Marines need recruits

WASHINGTON -- The Iraq war's dampening effect on recruiting has led to a plan by the Marine Corps to put hundreds of additional recruiters on the streets over the next several months and offer new re-enlistment bonuses of up to $35,000, military officials said Thursday.

Recruiters and other military officials say the "Fallujah effect" -- a steady drumbeat of military casualties from Iraq, punctuated by graphic televised images of urban combat -- is searing an image into the public eye that Marine officers say is difficult to overcome.

The Marines make up about 21 percent of the 150,000 military personnel in Iraq now but have suffered 31 percent of the military deaths there, according to Pentagon statistics.

The Army and other services have often increased the number of recruiters and dangled incentives to bolster their enlistment efforts in lean years. But for the Marines, steps of this magnitude, including the largest one-time increase in recruiters in recent memory, are unheard of in a service whose macho image has historically been a magnet for young people seeking adventure and danger in a military career.

Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Marine Corps commandant, predicted in an interview on Thursday that the Marines would achieve their overall recruiting goal for this fiscal year, even after the service missed its monthly quota in January, the first such lapse in nearly a decade. But Hagee indicated that recruiters were facing some of toughest conditions they have ever faced, starting in the homes of their prized recruits.

"What the recruiters are telling us is that they have to spend more time with the parents," Hagee said. "Parents have an influence, and rightly so, on the decision these young men and young women are going to make. They're saying: 'It's maybe not a bad idea to join the Marine Corps, but why don't you consider it a year from now, or two years from now. Let's think about this.' "

At issue is the Marines' decision to rebuild its recruiting ranks, which had fallen recently to 2,410 full-time recruiters from 2,650 before the Iraq war, as commanders siphoned off Marines who had been scheduled for recruiting duty to perform combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maj. David M. Griesmer, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command, said the Marines would add nearly 250 additional recruiters by October 2006.

The service offers bonuses of up to $35,000 to retain combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, but is for the first time now offering re-enlistment bonuses, averaging $20,000, to its most junior infantrymen, rather than relying mainly on inexperienced troops fresh from boot camp to replenish the infantry.

About 75 percent of enlisted Marines leave the service after their first tour, requiring a steady stream of recruits.

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