produce? 

General BOSTICK. There are a number of incentives that we have, 

everything from coins and hats and jackets and medallions to financial incentives that they can earn as a successful recruiter. 

Each year we recognize those soldiers at an annual training conference. One of the awards that they all strive to achieve is the 

Morrell Award. They also have rings that they earn. 

Each of these are earned based on points that they achieve based 

on the numbers of recruits that they bring in. There are also financial payments that are made, recruiter incentive pay that you authorized in one of our initiatives that we’ve been trying. That recruiter incentive pay is for those that go above and beyond the call 

of duty, the average rate that’s expected for those in Recruiting 

Command. Those that do above that can earn financial incentives. 

There are also meritorious promotions. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Could you go into detail about the financial 

incentives? What kind of money are we talking about for a recruiter if they meet a certain quota or go above a certain quota? 

General BOSTICK. It’s not significant initially. It’s about $100 a 

month if you go over your required write rate for the command. So 

if the write rate for the command is 1.7 and you’re doing 2 or more, 

then you could earn $100 or so that month. If you do it consistently, it can go up to $300 for a quarter, $300 to $600 for a quarter, 

and the maximum for a year would be up to about $5,000. Those 

are for recruiters that are the very best recruiters that are performing out there. 

We’re still studying this program to see if it’s adding the kind of 

lift. The whole idea was to move the mass middle of U.S. Army Recruiting Command and right now we’re not sure that that part is 

happening. Part of that is because of the environment that we face, 

but we find that the great soldiers that recruit would recruit without any coins, hats, jackets, or financial incentives. Folks like Sergeant First Class Webb are going to recruit like a hero every day 

of the week all year long. We’re working to still move the mass 

middle. 

30

Some of that is due to training. We have a very intense training 

program that’s ongoing throughout the command. We’re using the 

Internet and a virtual classroom trainer that we’re able to train 

and get all of the recruiters up on the net in training with our 

schoolhouse from Fort Jackson or from the headquarters of the battalion. 

There are meritorious promotions that are available for recruiters that elect to stay within the recruiting command and convert 

to 79 Romeo and do well in the recruiting and they can be promoted. Then of course, the different leadership positions that they 

could move up in are very competitive for our best recruiters. 

Senator MCCASKILL. The young man who engaged in inappropriate recruiting tactics that were exposed in the news report in St. 

Louis, what happened to him, do you know? 

General BOSTICK. I can’t say what happened to him specifically. 

I can follow up with you and get the details. I can tell you that we 

investigate every allegation, and it doesn’t matter if it’s an anonymous allegation, or if it’s an allegation we hear about on CNN. But 

if there is an allegation against one of our recruiters, we will investigate it. 

We have about 8,000 recruiters and on any given year we have 

about 15 percent that will receive allegations. Two to 3 percent of 

those allegations, something under 200, are substantiated and we 

take the appropriate actions that are necessary based on the inappropriate actions that were taken. 

The other thing we do is we talk about our Army values and our 

warrior ethos every day. There is not a setting ever where recruiters and leaders come together where we don’t talk about the importance of our values and integrity. We realize that we are ambassadors for the Army. We’re on the front lines. We represent the 

Army to America. 

Senator MCCASKILL. It’s heartbreaking. I know it’s certainly 

heartbreaking to all of you because of your dedication to what you 

do and literally the tens upon thousands of men and women in uniform whom I admire so greatly. But clearly we have had some 

heartbreaking incidents, whether it’s the active military that have 

been caught actually stealing around contracting in Iraq or whether it’s some of these recruiters. 

I hate it for the military because when those news stories aired 

in St. Louis the disservice they did was to you and to the men and 

women who carry out what they do so well for our country and that 

we’re all so proud of. So I want to make sure that when that happens that not only are there consequences to that recruiter, but 

that there is something that happens throughout the military to 

say: No matter how badly we need people to enter into the military, we should never ever do this. 

The problem, of course, is that the substantiation up until very 

recently—I know you have instituted a buddy system, but it’s my 

understanding there are still recruiters that are one-on-one with 

potential recruits. 

General BOSTICK. You can be one-on-one with a potential recruit, 

but not of the opposite sex. There is a buddy system that we have 

employed that if you’re with the opposite sex you must be with a 

buddy, male or female. Then we have a buddy system for other reaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:39 Sep 18, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\DOCS\44450.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
31

sons, for safety. A lot of our soldiers are coming out of a combat 

environment. They’re coming in here to recruit. They have a lot of 

different stresses and things that are on their mind in the families 

and what they’re remembering from Iraq or Afghanistan. 

It’s important that we’re in touch with those soldiers. So we have 

a buddy system for that reason as well. 

The other thing that we do, whenever an incident happens is 

publicize generically each month what happened and what the punishment was for that activity, and we reinforce that and get it out 

to the entire command, to every soldier, so they have the opportunity to see what soldiers are doing and what the consequences 

of those actions are. 

Senator MCCASKILL. That’s terrific. I think that the substantiation, though—as an old prosecutor, there is always a disagreement when you have two people who were in a conversation. The 

person that is accused of wrongdoing generally says: ‘‘That’s not 

what I said.’’ The person who is accusing says: ‘‘No, it is; that’s 

what they said.’’ That’s why I think the cameras are such a good 

idea. 

Obviously, I think just the presence of the camera makes sure 

that we are—it’s great that you can review for training purposes. 

How is the pilot project going and when will we see results from 

the pilot program? 

General BOSTICK. It’s a bit early to tell. We started this last year in New York City, and we spent about $200,000 and we put cameras in about 38 of our different stations. We had 15 recruiter impropriety allegations, of which all except for one was unsubstantiated. 

Senator MCCASKILL. By looking at the camera? 

General BOSTICK. None of the events happened in the station. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I see. 

General BOSTICK. So it was very difficult. We still have the 

buddy system, we have the camera there. We’re looking at other 

options that we can provide. But right now I think it’s too early to 

tell. But the incidents that you bring up, a couple of them have 

happened in the station. We have great turnover of soldiers. So if 

it’s going to happen, then we’ll pick that up. But we’re still taking 

a look to see if this is something that we need to spread further. 

But we think the buddy system has really helped us, especially 

from the emotional standpoint of soldiers taking care of each other. 

Senator MCCASKILL. I applaud what you’re trying to do. I know 

you all are trying to do your best and I just wanted to make sure 

we’re paying attention, because with the pressure and with the incentives I know that it’s possible that someone’s going to shade 

what they say in order to get someone to sign the dotted line. 

Frankly, that may be more problematic with some of our recruits 

than the issues that have been talked about by some of the other 

Senators this morning. 

Thank you all very much for being here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, Senator. 

I want to thank the panel as well. Initially, I knew that reports 

were going to be very positive as to the success of the recruiting. 

That’s in large part due to your commitment and continuing to adVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:39 Sep 18, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 C:\DOCS\44450.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
32

just the system and question what you’ve been doing based on 

what you now know or what you’re projecting the needs are for the 

future, because that is essential. 

So I congratulate you and your commands for what you’ve done 

and challenge you to keep doing it, and let us know, as you have 

today, what we can do to adjust the law, bring in new incentives, 

or whatever would be required, that will make it more likely that 

you’ll be able to continue to achieve those successes in the future, 

because that’s what it’s obviously all about. 

So thank you very much. 

Now I’m very anxious to have the next panel come in and talk 

to some of the recruiters and hear the story that they have to tell. 

Thank you very much. If we can have the other panel. 

Do any of you have any prepared remarks or are you expecting 

most of the discussion and dialogue to be responding to the questions that we might ask? Any prepared remarks? 

Sergeant Britton: Yes, sir. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Okay. Starting at this end, Sergeant 

Britton, do you have any prepared remarks? 

STATEMENT OF SSGT JAMES M. BRITTON, USMC, ACTIVE 

DUTY RECRUITER 

Sergeant BRITTON. Sir, I would just like to take the opportunity 

to thank you for allowing me to be here today to speak in front of 

you. I also thank you for the continued support that you’ve given 

the Marine Corps and will continue to do in the future. I appreciate 

it. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you. 

Sergeant White. 

STATEMENT OF MSGT DAVID B. WHITE, USAF, ACTIVE DUTY 

RECRUITER 

Sergeant WHITE. Sir, I’d like to thank you as well, you and the 

committee. It’s an honor to be here today to represent the Air Force 

and the men and women of the Air Force Recruiting Service. 

Senator BEN NELSON. It’s an honor for us to have all of you here, 

too. 

Master Chief Petty Officer Brummer. 

STATEMENT OF MCPO TRAVIS P. BRUMMER, USN, ACTIVE 

DUTY RECRUITER 

Master Chief Petty Officer BRUMMER. Mr. Chairman, good morning, and distinguished guests. Thank you very much, and I’m here 

to say thank you very much and represent the United States Navy. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Sergeant Webb. 

STATEMENT OF SFC RICKY LEE WEBB, USA, ACTIVE DUTY 

RECRUITER 

Sergeant WEBB. Good morning, sir. Mr. Chairman and other distinguished guests: My name is Sergeant First Class Rick Webb and 

I’m an Army recruiter. I’ve had an awesome opportunity to serve 

in my hometown of Charleston, WV, where I’ve been in the Recruiting Command since 2003. I’ve also been blessed with the experience of being an Army drill sergeant and I was an instructor for 

33

basic combat training at Fort Jackson, SC. Having a working 

knowledge of basic training has allowed me to overcome or to address some of the fears that today’s youth might have about going 

into training. 

Recruiting America’s youth to become today’s future soldiers has 

been a unique experience and has offered many challenges. I’ve 

seen many changes in my short time as a recruiter and will probably see many more. Recruiting is not business as usual. 

The leadership in my time has changed tremendously. The organization has changed from a sales type organization to more of a 

leadership-focused organization. Recruiters are engaged daily in a 

fight that requires them to be mentors, coaches, and even guidance 

counselors. 

I am thrilled and I am humbled. I’m from West Virginia. I have 

been out of the woods. This is my first time to Washington, DC, 

so I’m very humbled at this opportunity to talk to you about the 

challenges of recruiting. 

I am eager to answer any of your questions. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you. Thank you all. 

You listened to the generals and admirals about what they have 

attempted to do and what we’ve done working together to make the 

military as an All-Volunteer Force, one that is competitive with the 

rest of the world. Obviously—it’s obvious we have to be competitive 

if we want to be able to attract quality recruits. Maybe you can 

give me some idea and the committee some idea of the kinds of 

things that when you’re on the ground recruiting seem to be the 

best tools, the best incentives, and in some cases among the best 

reasons why a recruit will sign up, in addition to your strong sales 

pitch, I’m sure. But what are the tools and the available incentives 

that work best when you’re trying to recruit somebody to your 

branch? 

We’ll start with you, Sergeant Britton. 

Sergeant BRITTON. Sir, just like General Tryon said earlier, the 

Marine Corps attracts a certain——

Senator BEN NELSON. If you want to be a marine first, I understand that. [Laughter.] 

Sergeant BRITTON.—type of individual, sir, yes. The way I always 

explain to the future marines is you have to—certain people join. 

People that join the Marine Corps want a challenge. They want to 

be the best. The jobs, bonuses, all those things are talked about 

after the fact is established that they want to become a marine. I 

think that is probably our most successful tool that we have. 

You see the commercials that the Marine Corps has. It talks 

about honor, country, duty, not so much the monetary value. I 

think that’s why the Marine Corps has been such a great force over 

all the past years and will continue to be later on down the road. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you. 

Sergeant White. 

Sergeant WHITE. Yes, sir. I believe people join the Air Force for 

a variety of reasons. Number one, as General Vautrinot pointed 

out, the quality of life. The Air Force quality of life has been superior to me, to my family, and to those I know in the Air Force. I 

believe it’s that word of mouth, that perpetuation, as she stated, 

that brings people to the Air Force. 

34

Education is also a very important tool. In the Air Force you’re 

either going to college or you’re graduated; it’s that simple. You’re 

automatically enrolled in the Community College of the Air Force 

and you’re taking classes and you’re pursuing that associate degree 

from the Community College of the Air Force or you’re pursuing a 

bachelors, masters, or Ph.D. 

Those are the main reasons people join the Air Force. 

Senator BEN NELSON. In that regard, let me just follow up with 

a question. Now moving to Cyber Command as part of the Air 

Force’s continuing mission, you’re going to be looking at people 

with computer capabilities. Obviously, you ought to start with them 

when they’re about 5 years old because they all top the rest of us. 

But as you’re looking at these recruits and you know which you’re 

going for, what are you able to offer somebody that has that strong 

interest in the technology and the increases in technology that are 

simply going to be part of the future of the Air Force and the future of all forces as we work together, seeing how Cyber Command 

intersects with every branch of the military? 

How do you approach that? Is that a specific area you look for 

or is that something that’s developed as a result of the education? 

Sergeant WHITE. Sir, cyberspace is new to us. Our recruiting efforts haven’t changed. We recruit those that qualify for highly technical career fields and we continue to do that and place them into 

cyberspace as they come in. So at this time, to my knowledge we 

do not have a system to test specifically for cyberspace, but as a 

recruiting command we set our standards and we bring them in 

and place them to the needs of the Air Force. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Okay. 

Master Chief Petty Officer BRUMMER. Mr. Chairman, the United 

States Navy—the sailors out there who are representing us as recruiters, they’re doing an awesome job. You have to walk the walk. 

Every one of these servicemen in front of you today meet young 

men and women who want to be like them. I have found that as 

a sailor you have to go out there and tell your story of what you 

did. 

As a young man growing up in southwest Iowa and being able 

to be stationed in many different places around the world and be 

on cruises, when I came back to recruiting duty to Hometown USA, 

there’s many people in Omaha and Council Bluffs that have no 

idea what a Navy guy does. It’s been an awesome opportunity. 

With the education side, I was able to go to the University of 

Bellevue, and you meet other students and you meet other service 

men and women. I tell you, the young men and women out there, 

they see us as recruiters with our laptops, our cellphones, our text 

messaging, and they’re interested. It really is about an interaction 

between two individuals and parents and grandparents and 

influencers. Millennials want to serve. These young men and 

women that we talk to today, they’re excited, and we have a great 

story to tell. It’s been an awesome opportunity. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Obviously you’ve been affected by the influence of Nebraska right across the border. 

Master Chief Petty Officer BRUMMER. Yes, sir. 

Senator BEN NELSON. I certainly appreciate that. [Laugher.] 

35

Master Chief Petty Officer BRUMMER. Just moved from Omaha, 

sir. [Laughter.] 

Senator BEN NELSON. Sergeant Webb? 

Sergeant WEBB. Sir, I have to go back to another story. 

Senator BEN NELSON. All right. 

Sergeant WEBB. In 2003, I went on my very first interview. In 

recruiter school they taught us how to be salesmen, taught us how 

to use a program, at that time Army Sales 7.0. You type in the applicant’s name, it would play the patriotic music. I was sitting 

there with a young lady from my high school and the father was 

sitting directly to my right on the sofa. I was very nervous. I took 

a deep breath, closed my laptop, shoved it away from me. 

He said: Sergeant Webb, is there a problem? 

I said: Yes, sir, there is. 

He said: Well, do you mind explaining the problem? 

I said: Well, I’m having a hard time using this program. I’m not 

a salesman, but do you mind if I talk to you folks? 

They both smiled and said: Well, that’s what we would much 

rather prefer. 

I went on telling my Army story. Now, I’m from a small town 

outside of Charleston, WV, called Allen Creek. I used to carry rain 

water in 5-gallon buckets to do my laundry. I used to take baths 

in a creek. I went to a rich school, a rich high school in Charleston, 

and they didn’t treat us like they did the other kids. We were just 

treated differently. 

The Army has allowed me to achieve so many of my goals. I saw 

an Army recruiter in my hallway in my school and I swelled up. 

I was 128 pounds soaking wet. I went down the hall and talked to 

the Army recruiter. The way that he recruited me, they way that 

he showed me—and he wasn’t completely honest about everything. 

So I use that to my advantage now. I know the way he talked to 

me about things, it wasn’t exactly the truth once I became a soldier 

and knew the way of the Army. So I use that technique. 

I do talk about some of the incentives, but I establish that later, 

like someone else on the panel alluded to. But it’s primarily serving 

the country, serving my country. I was a State trooper in West Virginia; I have an education—things I would never have been able 

to achieve without the United States Army. I know you can get 

that with the other branches of the Service, too. So it’s about pride 

and serving my country. The things I’ve been able to do, regardless 

of where I came from; when I tell that and they see the flash in 

my face—and I hope the panel can see that—that’s what I do. 

That’s my Army story. I tell my Army story. It’s about guiding, 

leading, mentoring. All the incentives are secondary to serving my 

country. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Very good. 

Senator McCaskill asks that I ask you the following question, to 

all of you, obviously following up on her concerns and all of our 

concerns and your concerns about the improprieties. She said: ‘‘Can 

you discuss your views on improprieties by recruiters? How prevalent are they? What are the biggest causes? What more do you 

think can be done to prevent them, or are we already doing 

enough?’’ 

Anybody, just jump in as you feel motivated. 

36

Sergeant BRITTON. Sir, for the Marine Corps, I feel that these are 

very isolated incidents. This doesn’t reflect the conduct of Marine 

Corps recruiters at large. As far as measures to keep this from 

happening, at least from our standpoint I don’t think there’s anything other than the positive Marine Corps leadership that we are 

taught as senior marines. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Ethos and values of the individual doing 

the recruiting in the first place. 

Sergeant BRITTON. Yes, sir. It’s our senior leaders’ job to watch 

over us. It’s a continued education of the leadership. Leadership 

through training, and that’s worked for us and I think that’s going 

to continue to work for us in the future, sir. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Sergeant? 

Sergeant WHITE. Sir, the Air Force has zero tolerance relating to 

misconduct. It starts with our chief of staff and filters on down into 

the recruiting command. The Air Force has—it’s a .05 percent of 

misconduct. Although one is too many, it’s a very low percentage. 

As a supervisor of 16 officer sections and recruiters that recruit 

health professionals, I don’t tolerate it. I know General Vautrinot 

doesn’t tolerate it and it’s just not accepted in the Air Force or the 

recruiting service. 

Master Chief Petty Officer BRUMMER. Mr. Chairman, for the 

United States Navy, we’re very fortunate. Admiral Kilkenny, once 

taking command, greets every sailor who goes into recruiting duty 

at the schoolhouse where we get trained to be recruiters. He first 

talks to every sailor, officer and enlisted, and explains his expectations. At the end of the conversation in the room, he stands at the 

door, shakes our hand, and issues a small little card to remind 

them of his expectations: honor, courage, and commitment. 

At the end of that, he doesn’t just stop there. Most recently 

around Christmas time, he put out a video, a podcast, to remind 

all the sailors of his expectations. 

It starts with leadership. You’re absolutely right, there is zero 

tolerance. One is too many. As a leader, that’s what Admiral Kilkenny has done. 

Senator BEN NELSON. It’s amazing how in politics if you get introduced at a sporting event as a senator or governor, it’s amazing 

how one boo can drown out 100,000 cheers. It’s sort of the situation 

here. One bad situation can gain so much attention, and it’s because we accept zero tolerance. We don’t think it ought to happen. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s prevalent. I think that’s the point you’re 

making. 

Sergeant Webb, you may have another story to tell us. 

Sergeant WEBB. Sir, since I’ve been recruiting in my company of 

25 to 30 recruiters I have not seen one single recruiting investigation of impropriety. We have watched the video in our office. We 

get it sent down to each office and we sit down as a station and 

we watch the video, and it is an embarrassment. But as far as my 

knowledge, I haven’t seen it. We’ve come along with great strides 

with the buddy program and I think the cameras in the stations 

would be a great idea. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Senator Chambliss? 

37

Senator CHAMBLISS. There is a lot of pressure on you, obviously, 

to meet goals. There are incentives out there. Obviously, I know 

you have to watch that very close. 

One issue that we have as a general population issue in America 

is the issue of obesity. When you have a potential recruit coming 

in to see you, sometimes I know you can tell that they have some 

physical issues and sometimes probably you don’t even know that 

they do. But we’ve heard from some of the trainers, sergeants 

around the country from each branch of the military, that they’re 

getting some kids in in greater numbers now that don’t have the 

physical qualities that they need to have or that they expect. 

From a recruiting standpoint, what do you tell your recruiters? 

What do you tell them to look for? Are they aware of these issues? 

What are you telling potential recruits or what are your folks telling those potential recruits about what kind of shape they need to 

be in to be a marine? Or what is the lay of the land out there with 

respect to this issue in each Service? 

Sergeant BRITTON. With the Marine Corps, sir, these individuals 

understand that they need to be in a certain physical shape, not 

in peak physical shape to begin recruit training, because that is 

what Marine Corps recruit training is for. Before they get there, to 

start the process, it is our job as recruiters to get them to that appropriate first level. 

I know in our offices we have a meeting once a month on a Saturday and each week on every Tuesday and Thursday where our 

future marines come in. They’ll run with the marines at the office, 

go to the gym, anything to get them in shape and get them prepared for recruit training. 

As far as running into a lot of problems with people coming in, 

the obesity issue, the way we address that, if they are grossly overweight we kind of put it on them. We invite them to come work 

out with us. That’s showing dedication to a goal that they want to 

achieve if they’re serious about it. If indeed they are serious, they 

will lose the weight and ultimately begin their journey to become 

a U.S. marine. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. No way a fat guy like me can scale that 

mountain in your ad on TV. [Laughter.] 

Sergeant White? 

Sergeant WHITE. Sir, like the other branches, we have height 

and weight standards that we must abide by. When we sit down 

with an applicant, we go over that. On the initial visit, we’ll take 

an estimated height and weight from the applicant. Really, that’s 

our starting point with them, to determine whether we should go 

on with the process or not. 

It’s really on the applicant to lose the weight. However, I don’t 

know of a recruiter out there that’s not willing to go out there and 

run with them. I’ve had physician recruiters go out and run with 

doctors to lose the weight so that they could enter the Air Force. 

It happens, and that’s what recruiters do. They’re willing to go the 

extra mile, but the applicant has to meet us halfway, so that they 

can in fact meet those standards and begin the processing. 

Master Chief Petty Officer BRUMMER. Sir, for the United States 

Navy, as Admiral Kilkenny mentioned earlier, we have implemented numerous different projects in the delayed entry program, 

38

with YMCA passes to help work out. Young men and women who 

join the United States Navy, they don’t want to go to boot camp 

to fail. So we do our best as possible to encourage young men and 

women to work out. Our sailors out there who request recruiters, 

they’re leading the charge, and we’ve also had some retired or prior 

service SEALs that help mentor. So it’s about lead, mentor, and 

train, and we’re making sure that the recruiters are out there 

equipped, and it’s been a great opportunity. They know exactly 

what’s expected of them. 

Sergeant WEBB. Sir, the height and weight standard is the 

height and weight standard. However, I’m one of those few that 

would like to see it changed a little bit. It’s changed since 2003, but 

the standard I think was set many, many years ago. Unfortunately, 

we have a McDonald’s and Burger King on every corner and the 

generation that we’re dealing with every day, they’re more involved 

with their computer and their Playstation, their XBox, so they stay 

inside the house. They don’t get out and run the hills of West Virginia, like I did, and stay mean and lean. 

But we encourage recruiters to get out there and help the kids. 

Got to go to a story again. I went to a Wal-Mart and I had to get 

tires on my vehicle. While I was waiting to get my tires done I 

walked down the gaming aisle. I wanted to waste some time while 

I was getting tires on my vehicle. I saw a guy who was working 

in the tire area and he was playing Tiger Woods. I’m a big golfer. 

So he said: Do you want to play a hole? I said: I’ll play a hole. So 

we switched back and forth playing Tiger Woods on the 

Playstation. I never said a word about the Army, and I’m in uniform. 

Well, the second day I showed up because I had to get tires on 

the back. They didn’t have them in stock. After a little bit of playing the game, he said: You know, you’ve been here 2 days and 

you’ve not once mentioned the Army to me. I see your recruiter 

patch; I know you’re a recruiter. 

I said: Well, Steve—name tag—I said: The way I see it, if you’re 

interested in the Army, you will talk to me about the Army. He 

said: Well, I’ve been told all my life that I’m a fat boy. This guy 

was 5 foot 9, 269 pounds, so he was obviously over the standard. 

So I talked to Steve at length about, you take 2 weeks of your 

own time and you show some progress and I’ll be glad to work with 

you. In 2 weeks this guy lost 15 pounds on his own time. I took 

the next 3 months working every morning with this guy. I would 

meet him at 6 o’clock in the morning, 2 hours before I even had 

to be at work, just because he had a desire, a strong desire. He did 

4 years of JROTC in high school and he just had a strong desire 

to serve his country, and I took the time out to help him out. 

But we have the ARMS test that even allows recruits to—and 

the general alluded to what the acronym stands for—Assessment 

of Recruiter Motivation and Strength—meet the physical endurance along with cardio endurance. It’s able to measure that. But 

I would like to see it changed even more so than what it has. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Did he make it? 

Sergeant WEBB. Absolutely, he made it. He’s been to Iraq two 

tours. He’s already a staff sergeant. He threatens to pass my rank 

up. 

39

Senator CHAMBLISS. I’m betting on you, sergeant. 

We are constantly looking for policy changes that we need to 

make your life better, to make it easier, as well as to make the life 

of our men and women in uniform better. Do any of you have any 

suggestions of any additional tools that we need to give you to 

make sure that you’re able to do your job in a very professional 

way? 

Sergeant Britton? 

Sergeant BRITTON. Sir, I feel one of the difficult things that we 

experience in our area sometimes involves obtaining a list of names 

of seniors from some of the local schools. A lot of times what happens, even though the lists are supposed to be released, they’re giving out forms for the parents to sign so their names won’t be on 

the list that we receive from the school, if we even get the list from 

the school. 

The reason those lists are so important—obviously, not everyone 

in that senior class is going to join the Marine Corps or any branch 

of the military. But it’s our job as recruiters to go out there and 

contact as many of these young individuals as we can, to hopefully 

have an impact on somebody’s life. Even if it’s not joining the Marine Corps or one of the other branches, it at least—sometimes I’ve 

talked to young men before that weren’t going to join the Marine 

Corps, but at the same time they didn’t know what they were going 

to do. After we were finished talking, the guy ends up starting college. 

It works out better for everybody that way. That way, not only 

do we help that young man or woman to become successful and 

start their journey, it allows us to do our job and better contribute 

to the community in really returning the citizens, well-trained citizens, back to the community where we took them from once they 

decide to get out of the Marine Corps. It starts right there. 

That’s probably the biggest thing that I would change if I had 

to do it, sir—better obtaining lists from the schools and a little bit 

more cooperation, not in all cases though. Obviously that’s not happening, but there’s some cases out there where I think they may 

be trying to find a loophole in the law that was passed, and I think 

that’s something that should be addressed, sir. 

Sergeant WHITE. Sir, as General Vautrinot pointed out, our scroll 

process is getting health professionals approved through this office. 

As you stated, you were willing to look into that, and we thank you 

for that. That would be a tremendous asset in expediting some of 

our health professionals on Active Duty. 

The other thing would be the increase in bonuses for health professionals. Again we thank you for the funding. However, some of 

that funding doesn’t necessarily filter down through each branch 

equally. There are different incentives in different programs. As we 

see it from the Air Force, we’re now competing against our brothers 

and sisters in arms in a very competitive market for these health 

professionals. 

What I would ask is that we do some equal approval on bonuses 

for health professions, as I believe all branches are hurting in that 

field. 

Master Chief Petty Officer BRUMMER. Sir, for the United States 

Navy I would say that we really appreciate the continuing support 

40

on the bonuses. It’s allowed us as recruiters to focus on the needs 

of the Navy and be flexible on the different communities, such as 

medical and for the Navy SEAL and the global war on terrorism 

ratings. Again, I thank you for that support and that’s the continued support that every recruiter out there enjoys from some of 

these tough to fill ratings during this time of need. 

Sergeant WEBB. In my area of Charleston, WV, sir, the education 

system seems to be failing. I don’t know the way they’re even 

teaching math. When I was in school we didn’t have a calculator. 

The generation now, they get taught math with a calculator. I 

think one tool that would be helpful to all the branches is maybe 

allowing a calculator with this new millennium to take the ASVAB 

test. 

I don’t know—if you just ask around the room, you’ll probably 

find, what’s your worst subject in school, a lot of the people in here 

are going to say math. I mean, they can’t even carry the one, if you 

will. So maybe if it was implemented that they could use a calculator on taking the ASVAB we’d probably see a spike in the mathematics section of the ASVAB. 

The measurement—the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) 

is the score, the entry level score, and that AFQT score comes from 

math knowledge, arithmetic reasoning, paragraph comprehension, 

and reading—word knowledge, rather. I think the biggest problem 

is they can’t pass the math because they’re so used to using that 

calculator. So that would be the one thing I would like to change. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. That’s a good point. 

Please know that we all do this, but I make it a particular point 

to visit with enlisted personnel whether I’m on a base in the continental United States or overseas. Visiting with enlisted personnel 

over the last 13 years, I am so impressed with the quality of young 

men and women that you are recruiting in every branch. We thank 

you for the great job you’re doing. We thank you for your commitment to freedom, and we thank you for your sacrifice that you’re 

making on behalf of all Americans. Thanks for being here today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BEN NELSON. Thank you, Senator, and I want to add my 

appreciation to those remarks as well. 

Obviously, the challenges are out there with an evolving military, with new commands, Cyber Command, new challenges that 

will have to be met with recruiting and retention. I hope that as 

you encounter those challenges and you see where we could be 

helpful, as you just suggested with lists and perhaps other areas 

as well in the professional field, that you’ll go through your command or directly, will make us aware, because we want to be a 

partner with you in this recruiting that you’re doing and a partner 

with retention, which is also extremely important. 

We end up with an awful lot invested in a soldier and we don’t 

want that investment to end. If we can keep the recruitment of a 

family to begin with, a parent, the parents and their son or daughter, and then at the retention level it’s another family—now it’s a 

husband-wife, wife-husband, children. So everything that we can do 

to make the military more attractive is not only in our best interest, it’s the right thing to do for the men and women in an All-Volunteer Force. 

41

So I thank you for what you continue to do and we want this 

partnership to continue, and that’s extended, of course, to Admiral 

Kilkenny and to the generals as well. 

So thank you very much. With that, Senator Chambliss, this 

hearing is adjourned. 

[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN

RECRUITING AND RETENTION

1. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, what is the Army Active Duty end 

strength as of the end of the January 2008? 

General BOSTICK. 523,512.

2. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, what is the Army projection for Active 

Duty end strength as of September 30, 2008, and September 30, 2009? 

General BOSTICK. The Army projection for Active Duty end strength as of September 30, 2008, is 534,900. The Army projection for Active Duty end strength as 

of September 30, 2009, is 542,700.

3. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, are there internal Army recruiting goals 

in relation to ‘‘Grow the Army’’, aside from the published 80,000 recruits per year? 

If so, what are they, and why are they not formalized? 

General BOSTICK. No—there are no internal recruiting goals in relation to ‘‘Grow 

the Army’’ above the published 80,000 mission.

4. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, can you provide annual recruiting, retention, and end strength goals through the completion of ‘‘Grow the Army’’? 

General BOSTICK. Recruiting, retention, and end strength goals for 2008 are 

81,600, 65,000, and 534,900 respectively. Recruiting, retention, and end strength 

goals for 2009 are 80,000, 66,300, and 542,700 respectively. Recruiting, retention, 

and end strength goals for 2010 are 75,800, 67,600, and 547,400 respectively.

5. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, what is the basis of the goal of 90 percent 

of recruits having a high school diploma as opposed to a General Equivalency Degree (GED) or other equivalent? 

General BOSTICK. The Department of Defense (DOD) established the goal of 90 

percent High School Diploma Graduates (HSDG) based upon attrition analysis that 

showed non-HSDG soldiers attrit at a higher rate. The goal was a means to ensure 

cost-effectiveness associated with the enlistment and training expenses that are expended when soldiers fail to complete their first term of enlistment. The Tier Two 

Attrition Study (TTAS) is a study to allow better identification of non-HSDG future 

soldiers that will attrit more like HSDG soldiers.

6. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, do studies show a relation between this 

achievement and the propensity to complete a first term of service? 

General BOSTICK. More than 40 years of research indicates that enlistees who are 

high school graduates are much more likely to complete their first term of enlistment than non-graduates (80 percent versus 50 percent). In 1987, the DOD implemented a three-tier system to classify education credentials. DOD developed the system after research indicated a strong relationship between level of education and 

successful completion of the first term of military service (Laurence, 1997; U.S. Department of Defense, 1996). Tier 1 includes regular HSDGs, adult diploma holders, 

non-graduates with at least 15 hours of college credit, and homeschool graduates 

who score in Test Score Categories I–IIIA (the top half of the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT)). Tier 2 comprises alternative credential holders such as those 

with GED diplomas, or certificates of completion or attendance, and Tier 3 is composed of non-high school graduates. 

Two sources available on this topic are:

Laurence, J.H., Ramsberger, P.F., and Arabian, J.M., Education Credential Tier Evaluation (Alexandria, VA: Human Resources Research Organization, 1996); and 

Laurence, J.H., Does Education Credential Still Predict Attrition?, paper 

presented as part of Symposium, Everything Old is New Again—Current 

Research Issues in Accession Policy, at the 105th Annual Convention of the 

American Psychological Association, Chicago, August 1997.

42

7. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, can you explain the initial statistics from 

the Assessment of Individual Motivation (AIM) that you alluded to? 

General BOSTICK. The AIM test is given to applicants as part of the TTAS. The 

intent of the TTAS study is to identify criteria other than education credentials that 

predict an applicant’s risk of attrition. The current cutoff score to meet the TTAS 

standard is 102, which represents the 50th percentile of all applicants taking the 

test. Early indications show promise that the TTAS can be used to reduce the risk 

of attrition, particularly before the 18-month mark. According to the latest report 

from the Army Research Institute, those who pass the TTAS screen, scoring 102 or 

higher, had lower attrition rates than those who scored below 102 (8.3 percent vs. 

12.1 percent at 6 months, 15.2 percent vs. 19.7 percent at 12 months, 20.9 percent 

vs. 26.8 percent at 18 months, and 24.7 percent vs. 31.4 percent at 24 months). Although the TTAS study shows improvement, Tier Ones continue to have the lowest 

attrition rates. Currently, the Army is exploring ways to improve the TTAS metrics 

and increase its reliability in predicting attrition.

8. Senator LIEBERMAN. General Bostick, do Army studies show a significant performance difference in relation to success on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)? While certain low scoring recruits go on to perform very successfully, I would like to know the impact across the force, not anecdotal information. Please provide any relevant studies. 

General BOSTICK. The ASVAB measures an applicant’s aptitude in a wide range 

of skills (mechanical, technical, electronic, clerical, etc.). For each of these skills, the 

applicant receives a line score. Each military occupational specialty (MOS) has a set 

of minimum line scores which applicants must meet to qualify for that MOS. Historically, these line scores have been good predictors of success in the training base. 

The Army Research Institute recently conducted a study to determine the optimal 

line score cutoffs. This study, along with other resources, is currently being used to 

validate or refine current line score cutoffs. Additionally, the ASVAB is used as part 

of the AFQT which predicts an applicant’s trainability. The DOD established Test 

Score Categories to predict the trainability of applicants. Statistics have shown that 

soldiers who score in the top half of the AFQT are more likely to complete training 

and perform well at his/her MOS. It is not a predictor of intangible traits such as 

leadership, motivation, character, etc. which also determine long-term success in the 

military. 

There are several studies that have drawn a correlation between the AFQT and 

job performance. Two examples are listed below: 

Bruce R. Orvis, Michael Childress, J. Michael Polich, Effect of Personnel 

Quality on the Performance of Patriot Air Defense System Operators 

(RAND Corporation, 1989); and 

John D. Winkler, Judith C. Fernandez, J. Michael Polich, Effect of Aptitude on the Performance of Army Communications Operators (RAND Corporation, 1992). 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR CLAIRE MCCASKILL

RECRUITER INCENTIVES; IMPROPRIETY; AND RECRUITMENT OF ETHNIC MINORITIES

9. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, 

and General Tryon, I am concerned about what sort of incentives we provide recruiters for enlisting new recruits. Overzealous incentives could lead to overzealous, even 

improper recruiting. Can you clarify what incentives your Service offers recruiters 

for enlisting recruits? 

General BOSTICK. Recruiters are recognized for achievement and over achievement of their mission primarily through two programs. The United States Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) Recruiter Incentive Award Program allows a recruiter 

to earn points for their enlistments, recruiting support and retention efforts which 

are applied toward the award of various recognition items. A recruiter progresses 

through several levels of incentive awards that are easily recognized by their peers, 

encouraging camaraderie and pride in their accomplishments while assigned to a 

challenging and unfamiliar environment. 

An additional incentive, Recruiter Incentive Pay was created as one of four pilot 

programs under the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act’s Recruiting Pilot Program legislation. It was implemented in June 2006. This program awards a set dollar amount for achieving mission and overproducing on 1-month, 3-month cycles, 

and 12-month/annual cycles. USAREC has not identified increases in improprieties 

43

attributed to the ability to earn an additional monetary incentive under this pilot 

program. 

Admiral KILKENNY. The Navy has established awards and incentives to enhance 

morale, encourage friendly competition, and recognize superior performance of both 

teams and individuals for their contributions toward accomplishing the Navy’s recruiting mission. Commander, Navy Recruiting Command establishes requirements 

for national-level production awards, while the subordinate commands manage their 

local award programs. The incentives available are generally designed to bolster the 

recruiters’ sense of pride in a job well-done as opposed to a monetary award, although a recruiter may earn meritorious advancement for exceptional performance. 

Awards range from trinkets such as coffee mugs and plaques to letters of commendation and Navy medals.

• The recurring recognition item for enlisted recruiters is the Gold Wreath, 

earned for achieving five new contracts or Reserve gains in a 3-month period. 

• The Recruiting ‘‘R’’ is awarded to Navy Recruiting Districts that meet established criteria for the fiscal year. The top districts are recognized as the Recruiting Districts of the year. 

• Recruiter of the Year nominees are identified by each district using a pointbased recruiter incentive system that awards credit for each net contract and 

adds bonus points for meeting recruiting priorities, quality standards and diversity. A national awards board selects the Recruiters of the Year, who receive 

a Navy Commendation Medal. 

• The Recruiting Command Advancement Program provides increased meritorious promotion opportunities for recruiters working outside their rate and 

under stressful situations. 

• Other awards for specific production achievements include:

• Admiral’s Accelerator Award - a personal letter from the Admiral and 

command coin for significant achievement in production of critical ratings; 

• Admiral’s Five Star Award and Best Station in the Nation - recognition 

in Navy Recruiter Magazine; 

• Centurion Award - a Navy sword and display stand for recruiters who 

achieve 100 net new contracts during a tour; and 

• Summer Heroes/Early Bird Award - Chief of Naval Personnel (CNP) coin 

and letter of commendation presented at a dinner with CNP for exceptional 

production during the fiscal quarter.

The Navy monitors both the local and national awards programs closely to ensure 

both fairness and equitability and no improper practices occur. 

General VAUTRINOT. The Air Force offers non-monetary incentives through an annual peer competition program which provides the complete foundation for recruiter 

initiative, enthusiasm, and esprit de corps. The purpose of our competition program 

is to motivate recruiters to meet or exceed the personal production goals which are 

set for them. This in turn enables their squadron to meet or exceed squadron production goals as it competes against other squadrons command-wide. We also include Air Force Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) liaisons in their own 

separate competition category. The individual and squadron top performers for each 

fiscal year are recognized at a formal awards banquet each October, where gold 

badges and silver badges are presented by the group commanders and the AFRS 

Commander. These badges may be worn on the recruiter’s uniform as a reflection 

of their accomplishments, and they are highly coveted. 

Additionally, the 12 top recruiters in the command each year are designated ‘‘Blue 

Suit’’ winners. They and their spouses are the official guests of the AFRS Commander, Randolph Air Force Base, and the City of San Antonio for a week in March, 

where numerous local community organizations thank, honor, and entertain them. 

The annual production competition has proved to be an outstanding motivational 

incentive for Air Force recruiting. It has been instrumental to our longstanding success in achieving our accession requirements because it provides analytical indicators that allow commanders to identify and address production shortfalls, and it allows them to recognize recruiters that excel. 

General TRYON. The Marine Corps does not offer or provide direct incentives to 

our recruiters for enlisting applicants. While superior recruiting performance may 

be recognized through the presentation of awards, such as Navy and Marine Corps 

Achievement and Commendation Medals, or through meritorious promotions, they 

are tied to all aspects of recruiting or military service.

10. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, 

and General Tryon, can you please provide the number of incidents of alleged reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:39 Sep 18, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\44450.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
44

cruiter impropriety in the past recruiting year and how many allegations were substantiated? 

General BOSTICK. In fiscal year 2007, our recruiting force of approximately 8,200 

recruiters had roughly 6.9 million contacts with the public. There were 863 recruiting impropriety allegations made against recruiters assigned to U.S. Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) in fiscal year 2007. 121 of the 863 allegations were substantiated. There are 88 investigations still open, pending completion of the investigation or a substantiation determination. 

Admiral KILKENNY. In fiscal year 2007, 191 allegations of impropriety were made 

against Navy recruiters. This is compared against nearly 4,900 Total Force recruiters who accessed over 50,000 officers and enlisted personnel into the Active and Reserve components. The 191 allegations comprise 51 instances of Misconduct (criminal misconduct, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and fraternization) and 140 

instances of Irregularities (efforts to conceal information, testing irregularities, false 

promises and quality control lapses). 

For fiscal year 2007 cases, 17 investigations have been completed, adjudicated 

and/or final reviewed. Nine of the 17 allegations were substantiated. 

General VAUTRINOT. The Air Force Recruiting Service has a zero-tolerance policy 

and does not accept inappropriate conduct period. We are very proud of all of our 

Air Force recruiters but especially those who, during several television news hidden 

camera stories, were completely honest with reporters and provided accurate, forthright information. 

The Air Force has taken several recent measures to ensure its recruiters understand the seriousness of misconduct. Among these actions are memorandums from 

the Air Force Chief of Staff and the commander of Air Education and Training Commander, a 5-minute video from the AFRS commander discussing the effects, a ‘‘Recruiter Pledge’’ that each recruiter signs and displays in his/her work area, initial 

misconduct training that each recruiter receives at the Air Force Recruiter Course, 

and then annual training each receives during their squadron conference each fall. 

During fiscal year 2007, the Air Force investigated 40 recruiters for misconduct. 

Of those 40 cases, 17 were substantiated, including 6 for unauthorized relationships 

with applicants (Note: Even consensual is not allowed per Air Force instruction). 

Other misconduct was for concealment or falsification of information or false promise/coercion. 

General TRYON. In fiscal year 2007, there were 212 applicant-related alleged recruiter misconduct cases. Of those cases, 91 were substantiated, 59 were unsubstantiated, and 62 cases are still under investigation from fiscal year 2007.

11. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, 

and General Tryon, how were the recruiters who committed the substantiated incidents of misconduct disciplined? 

General BOSTICK. In fiscal year 2007, 185 of the approximately 8,200 on-production (uniformed) recruiters (2.3 percent) and 11 civilian contract recruiters were involved in the 121 substantiated allegations. Disciplinary actions taken in these 

cases break out in the following manner from least severe to most severe:

Recruiters 

Military recruiters: 

No Action Taken .................................................................................................................................................. 6

Verbal Reprimand/Counseling ............................................................................................................................. 2

Battalion (BN) Level Written Reprimand/Counseling ......................................................................................... 46

Brigade (BDE) Level Written Reprimand/Counseling .......................................................................................... 56

General Officer Level Written Reprimand ........................................................................................................... 13

Relief from Recruiting Duty ................................................................................................................................ 24

Non-Judicial Punishment (BN or BDE level) ....................................................................................................... 36

Discharge in Lieu of Court-Martial ..................................................................................................................... 1

Trial by Court-Martial ......................................................................................................................................... 1

Contract recruiters: 

No Action Taken .................................................................................................................................................. 6

Corporate Reprimand .......................................................................................................................................... 4

Termination of Employment ................................................................................................................................ 1

In those cases where ‘‘No Action Taken,’’ the individual either departed the Army, 

departed the command on permanent change of station orders, or voluntarily left 

the employment of the parent corporation prior to or at the time of the substantiation decision. 

45

Admiral KILKENNY. In substantiated incidents of misconduct, offenders are dealt 

with through a variety of punitive, non-punitive, and administrative measures 22 

percent of the time. These measures include adverse administrative actions (e.g., removal from recruiting duty and reassignment); non-judicial punishment (includes 

punishments such as fines, restriction, and reduction in grade); and courts-martial. 

Other administrative actions (letters of instruction or extra military instruction) are 

used as corrective measures in the remaining 78 percent of such incidents. 

General VAUTRINOT. Discipline/response incidents in 2007 included:

Courts-martial Punishment (incarceration, Bad Conduct Discharge from 

the Air Force); 

Non-judicial Punishment (reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay, additional 

duty); 

Administrative Action (administrative discharge from the Air Force, Letter 

of Reprimand); and 

Removal from recruiting duty.

General TRYON. Of the 91 substantiated applicant-related alleged recruiter misconduct cases, 56 marines were removed from the recruiting environment or discharged from the Marine Corps. In 35 cases, the marines were disciplined administratively and remained on recruiting duty.

12. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, 

and General Tryon, further, can you discuss the locations of the instances of alleged 

misconduct? 

General BOSTICK. USAREC has a very robust recruiting impropriety database 

that includes numerous data points, but it does not track the location of allegations. 

However, USAREC is able to state that recruiting improprieties occur in the recruiting stations, in government owned vehicles, in recruits’ homes, and at Military Entrance Processing Stations. 

Admiral KILKENNY. There was no concentration of misconduct allegations in any 

single geographical area covering 1,300 recruiting stations and 26 Navy recruiting 

districts. 

General VAUTRINOT. Incidents occurred in a variety of locations to include Government-owned vehicle, restaurant, park, residence, and a recruiting office. However, 

there were no trends noted. 

General TRYON. Recruiter Irregularities are categorized into malpractice and misconduct. Malpractice consists of concealment, fraud, cheating on the ASVAB test, 

and making false promises. Misconduct infractions include criminal misconduct, sexual misconduct, or other such violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

Generally speaking, we have found that most malpractice cases and allegations involve actual paperwork and enlistment processing and, therefore, happen at the recruiting station. However, misconduct cases occur predominantly outside the workplace and outside normal business hours in public places, private residences, private 

or government vehicles, or even via text messages, email, or other electronic means.

13. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, 

and General Tryon, do allegations derive primarily from recruiting station engagements or elsewhere? 

General BOSTICK. Without additional time to review all 121 substantiated investigations, we are unable to completely discuss the locations of the instances of the 

alleged misconduct or answer whether the allegations derive primarily from recruiting station engagements. However, USAREC is able to state that recruiting improprieties occur in the recruiting stations, in Government-owned vehicles, in recruits’ 

homes, and at Military Entrance Processing Stations. 

Admiral KILKENNY. Most alleged instances of impropriety are reported to have occurred at locations other than Recruiting Stations. Commonly cited locations include 

the recruiter’s vehicle, the MEPS, the recruit’s residence, and public sites such as 

malls, streets, or shopping areas. 

General VAUTRINOT. The vast majority are ‘‘paperwork’’ related and therefore occurred at recruiting offices or on government computers. 

General TRYON. As previously stated, over half applicant-related alleged cases are 

classified as malpractice which primarily occur at the recruiting station between the 

recruiter and applicant. The remaining misconduct cases occur in various locations 

through various means outside of the recruiting station (email text messages, driving in a vehicle, etc).

14. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, 

and General Tryon, I have heard some anecdotal evidence that the wars in Iraq and 

46

Afghanistan have had a particular impact on minority recruiting. That is, some believe that minority propensity for service has reduced more substantially than overall propensity for service. Can you discuss how your minority recruiting is progressing, including a discussion of minority recruiting into combat arms and special 

operations specialties, and what you are doing to increase minority recruiting? 

General BOSTICK. The Army’s goal is to be representative of the population from 

which we recruit. The Army has been very successful in this goal for the past few 

years with respect to the race/ethnic representation in our accessions cohorts. If we 

were to experience decreases in minority recruiting such that we were no longer representative of our market population, that would indicate the need for further action 

above our current efforts. The Army continuously monitors the race/ethnic makeup 

of our future soldiers at all levels of the recruiting command and takes action where 

necessary to assist subordinate units in their efforts to be representative of their 

markets. Often these actions are in the form of partnerships and outreach programs 

to minority organizations at the local, regional, and/or national levels. 

Minority enlistments continue to reflect the population. With African Americans 

composing approximately 14.6 percent of the qualified military youth, their enlistments accounted for just over 15.5 percent of the Army in 2007. Likewise, Hispanic 

youth comprise 12.7 percent of the eligible population and 12.4 percent of the enlistments. Comparatively, Caucasians comprise 67.1 percent of the eligible population 

and 67.1 percent of the enlistments. 

Within the Combat Support career division, the ethnic composition is balanced. 

It is within the Combat Arms, however, that minorities are less represented with 

a composition of 6 percent African American and 10 percent Hispanic enlistments 

compared to 79 percent Caucasian (2007). However, within the Combat Service Support career division, minorities are over represented with 24 percent African American, 15 percent Hispanic, and 56 percent Caucasian proportion of enlistments. This 

general representation has been relatively consistent for the past 5 years. 

The imbalance within the aforementioned career divisions is pronounced within 

the special operations specialties of the Special Forces (Career Management Field 

18) and the Ranger enlistment option. Minorities are under-represented; Caucasians 

account for roughly 88 percent of the enlistments into these specialty fields. 

Admiral KILKENNY. Results from the latest youth poll from the Joint Advertising 

Market Research and Studies (JAMRS) indicate that propensity for serving in the 

Active Duty military significantly declined in 2006 and has remained unchanged in 

2007. While the largest declines in propensity were seen for Hispanic and African 

American youth, the composite propensity for Active Duty is still significantly greater among these groups than it is among caucasian youth. 

Navy enlisted recruiting has been successful in reaching the diversity markets. 

Overall for fiscal year 2007, the diversity representation for Navy accessions was 

21 percent African American, 21 percent Asian, Pacific Islander, or Native American 

(API/NATAM), and 20 percent Hispanic. This compares favorably to the demographic benchmark for the recruitable market (16 percent African American, 3 percent API/NATAM, and 12 percent Hispanic). In the Navy Special Operations and 

Navy Special Warfare accessions (Navy Diver, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Special 

Warfare Boat Operator, and Special Warfare Operator), African Americans (at 6 

percent) were underrepresented, but API/NATAM (19 percent) and Hispanics (15 

percent) were close to the overall representation. 

Officer Accessions for minorities have historically been more difficult to achieve 

than enlisted contracts. We continue to address that through a variety of actions 

to include closer engagement with affinity groups; partnering with the Naval Academy and other colleges/universities, especially those with Naval Reserve Officers 

Training Corps programs; and closely monitoring and adjusting our marketing and 

advertising programs focused on Diversity Officer recruiting. However, there is no 

evidence to suggest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are having any additional 

measurable effect on Diversity Officer recruiting outside the normal historical challenges. 

General VAUTRINOT. Consistent with Headquarters Air Force-directed fiscal year 

2007/2008 budget and manpower reductions, diversity marketing and outreach programs (i.e. civilian colleges) for line officer recruiting were curtailed in favor of 

meeting minimum enlisted accession and health professions requirements.

- Air Force remains #1 among minorities as ‘‘Service of Choice,’’ including 

African American 

- Air Force minority enlisted recruiting statistics remains strong (see enclosed BBP) 

- Likelihood that African American youth (17–24 year olds) want to serve 

is at decades low 

47

- The proportion of hispanics (69 percent) who report being less likely to 

join the military because of the war on terrorism has increased significantly 

in the past 6 months 

- An overwhelming 87 percent of black youth report being less likely to 

join the military as a result of the war on terrorism 

- Likelihood that African American influencers (parents, teachers, clergy, 

coaches, et cetera) would recommend military service is at decades low 

- 73 percent of all youth (including minorities) are NOT qualified to serve 

in military 

- Per national polls: military service is #1 ‘‘trusted’’ profession and military 

officer is #4 respected professional (The Harris Poll® #77, August 1, 

2007) . . . yet JAMRS polls indicate African Americans value military 

service less than any baseline or minority counterparts and have higher 

disagreement with troops in Iraq (‘‘proportion of white (50 percent) and 

black (22 percent) youth who support Troops being in Iraq has significantly 

decreased since June 2006’’). 

48

General TRYON. During fiscal year 2007, the Marine Corps accessed 9.1 percent 

African-Americans and 17.1 percent Hispanics of our total force enlistments which 

was up from 8 percent and 15.7 percent respectively in fiscal year 2006. In fiscal 

year 2008 (through 22 Feb 2008) we have accessed 9.8 percent African Americans 

and 16.7 percent Hispanics. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the overall African American population in the United States is 12.4 percent and the overall Hispanic population in the United States is 14.8 percent. In regards to recruiting minority applicants into combat arms and special operations occupational fields, during fiscal year 2007 the Marine Corps assessed 4.0 percent African Americans and 

13.1 percent Hispanic into Infantry and Reconnaissance Programs. Fiscal year-todate we have assessed 5.0 percent African American and 14.2 percent Hispanic into 


131ful1.eps
49

those programs. Minority recruiting overall and within the Infantry and Reconnaissance Programs is showing improvement over last year’s results. This trend is expected to continue. The Marine Corps continues to make greater inroads into the 

minority population through focused marketing and advertising efforts. This will be 

enhanced through increased awareness activities in television advertising, print advertising, and national event partnerships geared towards various minority populations. Examples of these events are major sporting events involving Historically 

Black Colleges and Universities, national leadership conferences, and diversity job 

fairs. The goal of this advertising and participation in these events is to increase 

awareness within the minority population of the benefits available to all young men 

and women through service in the Marine Corps.

ARMY ACCESSIONS ORGANIZATIONS

15. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, I have become aware of a discussion 

within the Army about how it organizes its various accessions organizations. The 

Government Accountability Office, in a January 2007 report, found that the Army 

lacked a strategic plan for officer accessions and, further, that officer accessions programs are suffering from decentralization in organization and management. Your 

command is paired with the ROTC Cadet Command in the Army’s Accessions Command. When the Army created Accessions Command, it is my understanding that 

it paired ROTC with Recruiting Command to create synergies between enlisted recruiting and ROTC officer recruiting, such as perhaps enabling ROTC to pass program drop-outs to Recruiting Command for potential enlistment. Please discuss how 

you have partnered with Cadet Command to achieve any such synergies and how 

many recruits have come to Recruiting Command from Cadet Command (please 

both discuss and provide specific numbers). 

General BOSTICK. The partnership between USAREC and U.S. Army Cadet Command to share referrals began in March 2001. Initially, this was a manual process 

where USAREC shared information with individual schools for ROTC referrals and 

Cadet Command shared information with local recruiting units when an individual 

either stopped out or dropped out of school. This process has now been automated. 

Since fiscal year 2006, over 24,000 leads have been shared between the 2 commands.

Fiscal Year 

Leads Shared 

USAREC Cadet Command 

2006 ........................................................................................................................................ 7,148 4,956

2007 ........................................................................................................................................ 5,341 3,470

2008 ........................................................................................................................................ 2,175 1,339

16. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, do you believe there are natural 

synergies between enlisted recruiting and ROTC officer recruiting or do these two 

missions differ substantially? 

General BOSTICK. There are synergies shared by all recruiting efforts. However, 

the focus and qualifications for the individual being recruited are generally different 

in the enlisted and officer specialties. USAREC focuses its effort on the men and 

women seeking to join the Army’s enlisted ranks within the next 12 months. The 

United States Army Cadet Command places emphasis on those seeking to join the 

Army’s officer ranks in the next 2 to 4 years. There are synergies, areas where we 

are able to work together for the benefit of both commands, but the missions are 

substantially different.

17. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, in your personal and professional view, 

would moving Cadet Command out of Accessions Command have any negative impact on Recruiting Command? If so, what would that impact be? 

General BOSTICK. The potential impacts of any reorganization are unclear. There 

are a number of ongoing studies and reviews of the Army’s organizational structure. 

The Army will be in a better position to determine the most effective organizational 

structure to accomplish its recruiting and accession missions guided by the results 

of these reviews.

50

WAIVERS AND OFFICER CANDIDATE SCHOOL

18. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, in recent years, the Army has issued an 

increasing number of moral waivers to recruits. Can you please provide by month 

how many waivers were granted in the 2006, 2007, and so far in the 2008 recruiting 

years? 

General BOSTICK. Please see the chart below for monthly waiver data for regular 

Army Non-Prior Service recruits. Note: Prior to fiscal year 2007, we have limited 

ability to differentiate between Misdemeanors and Serious Misdemeanors.

Fiscal Year 2006

2005 2006 

Total 

Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. 

Misdemeanor .......................... 416 533 5 619 535 465 518 486 574 514 814 615 6,095

Felony ...................................... 49 81 1 109 89 75 96 96 146 87 167 102 1,098

Fiscal Year 2007

2006 2006 Total 

Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. 

Misdemeanor .......................... 517 669 1 966 697 618 589 547 486 672 702 802 7,266

Felony ...................................... 103 113 0 229 118 141 120 139 149 151 152 162 1,582

Serious Misdemeanor ............. 0 0 0 1 18 26 17 19 14 12 29 29 165

Fiscal Year 2008

2007 2008 

Total 

Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. 

Misdemeanor .................................................................................................................. 453 518 3 895 1,869

Felony ............................................................................................................................. 74 102 1 142 319

Serious Misdemeanor ..................................................................................................... 22 22 0 47 91

19. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, in your opinion, how do recruits who are 

granted these waivers compare to those who do not require them? 

General BOSTICK. Recent Army analysis of the fiscal year 2003–fiscal year 2006 

cohorts has shown that soldiers granted conduct waivers performed comparable to, 

and in some cases better, than those soldiers who enlisted without waivers. In this 

particular study they reenlisted at a higher rate and received valorous awards at 

a higher rate than those soldiers who did not receive conduct waivers. Additionally, 

for infantry soldiers, it showed that soldiers who received conduct waivers were promoted to sergeant approximately 4 months sooner. In general, these soldiers have 

higher test scores on the ASVAB and higher high school graduation rates. Those 

granted conduct waivers did have slightly higher adverse loss and misconduct rates. 

There are ongoing studies to access the long-term performance of soldiers requiring 

a conduct waiver.

20. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, I am aware that Recruiting Command 

has accessed an increasing number of candidates into Officer Candidate School 

(OCS). OCS accessions have increased from 9 percent of officer accessions in 1995 

to 40 percent of accessions in 2008. In 2002, OCS accessions had increased to 20 

percent of total officer accessions. This indicates that the drastic increase in OCS 

accessions cannot be written off to requirements associated with the increase in size 

of the Army. Further, it is my understanding that nearly half of the 40 percent of 

OCS officer accessions are attributable to the enlistment option. Please indicate how 

many enlistment option OCS candidates the Army Recruiting Command has enlisted in each year since 2000? 

General BOSTICK. Since fiscal year 2000 to today, the USAREC has enlisted 5,555 

OCS candidates.

Fiscal Year OCS Candidates 

2000 ................................................................................................................................................................. 230

2001 ................................................................................................................................................................. 366

2002 ................................................................................................................................................................. 655

2003 ................................................................................................................................................................. 625 

2004 ................................................................................................................................................................. 350

2005 ................................................................................................................................................................. 685

51

Fiscal Year OCS Candidates 

2006 ................................................................................................................................................................. 1,092

2007 ................................................................................................................................................................. 1,185

2008 YTD .......................................................................................................................................................... 367

21. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, how has the increasing number of enlistment option candidates affected the quality of the overall enlisted recruiting 

pool? 

General BOSTICK. OCS candidates increase the overall quality of the enlisted recruiting pool. Regular Army soldiers enlisting for OCS require a Bachelor’s Degree. 

Those Army Reserve soldiers enlisting for OCS must be in their senior year of college. These men and women undergo a competitive selection board process to determine whether or not they will be allowed to enter the Army under the OCS enlistment option.

22. Senator MCCASKILL. General Bostick, what sort of burden has this placed on 

recruiters to recruit more soldiers who will remain enlisted? 

General BOSTICK. USAREC is given requirements for OCS candidates by the Department of the Army based on the Army’s needs. There is no additional burden 

on recruiters as these soldiers are counted against our regular Army annual mission 

of 80,000 and Army Reserve annual mission of 26,500. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR LINDSEY O. GRAHAM

RECRUITING MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

23. Senator GRAHAM. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, and 

General Tryon, the DOD Task Force on Mental Health, as well as the Army’s studies of mental health needs of soldiers deployed to Iraq, all found evidence that embedding mental health providers within units is crucial to the psychological health 

of servicemembers. Coupled with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and the needs of family members under stress, the need for mental health professionals to support the military has increased significantly. 

Recognizing that the military competes with a limited supply of qualified mental 

health care professionals in the country today, have the military departments developed incentives to recruit and train mental health professionals in uniform? 

General BOSTICK. Yes, the Army offers several programs to recruit and train mental health professionals in uniform. The Clinical Psychology Internship Program is 

a post-doctorate program available for 30 interns per year and is required for State 

licensure. Participants are on Active Duty during this program and incur an additional Active Duty service obligation. The Health Professions Scholarship Program 

is available for students pursuing a doctorate in Clinical Psychology in exchange for 

an Active Duty service obligation. This scholarship program pays an additional stipend of $1,605/month. The Masters of Social Work program is a newly established 

program at the U.S. Army Medical Department’s (AMEDD) Center and School in 

affiliation with Fayetteville State University. This program will accommodate up to 

25 students per year starting in academic year 2008. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences offers a Clinical Psychology Training Program and 

has introduced a new Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program 

(PMH–NP). PHM–NP is a 24-month, full-time program beginning in academic year 

2008; Army allocations are still to be determined. Participants are on Active Duty 

during these programs and incur additional Active Duty service obligations. 

Admiral KILKENNY. The Navy does offer incentives to recruit mental health care 

professionals, both as direct accessions and to train them in student programs. The 

incentives vary based on the mental health specialty. 

Psychiatrists are now eligible to receive a $175,000 accession bonus and may participate in the Health Professions Loan Repayment Program (HPLRP). They also 

may be eligible for certain specialty pays while on Active Duty. Civilian Psychiatric 

residents are eligible to participate in the Financial Assistance Plan, where they receive a monthly stipend—currently $1,605 and growing to $1,907 later this year—

and an annual grant up to $28,454 currently, but scheduled to increase to $45,000 

on July 1, 2008. The minimum Active Duty obligation for participating in Financial 

Assistance Plan is 3 years. 

Mental Health Nurses are eligible for up to a $30,000 accession bonus depending 

on the length of their commitment, may participate in the HPLRP, and are eligible 

52

to receive Board Certification Pay. Once on Active Duty, nurses are eligible to be 

sent to a civilian Master’s program for Mental Health Nurse Practitioners or Clinical Nurse Specialists in the Duty Under Instruction program. 

Psychologists and Social Workers are not authorized an accession bonus, but may 

participate in the HPLRP and receive Board Certification Pay. 

The Navy has both a military psychiatrist residency and a clinical psychologist 

internship training program. 

General VAUTRINOT. The Air Force has established recruitment and retention bonuses for many career fields including mental health professionals. Additionally, we 

have submitted several proposals for our most difficult-to-fill requirements. While 

full funding of recruitment and retention programs would help us retain the right 

mix and number of providers and technicians, we continue to compete with our 

DOD sister Services, other government health agencies, and private sector counterparts for very limited national pool of highly-trained health care personnel resources. 

Section 335 of U.S.C. 37, chapter 5, is a revision per National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2008 and may authorize the additional pay required to recruit and retain qualified mental health professionals. Supplemental authorities like the Critical Skills Accession Bonus (CSAB) for psychiatrists and the 

Critical Skills Retention Bonus (CSRB) for clinical psychologists do exist but the absence of supplemental funding makes them difficult to implement. The Air Force 

fully supports, as funding allows, all available special and incentive pays currently 

authorized. In order to implement new pay authorities and provide increases in special pay where necessary, we have garnered an additional $65 million in fiscal year 

2009 and across the Future Years Defense Plan through the Air Force Chief of Staff 

Initiative. 

Below is a summary regarding each of the primary mental health care professional career fields in the Air Force. 

Clinical Psychologists 

Licensed clinical psychologist recruiting and retention remains extremely difficult. 

The Psychology Residency Accession Program is the primary means of recruiting, 

but only 11 of 23 psychology residency quotas for academic year 2007–2008 were 

filled. We anticipate a ‘‘bathtub’’ effect in the future since the residency training 

pipeline and licensure process takes a minimum of 2 years. Fully qualified psychologists’ recruiting is even more difficult. In the past 5 years, only seven fully qualified 

psychologists were accessed into the Air Force. Clearly, psychologists require monetary recruitment and retention incentives. 

Recruitment incentives for psychologists are moderate with a limited number of 

Accession HPLRP quotas available to fully licensed psychologists, and a limited 

number of Health Professions Scholarship Program quotas for students pursuing 

studies in clinical psychology. To increase the recruitment of fully qualified personnel, an accession bonus for clinical psychologists is recommended. 

Currently, a CSRB of $30,000 is offered to psychologists in the 4–6-year time in 

commissioned service group for a 3-year commitment. Take rates for the CSRB are 

high, but the monetary amount may be too small and the number of personnel in 

the appropriate year group may be too limited to have a significant retention impact. 

Social Workers 

The Air Force Chief Consultant for Social Work has initiated a direct working relationship with Recruiting Services and manning has improved significantly from 75 

percent in summer 2006 to 101 percent currently. Although current manning is 

good, it may be beneficial to obtain authorization for special and incentive pays for 

social workers due to the increasing demands on Mental Health providers, Mental 

Health Nurses, and Mental Health Nurse Practitioners. 

All nurses are currently authorized incentive special pay (ISP) by law, although 

in fiscal year 2008 funding constraints did not allow the Air Force to initiate this 

special pay. Adequate funding is anticipated to support the nurse ISP in fiscal year 

2009, and the Air Force intends to start the ISP for nurses in beginning in fiscal 

year 2009. 

Psychiatry 

The current number of AD psychiatrists closely matches the number of authorized 

billets but the demand for psychiatric services both at home and in the deployed 

environment is increasing. Total psychiatry manning is 98 percent. Current manning of fully qualified psychiatrists is at 64 percent with 48 psychiatry residents in 

training at this time. 

53

The Multi-Year Special Pay amounts were increased this year to a maximum of $75,000 in conjunction with the Tri-Service Health Professions Incentive Working 

Group. Although authorized, the Air Force was unable to offer the CSAB to Psychiatrists in fiscal year 2008 due to funding limitations. 

General TRYON. Question not applicable to the Marine Corps.

24. Senator GRAHAM. General Bostick, Admiral Kilkenny, General Vautrinot, and 

General Tryon, are incentives that are specific to mental health professionals needed? If so, what are the monetary as well as non-monetary incentives that are needed? 

General BOSTICK. The military competes within a market that suffers from shortages of qualified mental health professionals. Incentives specific to mental health 

are needed to recruit and retain these professionals in the Army. Licensed Clinical 

Psychologists are offered the CSRB at a rate of $13,000/year for 2 years or $25,000/

year for 3 years. The HPLRP is available for the accessions of 5 clinical psychologists and the retention of 20 clinical psychologists at the rate of $38,437/year. The 

Health Professions Scholarship Program is available to students pursuing a doctorate in Clinical Psychology in exchange for an Active Duty service obligation. Social Workers in the rank of Captain are offered the Army CSRB at the rate of 

$25,000 for a 3-year Active Duty service obligation. The HPLRP is available for the 

accessions of 5 social workers and the retention of 20 clinical psychologists at the 

rate of $38,437/year. A Masters of Social Work program has been established at the 

AMEDD Center and School in affiliation with Fayetteville State University. The 

program will accommodate up to 25 students per year starting in academic year 

2008. Psychiatric Nurses and Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners are authorized to receive Registered Nurse Incentive Special Pay at a rate of $5,000/year for 1 year, 

$10,000/year for 2 years, $15,000/year for 3 years, and $20,000/year for 4 years. The 

Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences has introduced a new Adult 

PMH–NP. PHM–NP is a 24-month, full time program beginning in Academic Year 

2008; Army allocations are still to be determined. Psychiatrists who execute a multiyear special pay contract (extending their Active Duty service obligation) are paid 

at the rates of $17,000/year for a 2-year contract, $25,000/year for a 3-year contract, 

and $33,000/year for a 4-year contract. The Critical Wartime Skills Accession Bonus 

is approved (pending funding) as a lump sum bonus of $175,000 for 10 psychiatrists 

in return for a 4-year Active Duty service obligation. 

Admiral KILKENNY. The NDAA for Fiscal Year 2008 provided authority to pay a 

bonus to members for referring recruits who enter Navy health professions. We are 

hopeful that this type of incentive will increase the number of leads for these programs and improve our recruiting success. 

Because of the limited supply of qualified mental health care professionals, specific incentives are needed to get them to choose the Navy. The Navy’s Clinical Psychologists community is in a challenging situation, with current manning at only 

79 percent and retention rates falling due to high deployment during the global war 

on terrorism. Section 604 of the National Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal 

Year 2009 would authorize an accession bonus up to $70,000 for fully trained and 

licensed psychologists. This is necessary to meet the near-term billet growth, replace 

losses, and supplement the Internship Program. Your support for this authority will 

be a key contribution to our future success. 

The current authority for accession and retention incentives for Psychiatrists is 

adequate. The Psychiatry multi-year special pay has increased $8,000 each of the 

past 2 fiscal years and will be evaluated again for fiscal year 2009 by OSD/HA. 

NDAA 2007 authorized a Critical Wartime Skills Accession Bonus (CWSAB). The 

fiscal year 2008 CWSAB for Psychiatrists is $175,000 for a 4-year commitment. This 

rate will be revaluated for fiscal year 2009 by OSD/HA. 

We will continue to evaluate areas where we need help meeting the increasing 

demand for mental health professionals. As we identify new tools and incentives we 

will include them in future authorization requests. 

General VAUTRINOT. Yes, incentives are needed to effectively recruit all health 

professionals. Certainly with the types of mental health diagnoses resulting from 

current combat operations, the Air Force Medical Service’s manning requirements 

for mental health professionals is very likely to increase. There are a number of 

monetary and non-monetary incentives that would assist these recruiting efforts. 

Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists have concerns about military providers making significantly less than their civilian counterparts. We need a ‘‘Critical Wartime 

Skills’’ accession bonus not only for psychiatrists, but for all types of mental health 

providers; and in order for this bonus to be most effective, we need legislation that 

allows the bonus to be offered concurrently with multi-year specialty pay. Additionally, the closing and realigning of major medical facilities and the condition of curVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:39 Sep 18, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\44450.TXT SARMSER2 PsN: JUNEB
54

rent facilities has raised questions about the future and stability of the military 

medical system. Legislation that authorizes and appropriates funds to secure, stabilize, and upgrade military mental health treatment facilities will ease potential 

applicant’s fears concerning the military work environment. 

With respect to non-monetary incentives, we need congressional help for relief 

concerning the time delay between application and accession; we lose a number of 

qualified applicants during this period because they get ‘‘turned off’’ to the seemingly endless military bureaucracy. They are motivated and excited to enter the Air 

Force and understand that we need and want their skills, but then it takes several 

months to get them through the Regular Officer Appointment Scroll approval process, and they become disenchanted. Per SAF/GCM, a 2005 Department of Justice 

ruling stipulated that direct appointment of regular field grade officers cannot be 

delegated lower than Department Secretaries. However, Congress has yet to take 

advantage of this ruling, and field grade approval still resides with the President, 

followed by Senate confirmation. Congress could greatly assist recruiting by enacting legislation to delegate scroll approval authority from the Senate to the Secretary 

of Defense for Health Professions regular officer candidates seeking the rank of 

Major and Lieutenant Colonel (O–4 and O–5). Delegation of this authority alone 

would reduce the process by 2 to 3 months. Of note, appointment scrolls for regular 

company grade officers as well as all Reserve officers through the grade of O–5 are 

currently approved at the Secretary of Defense level. 

General TRYON. Question not applicable to the Marine Corps. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS

VIABILITY OF THE ALL-VOLUNTEER FORCE

25. Senator CHAMBLISS. General Bostick and Sergeant Webb, it is my understanding that the Army has established several recruiting and marketing programs 

to ensure the viability of the All-Volunteer Force. One such program—The Sky Soldier Air Show Recruiting Program—is a program that produces leads for recruiters 

while leveraging industry and veteran organizations. Based on the desire to preserve the All-Volunteer Force, I would appreciate your views on what are the benefits of such programs? 

General BOSTICK and Sergeant WEBB. The value varies by program. Those that 

perform the best place the Army and its soldiers front and center with the prospects 

and influencers that attend the various venues we choose to participate in. We do 

this through the use of experiential displays that provide the opportunity for interaction with high-tech savvy soldiers roughly the same age as those men and women 

in our target market as well as those that influence them on a daily basis (parents, 

friends, et cetera). These face-to-face interactions not only provide leads for recruiters to contact, but also increased information/knowledge about what the Army has 

to offer as a viable option for their future.

26. Senator GRAHAM. General Bostick and Sergeant Webb, how does the Army 

specifically address the viability of such programs, in consultation with management 

teams of these organizations, to verify information related to the return on investment of these programs with respect to market penetration, accrual of leads, cost, 

the impact on propensity of attendees, and the immediate or long-term impact on 

prospects and influencers? 

General BOSTICK and Sergeant WEBB. The Army addresses these topics/items of 

information through our advertising agency (McCann Erickson) and its event marketing agency (Momentum). Each program is a subcontractor with the event marketing agency. The viability of each program is reviewed on a regular basis over the 

course of the period of execution through after action reviews upon the completion 

of each event. Copies are provided to various levels of the Army marketing organization for review and comment as well as to management within the specific program. 

At the end of each program’s execution for the year a full after action review is conducted to review the program in its entirety.

27. Senator GRAHAM. General Bostick and Sergeant Webb, what procedures are 

in place for the Army to notify companies in the event the Army chooses to cancel 

or reduce funding for these types of programs? 

General BOSTICK and Sergeant WEBB. Upon the completion of a program the 

Army and its event marketing agency conduct an assessment of the performance of 

program. That assessment is briefed to the appropriate level of Army leadership 

where a decision is made to continue, cancel, or reduce funding in these programs. 

55

Upon that decision being made a telephonic notification is executed with the program’s management which is then followed up with written notification within 48–

72 hours. That notification is executed by the event marketing agency as they are 

the organization with which the program is contracted with.

[Whereupon, at 11:14 a.m., the subcommittee adjourned.]

Æ