Recruiter takes on challenges of retaining soldiers for Guard

Recruiter takes on challenges of retaining soldiers for Guard 
By Dan de Carbonel 

Lt. Col. Leah Sundquist’s task never is easy under the best of circumstances. During wartime, the challenges only have grown.

Sundquist is charged with bringing about 1,100 new soldiers into the Oregon Army National Guard each year and holding on to those already in uniform.

The long deployments overseas, especially those for the war in Iraq, and continued uncertainty about troop-level needs have stretched the Guard’s resources more than at any time since World War II.

“We’re not in a situation where we are in a crisis mode,” Sundquist said. “But we recognize there is a situation with soldiers redeploying.”

In response to the need for soldiers, the Oregon Guard has improved benefits for new and re-enlisting soldiers and has stepped up its recruiting efforts.

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Question: Why is the Guard having a difficult time retaining experienced soldiers?

Answer: We typically run about an 18 percent retention rate (the percentage of those who do not re-enlist). The one article that discussed retention is in terms of the 1/162nd Infantry that just came back from deployment (to Iraq). They are running about a 46 percent retention rate. So we are having some issues in terms of soldiers coming home from a deployment and wanting to continue to stay in.

They’ve been on a long deployment, and in most cases they’ve now understood the importance of family. It was a long deployment and they are concerned about possibly having another long deployment. And they are reintegrating back into their community, back into their jobs, and they want to have a consistent life. In most cases, soldiers are coming to the end of their tour of enlistment and deciding that they don’t want to stay in. And that’s either for family reasons, job reasons or concern about a long deployment on the retention side.

Q:And the Guard’s number of recruits coming off active duty that traditionally join a National Guard unit is down as well, correct?

A: In terms of recruiting, our draw coming into the Guard is now less from prior service and more from those without prior service.

Q: You have sent a recruiter, (Sgt. 1st Class Everett Horvath) to Iraq to talk with members of the 2/162 Infantry battalion. Is that in response to the decline in retention from the 1/162 Infantry?

A: Actually, I believe it is in response to a lot of units that are in-country right now wanting recruiters to come in. A recruiter works not only as a recruiter but as a retention and a career counselor in the process of getting their training. (The Army) is understanding the efforts that need to occur when a soldier is on active duty from the Guard that needs to extend their enlistment. They are able to extend, receiving a bonus and also receiving tax-free benefits of that extension while they are in-country. If you don’t have a recruiter there to do that process, it can’t occur until they come home.

Q: Will the new benefits and incentives make a difference in retaining soldiers?

A: I believe it will. (Sgt. 1st Class Horvath) already has a list of soldiers that are interested in extending. I think it will make a difference being able to complete that paperwork over there. The soldier has “known” information when he comes home. He comes home now and has a steady future to look forward to. That is one known they’ll have when they return. They are going to have an unknown with their family lifestyle, they are going to have an unknown in the community, an unknown with their job they go back to, if they have a job when they come back. This is one piece that is going to be sustainable for them.

Q: Are you seeing a difference in the types of soldiers who are staying in the Guard and those that are choosing to re-enlist?

A: I haven’t seen that yet. The 2/162 will probably be able to give us a little bit more of that information. I don’t know with 1/162, the differences in who is staying on and who is not staying on — whether it is soldiers who don’t have jobs or who have jobs (who are leaving). Most of the soldiers we have are single soldiers, so they may not have that same family commitment as a married soldier. I don’t know what that balance is though.

Q: Has the recruiting budget been increased?

A: Not necessarily been increased, but I have been authorized to increase the number of recruiters in the field. And I’ve put more of a focus on marketing and advertising the Oregon National Guard. We’ve been increased by about 10 new recruiters and we just received an additional authorization for nine more positions to help focus on support in the field.

Q: How many recruiters do you have now?

A: We’re at 72 recruiters now and then we’ll increase an additional eight or nine in the next month.

Q: How do you differentiate the Army National Guard to potential recruits from other branches of service?

A: Well, one of the things I look at with the National Guard is that yes, we are all soldiers, whether we are male, female, Air Guard, Army Guard. We’re soldiers first, but some of the benefits we have are in terms of vocational career opportunities for those that may not necessarily want to go college track or corporate track. When you look at things we have available in the Army side, and the technical careers you have on the Air Guard side, providing those schooling benefits for those who also want to have a vocational career background is attractive.

What I’m trying to do is not just say to the community we want your child, or your son or your daughter because we want them as a soldier, but that we have these opportunities that are available to them. It is not just a military opportunity. Yes, they are doing their duties as citizen-soldiers giving community service but they also have career opportunities.

Q: Is the Oregon National Guard a tougher sell now with the war in Iraq?

A: It depends on how you sell it. That’s why I’m trying to look at it in terms of what opportunities do we have available for those here in the state of Oregon. We might not ever be able to guarantee that you won’t go on a deployment again, by virtue of what we’ve gone through in the last two years, but we can say that if a unit has deployed in the last two years, they are not going to deploy within the next year. They may not deploy within the next two years. That’s the unknown. So looking at it from the perspective of weekend camaraderie, team building, leadership training, schools of opportunity, vocational opportunity, and from Homeland Security, being able to make the community safer, providing your community with a trained individual available in the state.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges that remain? What would make your job easier?

A: Active duty has soldiers that are on one post. They have all of the resources available to soldiers in one place. In the National Guard, you see a lot of those community services being decentralized in a lot of different areas. Medical services, veterans services, family and child-care services. In a military post, those are all there. In a state National Guard, you don’t have one centralized location where a family or a soldier can go to to gain assistance.

But I think we’re recognizing that and looking at ways to improve that process to provide those services to soldiers. The medical-care benefits are changing. We’re asking for (regular Army) benefits to go along with longer deployments.

We’re continuing the recruiting process. That’s going well. I’m not saying it’s going great, 100 percent meeting (the goal). There are always challenges on the recruiting side. The one thing we’re focusing on is the retention. We are putting a greater emphasis on the retention side. We’ve brought on additional recruiters to talk to soldiers about what it is they want to do. Maybe they want to go to a different unit. If you’re unhappy with what you’re doing now, maybe there is something else you’d like to do. Can we help keep you in?

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