20051129

CURIOUS ABOUT WHO IS STAYING IN?

Dear Soldiers,

I've been curious as to how many people have re-enlisted or are planning to re-enlist when they are eligible after serving over here and would I do the same?

AubreyJ

GIGOTTI78-
Although I do not know actual figures for the entire theatre, I do know how our own unit and brigade is fairing and honestly I am surprised. The amount of people that were eligible to re-enlist while on this 18 month deployment was quite a lot. For my unit, about 25% of the soldiers are eligible at some point during this deployment. We are roughly averaging about 4 re-enlistments a month which is still more than I thought we would do. The military takes this part of the business real serious. This is where money talks, bullshit walks. Active Duty has all kinds of enticing bonuses giving lots of money to stay where you are. National Guard is not that lucky, although we do have bonuses. I think one major factor is that if you re-enlist in a combat zone (like Iraq/Afghanistan), your bonus is tax free. So if you sign for "X" amount of years you get the whole bonus whether it be $1,000 or $10,000 dollars. Now, as for myself, when my contract is up (I still have about 3 1/2 years) I will be at about 12 years in the service. More than likely I am going to stay in and get my 20 years and my retirement. No sense in throwing that away. I'm sure Mr. Matt is gonna see things a helluva lot different.

Mr. Matt- Well it seams to be up and down as far as the re-enlistments go in my eyes. There used to be a lot of extentions and re-enlistments before we got deployed to fight the war. Since I was deployed to Bosnia I've noticed that there is a downward spiral type of trend with the re-enlistments even now while were here in Iraq I also see that there is a lot of soldiers that will not be re-enlisting regardless of their time in service. My third enlistment is almost complete which will be in 2008. As of right now I'm unsure weather or not I'm going to be staying in. I'll be close to 10 years of service for our country. Personally as of right now I will not re-enlist to stay in the current unit I'm in due to lack of upward mobility and honestly, I've had enough of most of these idiots.

4 comments:

DC said...

I think we (the Brits) are on a different contract to you guys. The percentage of our guys leaving has pretty much stayed the same. I do know however that there are a couple of guys who have lost legs who are going back to work in the near future - now that demands respect.

AubreyJ......... said...

Thanks for the honest and straight forward answers from both of you. You will both always have my respect for what you do now... for what you have done in the past and whatever you decide is right for you in the future...
Stay safe as always......
AubreyJ.........

eLarson said...

Personally as of right now I will not re-enlist to stay in the current unit I'm in due to lack of upward mobility and honestly, I've had enough of most of these idiots.

Same with my old job. *heh*

DC said...

Mr Matt - yup they are going back to their battalion and plan full careers in the (British) army.