By Jennifer Warren
“My mother said I wouldn't make three years,” Thomas said from his Richmond Hill office, “because I didn't know how to follow orders.”
He appears to have learned.
Thomas' office is the U.S. Army Recruitment Center at 103-47 Lefferts Blvd. in Richmond Hill, and last week he and his fellow soldiers celebrated the center's grand opening.
The new center could be considered either a sign of optimism or necessity since the number of Army recruits nationally has dropped steadily in recent years. And Queens' recruitment record is no different.
The numbers have declined rapidly since 1997, when the annual number of Queens active Army recruits was 632, to 548 in 1998, to 530 in 1999, and then further to 445 in year 2000's most recent count. In fact, between 1997 and 2000, there was an overall 29.6 percent drop in Queens-based recruitment.
The drop is largely the result of the 1990s economic boom, according to Capt. Joe Varney, commander of the Queens recruiting company.
“In a prosperous economy, as the job market expands, the population of eligible workers decreases,” he said. “You have fierce competition for that population, and the military can't compete with the big boys.”
A new recruit in his first four months as a private can expect to earn $930 per month. “That's all pocket money,” said Thomas, noting that virtually every conceivable living expense, from dental insurance to day care, is covered by the government.
But $930 a month is still $930 a month.
As one recruiter who preferred that his name not be used said “who would want to be shipped out to Germany for three months and sleep in the rain when you could be at IBM from 9-to-5 in a cushy office?”
Even so, the Army is pushing ahead.
With an array of programs ranging from scholarships to college loan reimbursements of up to $65,000, to hiring preferences with corporations like Coca-Cola and General Dynamics, they are offering opportunities that some young people are finding difficult to resist.
Many who enlist do so for educational benefits, Thomas said. Whether the education is gathered at a college campus or skills training at an Army base , young people feel they are being prepared for a professional future, he said.
Nor are the jobs limited to infantry combat. Flipping through a skills training brochure, the list of options extends far beyond what one often considers a typical military assignment: animal care, firefighter, legal specialist, engineer, medical specialist, and oboe player.
“Every job that's out there is in here,” Thomas said. And perhaps there are even more since it is unlikely a “Bradley fighting vehicle system turret mechanic” has yet to make it onto the civilian scene.
When Sgt. Thomas enlisted, he opted for infantry. He motioned to a young man sitting at another desk in the recruiting center wearing a camouflage uniform.
“He came in and said I want to do infantry.” And according to Thomas, about 20 percent to 30 percent of his recruits come in for that reason. But he warned there are influences that will dissuade potential soldiers from enlisting.
“There are a lot of people who want to do that, but they're afraid,” he said. “There are a lot of outside influences that will sway a young mind. A lot of kids are discouraged by their parents who grew up during Vietnam.”
For Thomas, 31, now a tall trim man with black, spit-shine shoes and a perfectly straightened gold tie clip, there was a nagging feeling at the time that the Army was something he wanted to try. Having been approached by a recruiter at his Brooklyn high school, he initially turned the man down.
“I must have done well on the test because he kept calling me,” Thomas said. When he enlisted, Thomas was an auto mechanic working in a garage. Arriving home one day, he heard the well-known commercial on the television, the beckoning voices singing in unison, “Be all that you can be.”
The following day he dropped into the recruiting center at Utica and Lincoln Avenue. That was 11 years ago.
Thomas misses some aspects of his infantry missions – the trips to Australia, Panama, Haiti, and those night missions flying in helicopters.
“Getting airlifted from one place to another, just the sight. You up there, everything down below, you hear the rotor turning,”
As he described his adventures, Thomas' stern demeanor melted into an irrepressible smile. With a quick succession of breaths, chopped on his lower lip, he imitated the sound of a helicopter's blade, “fa fa fa,” and was transported back into the night sky.
But now it's others' turn.
Asked if he was optimistic about the future of recruitment, he did not hesitate. “Yes,” Thomas answered. “The Army keeps moving forward.”
