GIs in Iraq Scoff at Re-Enlistment Bonus

Looks like Bush's little bribe isn't going over as well as he'd hoped:

At a checkpoint on the barren plain east of Baqouba, word
of a new U.S. Army plan to pay soldiers up to $10,000 to re-enlist
evoked laughter from a few bored-looking troopers. "Man, they can't pay
me enough to stay here," said a 23-year-old specialist from the Army's
4th Infantry Division as he manned the checkpoint with Iraqi police
outside this city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
...
Staff Sgt. Julian Guerrero, 38, who runs a re-enlistment program for a
battalion in the 4th ID based in Tikrit, said only 10 of the
battalion's 80 eligible soldiers have taken the deal so far. At Pope
Air Force Base in North Carolina, a few soldiers from the 82nd Airborne
Division preparing to ship out to Iraq seemed evenly split over whether
the Army was offering enough money. "For three years, that's kind of
cheap," said Spc. Derek Gay, 24, of Tampa, Fla. "Some people would
re-enlist anyway, but there's more incentive for a good chunk of
money."
...
At the checkpoint outside Baqouba, the 23-year-old specialist, who
refused to give his name saying he feared retribution from military
higher-ups, stubbed out a cigarette on the side of a Humvee. As he
began to speak, he was interrupted by the blast of a Kalashnikov rifle
a few yards up the road. An Iraqi policeman fired the rounds in a mound
of dirt for no apparent reason. "You see what I have to put up with?"
asked the soldier. With two months left in a 12-month tour, "there's
not enough money in the world to make me stay a month longer."

Posted by flow Frazao on January 7, 2004 at 04:43 PM | Permalink