AP PhotoOhio National Guard recruiter Jack Reppart talks with high school students during a career night for Girard High School seniors in Girard, Ohio on Wednesday.He finds them just about everywhere: at county fairs and shopping malls, in high school classrooms and church pews. His mission is to sell the Ohio National Guard – and as its ranks grow, so does Reppart’s monthly income.
“The money is probably the motivator to keep me going even through retirement,” said 44-year-old Reppart, who has pulled in about $24,000 from his recruiting efforts since 2005. “Don’t get me wrong, I love being in the Guard. But if you had to rank things from one to five, money would be the top one.”
The nation’s bleak economic outlook is driving more young men and women to join the National Guard, which offers a $20,000 enlistment bonus and helps fund college tuition through a $50,000 student loan repayment program.
Reppart, of Southington, is among thousands of National Guard soldiers across the country who have turned recruiting into a lucrative side income, thanks to a pay-per-recruit volunteer initiative that awards soldiers up to $2,000 for each person they sign on board.
The Guard Recruiting Assistance Program, which kicked off in December 2005, is boosting recruitment efforts despite unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. G-RAP brought in about 12,000 recruits in 2006. In 2008, the program’s successes surged to about 30,000 recruits nationwide.
G-RAP has doled out about $110 million since its inception, and about 140,000 Guard members across the country are tracking down recruits as active recruiting assistants.
“I live in an area where there’s not a lot of jobs and not a lot of opportunity,” said Reppart, who teaches computer classes at a local elementary school. “And so they saw this as a way to help with their career or their life.”
On top of the sign-on bonus, the Ohio National Guard offers 100 percent tuition-reimbursement for its troops.
“I don’t have that much money in my family,” said 17-year-old Chad Embry of Zanesville, who plans to enlist when he graduates from high school in May. “So if they’re gonna pay for college, that’s pretty much the main reason I’m going.”
One warm evening in early November, young uniformed members of the Ohio Guard roamed the back lawn at Zanesville High School, clipboards in hand, in search of recruits.
“If you get someone to join, you get two ranks. My friend went from Private to Private 1st Class,” said Army Pvt. Bo Shirer, 17, who joined the Guard last year. “Plus two pay raises as well.”
Shirer, a senior in high school, earns $160 a month from the Guard, money that he uses to fill up his gas tank.
G-RAP has boosted the number of recruits nationwide with high school diplomas to a historic high of 94 percent, said Col. Mike Jones, chief of recruiting and retention for the Army National Guard in Washington, D.C.
“It has been, quite frankly, probably the most fundamental change to the all-volunteer recruited force since 1975,” Jones said.
G-RAP payouts come in two phases: The first $1,000 is paid when the recruit signs up, but the second $1,000 is only awarded if that person later ships to basic training.
About 93 percent of Ohio’s recruits shipped to basic training in 2008, the highest percentage in the country.
“I think intuitively, one would say, if I could earn $1,000 a month by bringing someone in, that’s a much better deal than having to go work a part-time job or take a second shift at the plant,” Jones said. “Maybe the plants are cutting back and that second shift’s not an option.”
Army Sgt. Justin Morris, of Moses Lake, Wash., quit his job driving a medical transportation taxi when he earned $32,000 by recruiting 17 people in 2006. Morris, who has served in the military on and off since 1989, had decided to re-enlist in the Washington National Guard that year because he couldn’t afford medical insurance.
“Most people, when I talked to them, were really interested in money,” Morris said. “And they still are – you know, the economy is getting worse.”
Morris, 38, ordered some G-RAP T-shirts and business cards from Staples and began canvassing his community.
“I’d meet them out on the street, or I’d be at a Denny’s fast food restaurant,” Morris explained. “I’d say, how do you like working here? How would you like to check out what the Guard is doing on the weekend? Basically I was a walking billboard.”
The Guard later hired Morris as a full-time recruiter.
Recruiting Guard officers through G-RAP-O, an offshoot of the program, can fetch a prize of up to $8,500 for each recruit. Retired soldiers can also pick up some cash through G-RAP’s retiree program.
Reppart, who retired from the Guard in 2006 and recently re-enlisted, has participated in G-RAP as both a soldier and a retiree. A retired member of the Florida National Guard racked up a total of $130,000, the highest G-RAP payout in the country.
But Army Sgt. Steve Stormes, who heads up the Guard’s recruiting efforts in southeast Ohio, cautioned that the monetary incentives reflect the seriousness of the Guard’s mission. Many recruits could be shipped to bloody conflicts overseas, he pointed out.
“We don’t recruit you just to send you to college,” Stormes said.
Most Guard soldiers interviewed expressed little concern about deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Some, like Shirer, have always harbored a desire to join the military and pick up a weapon.
“Just think of the guy who’s been there since it began,” Shirer said. “He’s worn down. He’s tired. He wants to come back home. I’m willing to go over and replace him.”
