New camp gives Guard recruits a head start on basic training

MARSEILLES, Ill. -- The drill sergeant's stomach-twisting growl echoed through concrete barracks lined with baby-faced recruits on a weekend pass from high school.

"I want you to move like someone's shooting at you -- because someday they might," Sgt. James Locke barked, sending dozens of first-day soldiers scrambling past long, neat rows of cots and footlockers.

The one-weekend-a-month, pre-boot camp was launched this spring by the Illinois Army National Guard, which is banking that an early taste of the military will help new recruits survive basic training and trim a washout rate that reached about 30 percent last year.

"It's designed to remove that fear of the unknown. When they get to basic training, they'll understand what their role is and not only pass, but become honor graduates," said Maj. Steven Rouse, an Army National Guard recruiter.

Nearly 300 newly enlisted privates -- many of them high school juniors and seniors committing to a six-year enlistment in exchange for a paid college education -- got their first marching, weapons and physical training April 3 and 4 at the Army National Guard complex in Marseilles.

"I was extremely nervous. I have to go to the bathroom right now, but I'm afraid to ask," Andrew Bittenbender, a 17-year-old junior, said during a hurried lunch on the camp's first day.

Keith Arvik, a 17-year-old junior, said he liked his first day as a private, but wondered how many push-ups he'd have to do if he messed up. Others offered advice for avoiding the drill sergeants' wrath -- just look straight ahead and shut up.

Not everyone appreciated the orientation.

"I just think the drill sergeants should cool it down. We're not in boot camp yet," said Cindy Aguiler, 17.

In fact, during the two-day camp, the instructors were offering a slightly less-intense version of the discipline recruits will face for nine weeks when they're at an out-of-state Army base for basic training this summer.

Rouse said the experience is aimed at teaching recruits that drill sergeants are trying to build discipline and teamwork, not dish out abuse.

"The biggest thing this will overcome is the mental aspect of it because that far outweighs the physical," said Rouse, a 19-year military veteran.

Of 1,580 guardsmen recruited in Illinois last year, 465 dropped out. The program should help scale back those losses, said Lt. Col. Chris Lawson, commander of recruiting for the Illinois Army National Guard.

The Army National Guard began urging states to implement the program last summer after similar boot camps improved retention rates in Delaware, New Jersey and Nevada, Lawson said. Illinois was among the first states to sign on, but every state now offers some variation of the program, he said.

Nationwide, the Army National Guard hopes the camps will ultimately help slice a 2002 washout rate of 27 percent to just 12 percent, which would add more than 4,000 new soldiers a year to the nation's defense effort.

In Illinois, which averages about 2,000 new recruits annually, recruiting is up by about 100 soldiers so far this year, surprising because of the broad media coverage of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rouse said.

The comments by Rouse and the recruits came before the most recent spate of combat deaths among U.S. troops in Iraq, and the government's announcement of tour extensions.

Four-year college scholarships are a hook for many recruits, but some have a more patriotic mission.

"I joined to protect my family, protect my friends, protect my country," Bittenbender said.