Almost any way you look at it, 2006 should have been a terrible Army National Guard recruiting year. Month after month, casualties mounted, and the war in Iraq grew increasingly unpopular-even among some original war supporters.

Across the United States, unemployment dropped to 4.4 percent-well below the 5 percent mark economists consider full employment.

The economy hummed; the stock market climbed. Overall, there seemed to be few reasons for young people to join the Guard.

Yet Lt. Col. Mike Jones is ebullient when he reviews the year's statistics.

"We had an incredible '06," says the deputy chief of the Army Guard's Strength Maintenance Division.

The Army Guard recruited 69,042 new soldiers in 2006, just 1 percent short of its ambitious 70,000 goal, which was set high to make up for three consecutive poor recruiting years. The Air Guard recruited 9,138 airmen-97 percent of its 9,380 goal.

It was the best recruiting performance since 2002, when, in the wake of 9/11, enlistments exceeded recruiting goals.

From Pennsylvania to Ohio to Wyoming, state after state reported banner recruiting for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

Alabama reversed 13 years of decline and ended the year with a net gain in Guard troops. West Virginia beat its recruiting goal by 16 percent. South Dakota surpassed its goal and posted its best recruiting results in a decade.

And the momentum continued into fiscal 2007, Colonel Jones says. October was probably the best October on record."

It's a timely turnaround.

Last year, when the Army Guard's strength had dipped to 333,000well short of its authorized 350,000 end strength-the Army lobbied for a permanent cut of 17,000 Guard troops. Money for the Guard would go instead to the active-component Army.

Under pressure from Congress, the Army agreed to fund every soldier recruited but publicly doubted the Guard could improve its troop strength.

Defying the skeptics, the Army Guard rebounded. Thanks to the recruiting success and a high retention rate, personnel strength was up to 346,288 in September. And after a normal October downtick, the Army Guard is on track to reach full manning early in calendar year 2007.

Colonel Jones attributes the recruiting success to five factors: More recruiters; bigger recruiting bonuses; financial rewards for Guardsmen who bring in recruits; new marketing; and closer oversight by Lt. Gen. Clyde A. Vaughn, Army Guard director.

"We added 2,400 recruiters over the past 18 months," Colonel Jones says, boosting the recruiting force to more than 5,000 nationwide. That investment started paying off in 2006.

But the extra recruiters were just part of the solution. A major recruiting bonus increase helped dramatically. The Guard doubled the signup bonus for most recruits without prior military service from $10,000 to $20,000.

"That really helped attract a crowd," Colonel Jones says.

For those with prior service, the Guard offered up to $15,000.

But the most successful bonus may be the one that goes not to incoming recruits, but to Guardsmen who bring them in.

The Guard Recruiting Assistance Program (G-RAP) (box, page 27) trains Guardsmen to serve as recruiting assistants and then pays them $2,000 for each enlistee.

The program netted the Guard about 15,000 new troops in 2006, Colonel Jones says.

But he's convinced it can bring in even more. "We could do 20,000 in 2007," he says.

The Guard "refocused our advertising message" in 2006, switching from radio and television ads to more novel approaches, he says.

Recruiters attended more public events. Short movies about Guard service played in movie theaters nationwide. The Guard offered free music downloads to anyone willing to listen to a recruiting pitch.

"We get out more and do more marketing," Colonel Jones says. "We tell the story of the Guard in the community. That has been a real lift."

In addition to targeting potential troops, Guard recruiters now pay more attention to those who influence potential recruits.

In New Jersey, the Army Guard recruiters choppered in by Black Hawk helicopters to a number of high schools, then flew teachers and counselors to Guard training bases.

"It helped debunk a lot of the myths some of the educators had about the National Guard," Colonel Jones says.

Recruiters now pay special attention to those with the most influence over potential recruits-their parents.

"We stress more parental involvement now than before," Colonel Jones says. "We want to meet with parents and reassure them."

In the midst of a war, "parents are fearful," he adds. "They don't want their kids to go to war. We have to do outreach to make sure we have answered their questions. We show them the type of equipment we have. We dispel the idea that we have to hold bake sales to buy armor. We let parents be fully involved in the decision."

That policy paid off in an unexpected way for Sgt. Chris Lownes, a Pennsylvania Guard recruiter.

While recruiting Cory Trojan, an 18-year-old Williamsport, Pa., high school student, Sergeant Lownes went to the Trojan home to meet with Cory's father, Bryan, and explain the benefits Cory would receive in the Army Guard.

After describing the signing bonus, college tuition plans, health care coverage, retirement pay and other Guard benefits, Bryan joked that he wished he could sign up, lamenting that he was too old.

"I asked him his age," Sergeant Lownes recalls. "He said 39, and I said, 'You're good to go.'" The maximum recruiting age increased to 40 in 2005 and 42 in 2006.

It turns out Bryan, a freight driver, wasn't joking after all. He and Cory both enlisted and went together to Fort Knox, Ky, for training. They're in the same company, but not the same platoon, Sergeant Lownes says.

"I had never recruited somebody that old before," he says.

If it seems unusual to have a father and son going through basic training together, and to have a 39-year-old learning to drive an M-I tank along with the 18- and 19-year-olds, the Guard has no regrets.

Because of his age and experience in life, Bryan Trojan became "a mentor to the kids" in his platoon, since many were away from home for the first time, Sergeant Lownes says.

Bryan Trojan isn't unique. The Pennsylvania Guard enlisted 30 recruits in the 36 to 42 age bracket, says Sgt. 1st Class Herv Breault, a recruiter based at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.

The Pennsylvania Guard is in no danger of becoming a long gray line, though. The over-35 group makes up less than 1 percent of the 3,108 recruits who entered the Pennsylvania Guard in 2006.

Guard officials wrestled with the pros and cons before deciding to accept older recruits.

"The military is very much a physical game," Colonel Jones says. That argues for younger troops. "But it's not as physical now as it was during Korea or World War II or the First World War. Machinery automates an enormous amount of what a soldier does."

On the other hand, "the maturity of a 42-year-old or a 38-year-old is a major asset when fighting a cunning enemy," Colonel Jones says. "If everyone was 19 years old, we would not have a balance in maturity. Life experiences," he says, are proving a valuable asset.

Higher age limits and bigger bonuses help, but recruiters agree that the G-RAP program was probably the biggest factor in turning Guard recruiting around.

"It's the biggest thing that has happened to recruiting in my 20 years in the Guard," says Lt. Col. Anthony Cottles, commander of Alabama's 22nd Recruiting and Retention Battalion.

The program eliminates a lot of new recruit guesswork.

"These are not cold calls or people you think you can sell on the program; these are current members bringing in their buddies," Colonel Cottles says.

And at $2,000 a head, Guardsmen are eager to do so.

At year's end, nearly 100,000 Guardsmen were "recruiting assistants."

The Guard borrowed the tactic from corporate America. Private companies have long understood that current employees make the best recruiters. They're tapped into the most productive potential employee networks.

In the same way, Guardsmen know who among their acquaintances is inclined to sign up and would make a good recruit.

G-RAP is great, agrees Sergeant Breault from Pennsylvania, but it's just another tool.

"There's no single silver bullet," he says. "People are saying they want to be part of something like this. Obviously, everyone comes in for their own reasons-it might be tuition or the $20,000 bonus."

But for a lot of recruits, patriotism remains a strong incentive.

The "service to country" concept resonates with many in the current generation of young people, Sergeant Breault says. "We have something this generation wants."

Staff Sgt. Charles Elder, a Guard recruiter in Burlington, Vt., agrees.

"Bonuses help," but for many recruits "it's still a matter of service to country. People remember what happened on 9/11," he says.

Unfortunately, for Vermont and many of its New England neighbors, recruiting didn't turn around in 2006.

"Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine all experienced a bit of a downturn last year," Colonel Jones says.

The Vermont Guard ended the year nearly 400 troops short of its recruiting goal.

"Obviously, with the war, times are tough," Sergeant , Elder says.

Some Guard officials in New England say recruiting was difficult last year because their units were deployed. Others say a strong New England economy created enough new jobs and additional overtime work to make a part-time job with the Guard less attractive.

Plentiful jobs didn't hinder recruiting in Alabama, where the economy and Guard recruiting are both booming.

In recent years the state has worked hard to attract new industry. From aircraft assembly plants to new auto factories, Alabama is thriving.

"Unemployment is as low as it's ever been," says recruiting chief Colonel Cottles. "All the indicators were that we should not have a good year last year-but we did."

The Alabama Guard signed up 2,161 new soldiers in 2006, up from 1,603 in 2005.

Colonel Cottles also credits patriotism and a desire to serve the nation. It helped that domestic emergencies highlighted the Guard's role repeatedly in 2005 and 2006.

Hurricane Katrina "was obviously good publicity," Colonel Cottles says.

In all, 50,000 Guard troops deployed to hurricane-stricken Louisiana and Mississippi, and the nation watched on television as Guard troops "rescued their fellow Americans," Colonel Jones says.

Images of Guard helicopters hoisting hurricane victims from rooftops and Guard trucks plowing through floodwaters to bring food, water and armed troops to restore order were etched into the national consciousness.

"A lot of people said, That's what I really want to do,'" Colonel Cottles adds.

Deploying 6,000 Guard troops along the Southwestern border to help the Border Patrol stop illegal immigration and smuggling also bolstered Guard recruiting, Colonel Jones says.

While recruiting lagged in much of New England in 2006, Massachusetts was an exception to the gloomy regional trend.

"Massachusetts had a 10-year high last year," Colonel Jones says. He attributes success to a new adjutant general who "applied a lot of resources to make sure he got it fixed."

That same formula helps account for the overall success of Guard recruiting in 2006, he says.

"Lieutenant General Vaughn began having video teleconferences with each state once a month" to focus specifically on recruiting, Colonel Jones says. "Every state commander briefs the three-star on every metric of recruiting."

As in any business, "employees do what the boss checks," he says. "And the organization responds to the challenge."

© 2006 National Guard Association of the United States Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.