October, 2006
The U.S. Army’s West Bend recruiting station has enlisted 84 new recruits this year, up from 62 the year before. Station commander Sgt. Pat Adelman said he believes local job availability and public perception of the army influence recruitment numbers.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, West Bend had an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent in July 2006, about the same as last year. The Army has been advertising job training as a major benefit of service, but Adelman said job training is not the primary motivation for new recruits.
“There has to be some kind of interest to begin with,” Adelman said. “As recruiters, the best reason for a person to join is service to the country and not just for the benefits.”
Two of the three recruiters at the West Bend station have served in Iraq. Adelman when they can relate stories of helping people and show pictures of them with little kids, it helps relate the good the Army can accomplish to prospective recruits.
Adelman was recruiting in Bloomington, Minn. in Sept. 2001. He said there was a slight rise in recruitment, as well as a number of disqualified candidates mistakenly assuming they would be suddenly be eligible because America was attacked. Five years later, the possibility of active duty does not deter interest.
“For parents that come in it’s, ‘Is my child going to get deployed,'” Adelman said. “Some people honestly don’t care if they’re going to get deployed. Others want to know where they’ll possibly be going.”
Adelman said many people think joining the Army will immediately turn them into infantrymen on the front lines, without considering the multitude of support positions necessary in areas as varied as linguistics, medicine and technology. He said he has done his job well when a new recruit is happy with their assigned duty, their benefits and the duration of their enlistment.
“I’ve been doing this for eight years and I’ve always recruited the same way. I tell my Army story. I say ‘This is what I’ve done,’ and relate it to them. I say, ‘This is what the Army can do for you,’ and I let them make their decision,” Adelman said.
Maj. Matthew Strub is the unit commander of the 832nd Army National Guard medical company, based at the West Bend Municipal Airport. Strub could not point to one particular motivator, although he said patriotism, aspiration to military service and college tuition reimbursement were major factors.
“Since patriotism is coming back more of our new recruits have that,” Strub said.
“Ours recruitment has stayed about the same. We’re steadily recruiting for folks that have either retired or left the National Guard for various reasons,” Strub said, because those soldiers already have years of valuable experience.
Most of unit’s new enlistees are first-time recruits that have shown their aptitude for air ambulance work in testing. Pilots and crew members have additionally strenuous academic and physical requirements.
Pewaukee native Scott Blazek, 19, was sworn into the Army Thursday in Milwaukee. He said his main motivation was defending his country.
“After the whole Sept. 11 thing happened, most people seemed to just hang their flags out. I wanted to do more to protect the country against any other attacks,” Blazek said.
Blazek said he first met with recruiters in high school, but wanted to try out college. He decided college wasn’t for him, so after finishing up his third semester this fall, he’ll head to basic training at Fort Benning, Ga. It took about a month from his first meeting with a recruiter until he was officially enlisted.
“I wasn’t 100 percent sure then, but they helped clarify some points I had questions on,” Blazek said. “They explained some job-specific concerns.”
Right now Blazek plans on attending Army Ranger School and thinks he will continue in the service after his 4-year enlistment term.
Dan Broege of West Bend said he met with recruiters in 2002, during the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. His sister was an Army reservist who extended her enlistment period and used Army tuition benefits to pay for college.
“Basically I was in a place where I wasn’t going anywhere or doing anything,” Broege said. “I was looking for a little direction and to earn some personal respect for myself and others.”
He was turned away, he said, because his record showed several incidences of driving while intoxicated.
“I had no felonies, no violent crimes. I didn’t feel like I fit the profile of a person they wouldn’t accept,” Broege said.
Now Broege, 26, is in his second semester at the University of Wisconsin-Washington County. He said he was contacted twice this summer by recruiters, who said Army policies had changed to become more lenient and offered enlistment.
“It really kind of upset me when they called me over the summer. You know what their hidden agenda is; it’s wartime and they need people,” Broege said. “When I felt I was ready they didn’t want me.”
Broege said he would have joined at the time, but now he is older and happy to be focused on school.