THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996 TAG: 9601010052
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
The work can be dangerous and the hours unpredictable. Certainly nobody gets rich off the pay.
But thousands of Americans - just over 168,000 in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30 - continue to join the military, even as the economy keeps growing and generating new jobs in the private sector.
Recruiting totals for fiscal year 1995, released recently by the Pentagon, showed that all the services met their goals for the year and that two-thirds or more of the people they attracted were considered ``high quality.''
``It's a real dogfight . . . It's a day-to-day thing,'' said Edward Kearl, who as head of market research in the Navy Recruiting Command monitors the service's struggle to find and sign up quality recruits.
Kearl traced much of the Navy's success in meeting 1995's targets to the network of training and college scholarship programs it's able to offer. All the military branches have heavily publicized a ``college fund'' program that provides up to $30,000 in college fees for people who have completed their service.
The strong year in recruiting comes despite continuing concern about the quality of life for those in uniform. Pay increases of around 3 percent annually in recent years are comparable to many civilian workers but don't match the rising cost of living. The Pentagon says military housing is in woeful shape and this year began a rehabilitation effort that could take a decade or more. And time deployed, particularly for those in the Navy and Marine Corps, is either steady or increasing.
The Navy brought in some 48,600 recruits during the year, which ended Sept. 30, even as its overall size shrunk by more than 35,000. And 9,400 Navy recruits, about 20 percent, were women; that total grew by 3 percentage points despite a continuing stream of publicity about sexual harassment in the service.
``There are a lot of women out there who are anxious for the opportunities the Navy provides,'' Kearl said.
The Navy also reported an increase in recruiting of Hispanics - 12 percent of the total this year compared to 8 percent in 1994 - and a slight increase in blacks - 19 percent this year compared to 18 percent last year.
With the military relying increasingly on sophisticated electronic systems to do everything from running ships to driving tanks, Pentagon planners emphasized their need to recruit substantial numbers of intelligent, motivated people. The 1995 defense budget included a 20 percent increase in spending on advertising for recruits, which will be kept at that level in 1996.
The investment helped create a 1995 recruiting class with more than 96 percent high school graduates. Two-thirds of the class also scored above average on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, an exam given to potential recruits.
In releasing the figures, Frederick F.Y. Pang, assistant secretary of defense for force management policy, noted that there were slight declines in the percentages of Army, Navy and Marine Corps recruits making above-average scores on the exam. Air Force scores improved slightly, however.
Indeed, the figures indicate that the Air Force, the service with the smallest recruiting class, does better than the other branches in attracting top-quality enlistees. Eighty-three percent of the Air Force's recruits for 1995 were classed as ``high quality'' based on their test scores, compared to 61 percent for the Navy, 65 percent for the Army and 63 percent for the Marine Corps.
``We'd like to have some of their secret'' Kearl said. ``I suspect that part of it is when you go to an Air Force base, you don't go to sea.'' ILLUSTRATION: Chart by Ken Wright, The Virginian-Pilot
Recruiting efforts
For complete information see microfilm
KEYWORDS: NAVY PERSONNEL NAVY RECRUITING by CNB