Attrition: Re-signing Bonuses

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July 31, 2007: The U.S. Army is, so far, on target to reach its recruiting and retention goals for the current fiscal year (which ends on September 30th). While new recruits are important, and get most of the media attention, even more important is retention. This is getting people already in to sign up for another few years. These are experienced troops of proven ability. To help get those who are also in crucial job specialties to stick around, bonuses of over $100,000 are offered to some highly experienced Special Forces operators. But the more usual max bonus is $35,000. These are being offered to people in categories like; Air Defense, Armor, Aviation maintenance, Engineers, Field Artillery, Infantry, Mechanical maintenance, Medical, Military intelligence, Military police, Quartermaster (logistics), and Signal (communications). But the highest bonuses are being offered to those in the infantry, psychological operations, civil affairs, recruiting, explosive ordnance disposal, intelligence analysis, imagery analysis, satellite communications ground station operator, human intelligence collector and cryptologic communications interceptor (finds and records encoded enemy messages).