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Planning helps depots curb crowd of recruits

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Recruit depot officials face a heavier-than-usual summer season, but not that much heavier.

The push to meet to the Corps’ end-strength goal of 202,000 Marines by the end of fiscal 2011 has translated into more men and women stepping onto the yellow footprints this year.

But careful planning is keeping the depots from bursting at the seams, as the peak season begins. In a typical February, about 1,900 recruits are sent to boot camp, compared with about 4,900 in August.

Instead of clumping recruits drawn from the end-strength increase into the summer season — June through September — the Corps has focused on spreading them throughout the year.

“That’s actually part of our planning,” said Gunnery Sgt. Pauline Franklin, Marine Corps Recruiting Command spokeswoman. “We want to plan almost a year out.”

That means different numbers for the depots at San Diego and Parris Island, S.C., which trains all female recruits in addition to male recruits coming from east of the Mississippi River.

Last summer, 9,249 recruits were shipped to San Diego.

“As of June 9, 2008, we are on schedule to ship 725 more male recruits this summer compared to last summer,” depot spokeswoman Janice Hagar said in an e-mail.

Parris Island is projecting an increase of 164 recruits this summer, a slight climb from 9,525 last year to 9,689 this summer.

That’s because the depot began taking in more recruits earlier this fiscal year, depot spokesman 1st Lt. Josiah Nicely said.

Unlike past years, he said by e-mail, the decision was made to “bear the brunt of this early so as to not overload the capacity of the base at the time when the base is already carrying close to maximum capacity.”

During the depot’s first trimester in fiscal 2007 — October through January — 5,092 recruits were shipped to Parris Island. By comparison, 5,894 recruits entered boot camp there during the same time frame in fiscal 2008, an 802-recruit increase.

Between February and May, the second trimester, 4,941 recruits were sent to Parris Island in fiscal 2008, an increase of 684 recruits over the 4,257 shipped in the same trimester of fiscal 2007.

To handle the additional recruits, the depot’s battalions have increased their platoon sizes.

In April, a recruit training company was reactivated to help achieve the Corps’ end-strength goal. Quebec Company, the first to be reactivated at Parris Island in four decades, began taking recruits April 12.

The company was a welcome addition to the depot because its existence ends the back-to-back training cycles for the other companies there during the peak season.

The extra recruits are a testament to the good job recruiters have been doing, Franklin said.

“We’re pretty pleased with the way things are going,” she said. “They’re doing a phenomenal job.”

This fiscal year’s recruiting mission is 42,202. As of May, 22,791 men and women have been recruited, Franklin said.

In fiscal 2007, 40,890 men and women were signed up, surpassing that year’s goal of 40,863.

If the Corps continues to bring people in and retention rates stay consistent, the service could reach its end-strength goal by the end of fiscal 2009, officials said in May.

But the annual targets remain the same: 194,000 Marines by the end of fiscal 2009, 199,000 by the end of fiscal 2010 and 202,000 by the end of fiscal 2011. The total expansion is a 13 percent increase from the previous end strength of 179,000 Marines.

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