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Army plans recruiting summit

Army leaders will consider growing the 80,000 annual recruiting goal when they meet at a recruiting summit in mid-October.

The Army intends to reach an end-strength of 547,000 by 2011, if not sooner, with a combination of recruiting and retention. Leaders may also go beyond the annual recruiting mission that has stood at 80,000 for the past three fiscal years.

“We’re having a recruiting summit, the chief of staff of the Army, myself and the leadership at the recruiting command, and that’s going to be one of our topics, whether to raise it or to keep it where it is,” Vice Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Dick Cody said.

He and the Army secretary and chief at the time considered a “stretch goal” when they looked at the mission for fiscal 2007 a year ago, he recalled.

The big push to recruit soldiers late in fiscal year 2007 included a $20,000 quick-ship bonus and has drained the service’s Delayed Entry Pool.

Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, commander of Accessions Command, estimated the service will have 6,500 to 7,000 soldiers in the DEP, or less than 9 percent of the 80,000 goal. The Army had about 12 percent of its goal in the DEP entering fiscal 2007.

Recruiting kickoff

Army Secretary Pete Geren and Cody co-hosted a reenlistment and swearing-in ceremony as a kickoff for the new recruiting year Thursday on the steps of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Six soldiers reenlisted and six new recruits were sworn in, including 33-year-old Daniel Otugare, a Nigerian national who said it’s easier to join the U.S. Army than the armed forces in his own country.

“I want to serve this country,” said Otugare, who has been living in Pennsylvania for three years after and studying mathematics. He plans to apply for his citizenship and eventually become an officer, he said.

Sgt. 1st Class Terri Williams, 39, whom Cody described as “an Army brat, an Army NCO and an Army mom,” has been in the Army 19 years and reenlisted for six more.

She comes from an Army family and has two sons in the Army, one of whom is deploying in mid-October to join his 3rd Infantry Division unit in Baghdad.

Another new recruit, Erica Hamberry, 19, said she joined because she’s always been interested in the military and, working at a chain clothing store was getting old.

“I was tired of the customers and their attitudes,” she said, adding, “it was either the Army or being a firefighter. I don’t mind risking my life to save somebody else’s.”

Staff writer Michelle Tan contributed to this report.