Job, health care concerns key in enlistment choices - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Job, health care concerns key in enlistment choices

Dark economic clouds loom over the decision to stay or go for troops who might otherwise be quickly out the door at the end of their enlistments.

“The job security the Army provides is always on my mind,” said Army Sgt. Joshua Winter, 22, who must decide by July if he’ll re-up.

Winter, an infantryman who has deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, is a combatives trainer, teaching hand-to-hand combat and martial arts for the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., a job he likes but knows won’t last forever.

The military, Winter said, is “a guaranteed paycheck, and the re-enlistment bonuses the Army is offering now are amazing.”

Moreover, he knows he has invested five years of his life in the military. “To leave, in a certain sense, is almost like starting over,” he said, adding that he is somewhat torn about the idea of “walking away from everything I’ve achieved thus far.”

The decision to stay or go is also proving to be a struggle for Navy Petty Officer Second Class Tina Williams, an aircrew survival equipmentman in Norfolk, Va.

Williams is a single mother with three children, one with serious health issues, which makes military health care and other benefits very attractive.

If she gets out, Williams said she would go to college in North Carolina with a goal of becoming a teacher. The economy is a factor in her plans because she believes she’ll need a job with health care benefits while attending college, which could be tough to pull off.

If she stays in, she expects a shore duty assignment that will take her beyond the 10-year point and make it likely she will stay for a full 20.

“I do love the Navy and my job, but I am still weighing all my options,” she said. “There’s a lot more to the decision this time around.”

One big factor in her decision is the $15,000 re-enlistment bonus she could get for a six-year commitment. “It’s hard to say no to that kind of money,” she said.

Others are boldly venturing into the civilian world with no hesitation. After three years in the Marine Corps, Sgt. Ryan Jackson, assigned to Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., said the poor economy doesn’t scare him.

Jackson, who hopes to land a federal job as a public affairs specialist, believes he could get a $40,000 to $50,000 re-enlistment bonus for staying in, but thinks he could do better working for a federal agency and moving his family back to Michigan.

The economy “is not that bad, I don’t think, for the type of job I am looking at.”

Ditto for Navy Petty Officer Second Class Ryan Barnhouse, an aviation structural mechanic in Norfolk, Va., who works outside his rating as assistant manager of his squadron’s on-site store.

Barnhouse, who is married with a 1-month-old child, has enjoyed his four years in the Navy, but his dream is to someday become a railroad engineer — which will never happen in the sea service.

“I’m going to see what the options are outside,” he said. “I’ve had a good enlistment and gained a lot of knowledge and experience. But I’ve been a [petty officer] second class for four years. Advancement to first class isn’t good right now.”

But the Navy could be a safety net for him. In the transition classes that are preparing him for civilian life, he latched onto the idea of perhaps becoming a Navy Reserve recruiter, which would put him on full-time active duty but allow him to live in Memphis, where he and his family are moving.

On the opposite end of the decision equation is Air Force Staff Sgt. Heather Kowalski, a firefighter at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., with eight years in. Although her current enlistment doesn’t end until September, she’s already decided to make the military a career.

The fact that she is single and expecting her first child in January is the biggest factor in that decision.

It was about “what I felt would help me provide the best lifestyle for my child,” she said. “It’ll be tough, but with the benefits I get in the military, it’s worth it.”

The possibility of someday being able to transfer some of her GI Bill benefits to her son is “definitely a perk,” she said.

A cautionary voice of experience for troops wondering whether to stay or go may be Army Sgt. Robert Phelps, a wheeled vehicle mechanic at Fort Hood, Texas, who got out of the service once after spending a year in Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division — and then came back in because of the economy.

When he left active duty in May 2005, he stayed in the Army Reserve while working for an agricultural cooling-tube firm.

“I thought I’d do better on the outside, but ... I was kind of scraping by week to week,” said Phelps.

Phelps came back on active duty in March 2007 and is now a company motor sergeant. “I’m a lot happier and so is my wife, because we know we have a paycheck every month, we can take care of our bills and we have medical,” said Phelps, who re-enlisted on Nov. 25 and got a $10,500 bonus.

Phelps said he would tell people thinking about getting out of the military to “check out the outside first and have a job lined up three or four months before they get out,” he said.

And even that may not be enough. “I did that but the job fell through anyway,” he said.

Change — like a change in lifestyle, not more money in the pocket — is what led Air Force Staff Sgt. Matt Crowder to decide to get out after 9½ years.

An information technology help desk supervisor with the 96th Communications Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Crowder said he will leave in April because “it’s just not fun anymore. I’ve been stagnant here for awhile.”

He readily acknowledged that his wife, a dental hygienist with whom he has two sons, is worried about the economy.

But he’s convinced he can find a job that pays as much or more than he is making in the Air Force, and is ready to go for it. But that doesn’t mean he wants to move; his wife has a good job and they bought their house when prices were down, so they pay only about $800 per month on their mortgage.

Still, he acknowledged, “My wife wants to beat me just about every day when I say I’m getting out.”

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Staff writers Erik Holmes, Mark Faram, Gina Cavallaro, Michelle Tan and Trista Talton contributed to this story.