Posted on Fri, Oct. 06, 2006

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S.C. National Guard passes recruiting goal

Leaders expect continued growth, new missions in coming year

By CHUCK CRUMBO

ccrumbo@thestate.com

The S.C. Army National Guard exceeded its 2006 recruiting goal by more than 100 soldiers and expects to grow even larger.

The Guard finished the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, with 9,111 soldiers, Lt. Col. Joseph Hancock, director of recruiting and retention, said Thursday. The Guard’s goal was 9,000.

Passing its goal means the S.C. National Guard will grow and acquire new missions, said Maj. Gen. Stan Spears, the state’s adjutant general.

“Those states at 100 percent strength are going to get additional people,” Spears said. “We are in the catbird seat.”

The Guard is being considered for a new mission that would create 150 jobs, Spears said. Spears declined to divulge details, but added, “We should know in the next couple of months.”

Earlier this year, the Pentagon identified South Carolina as one of 11 “green” states — states where the Guard expects to grow and acquire new missions. States where the Guard is at less than 80 percent of its authorized strength could lose missions and jobs, Spears said.

Nationally, the Army Guard missed its recruiting goal but had its best year since the war in Iraq started in March 2003.

Guard officials declined to release numbers. But the Guard achieved 99 percent of its goal of 70,000 recruits, the Washington Post reported. It finished with about 346,000 soldiers, up from 332,000.

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, director of the National Guard Bureau, predicted the Guard would reach 350,000 soldiers by the end of December, the Post said.

Hancock credited the S.C. Guard’s strong year to “a lot of recruiters working very hard.” Many of the Guard’s 100 recruiters got more involved in communities and high schools, cultivating contacts, he said.

Another focus of the recruiters, Hancock said, was “re-recruiting” those who previously have served in the military.

“We wanted to bring in a ratio of 75 percent non-prior service individuals (new recruits) to 25 percent prior-service soldiers, and we were very close to those figures,” Hancock said.

Within S.C. Guard units, efforts also were made to retain troops, Hancock said. “Our battalion career counselors did an outstanding job of helping us retain soldiers who might have otherwise left the Guard.”

Guard leaders said the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and numerous call-ups for federal homeland defense missions have not hurt recruiting.

About 70 percent of S.C. National Guard members have been mobilized since Sept. 11. About 3,000 are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Guard’s largest unit also is expected to deploy about 2,000 S.C. soldiers to Afghanistan next year.

Reach Crumbo at (803) 771-8503.