Courtesy Photo | Idaho Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Bethany Stanley shakes Pvt. Ryder Talley's hand...... read more read more
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Bethany Stanley grew up thinking she’d only ever have one or two jobs: wife and/or mother.
Today she’s both of those things, but she’s also a staff sergeant in the Idaho Army National Guard and an active member in her community. She was assigned as a recruiter in 2015, a demanding and high-paced job where success is only measured by the number of recruits she brings into the organization each year.
She volunteered for the assignment because she was looking to do something different after serving with the state’s medical detachment for seven years as its medical non-commissioned officer. She was hired into the position and the Idaho Army National Guard’s Active Guard/Reserve program in 2008.
“I wanted to be part of helping people decide what to do with their lives,” Stanley said. “Growing up, I didn’t have that.”
Stanley is one of 40 Idaho Army National Guard recruiters. Last year the battalion recruited 360 Soldiers, which contributed to the state’s first increased end strength since 2010. She starts most mornings at 4:30 a.m. and never stops thinking about work.
“If I’m on a bike at the gym, I’m reading a book on how to get better at my job,” she says. “Every time I see someone in our demographics someplace, I have to tell them about the Guard. It’s like I’m always working. Recruiting feels more like a lifestyle than a job sometimes.”
To help her balance a husband, two young kids and a fulltime job, Stanley relies on advice she got from a single mother she met while her husband, Jason, was attending law school for the past three years.
“I try to make every single moment, every single thing I do have a purpose,” she said.
5 a.m.: Off to MEPS
Expect on MEPS days, Stanley typically starts her morning off with a trip to the gym. Today, March 26, 2018, is a MEPS day.
MEPS is the Military Entrance Processing Station. It’s where recruiters from all services and components take recruits to complete the enlistment process. If an applicant is successful, the day will end with the recruit raising his or her right hand while repeating the oath of enlistment. If Stanley’s applicant is successful, the day ends with Stanley having helped enlist the newest member of the Idaho Army National Guard.
Stanley stops by her office in Meridian at 5 a.m. to grab a few things before going to pick up a recruit from his house. She stops at a Dutch Bros for a cup of coffee before leaving her office parking lot. She’ll have at least two more throughout the day.
“I like to make sure my guys get checked in,” she said. “Sometimes little tiny errors can get corrected on the spot.”
The doors to MEPS open at exactly 6 a.m. each morning to let in that day’s applicants. Recruiters and recruits know this, so they gather at the door prior to the security guard opening it. They also know that once the door closes after the initial rush, it won’t open again until the building opens to the public at 9 a.m. Appointments at MEPS must be made three days in advance, which explains why the parking lot is already full of cars 15 minutes before the doors open.
Stanley’s recruit is 18 and wants to be a chaplain assistant. His grandfather was a chaplain in the Navy and he wants to follow in his footsteps while also completing college. He plans to enroll at the University of Idaho in January, after he’s completed basic combat training and advanced individual training. Stanley has ensured he’ll be assigned to a unit in Lewiston so that he won’t have to drive to Boise throughout the school year.
“It would be a huge disservice to place him in a unit here in the Treasure Valley if he's going to college up north,” she said. “This is a conversation that I have with every applicant.”
During the drive, Stanley goes over the educational benefits he will be eligible to receive as a Soldier in the Idaho Army National Guard and what to expect at MEPS. Once at MEPS, it takes less than 15 minutes for him to get checked in. Before leaving, Stanley tells him she’ll be back around noon to watch him enlist.
However, it’s the last time she’ll see him that day.
6:30 a.m.: “I can’t just stay in my office and expect to get leads.”
Stanley is back in her office by 6:30 a.m. to work on a family care plan for a different recruit. The Army requires Soldier with large families to have a family care plan prior to enlisting, deploying or leaving for training.
The Idaho Army National Guard has storefronts at the Boise Towne Square Mall and the Majestic Market Place West shopping complex, located across the street from Mountain View High School, the largest high school in the state. The Navy office is located a few doors down and the active duty Army recently moved down the street.
Stanley is one of four recruiters assigned to the Meridian location. Each recruiter is assigned specific high schools in the area and the office shares local walk-in applicants. Interested community members that are no longer in high school are assigned to recruiters based on their home of record zip code, which means if Stanley meets a potential recruit at a store in Meridian who lives in Boise, she passes on that person’s information to the recruiter assigned to that area.
“It’s in the applicant’s best interest to work with a recruiter closest to their home of record,” Stanley said.
Stanley recruits at Rocky Mountain High School, Meridian High School, The Ambrose School, Cole Valley Christian High School and Meridian Medical Arts Charter High School.
She estimates that she has to talk to 100 people to enlist one. To help her do so, she stays active in the Meridian community. In addition to visiting schools regularly, she attends Meridian Chamber of Commerce and community events, shops at local stores and maintains an active social media presence.
“I can’t just stay in my office and expect to get leads,” she said. “I need to get out and interact with as many people as I can.”
She keeps a log of everything she does, knowing it will take about four months to see the results of the effort she puts in today. She reviews it periodically to see what works and doesn’t, an idea she got out of a book. She hates reading but does it to get better at her job. Most of her reading comes from the time she spends on a treadmill or exercise bike, in an effort to make every minute of every day count.
8:30 a.m.: Gowen Field pre-drill meeting
Stanley leaves her office in time to travel to Gowen Field for her Bravo Company, Recruiting and Retention Battalion’s pre-drill meeting at 9 a.m. The Treasure Valley’s eight recruiters attend the meeting to discuss a recent change in the MEPS process and the upcoming drill weekend.
There are five recruiting companies throughout the state. In addition to the one in the Boise area, the battalion also has companies in West Treasure Valley, the Magic Valley and Eastern and Northern Idaho. Each company holds a Recruit Sustainment Program drill one weekend a month.
The program’s stated purpose is to prepare recruits for basic combat training. New recruits learn individual Soldier skills such as how to march and say the Army’s phonetic alphabet and get to practice road marching, land navigation and other Army skills before shipping out to basic training. Nationally, the program helps keep National Guard basic training graduation rates higher than other components.
Master Sgt. Justin Cole, the company’s non-commissioned officer in charge, leads the meeting and it quickly becomes clear that there’s a second purpose to the program: not only does Cole want to prepare new Soldiers for basic combat training, he wants them to have a good time at drill and to enjoy their introduction into the Idaho Army National Guard.
The company will be conducting Army combat water survival training at its next drill. Cole tells his recruiters he wants to rotate them through the annual drill schedule so that they can each get a few extra weekends a year with their families. He lists the names of a few Soldiers and tells the group that they won’t be there that weekend because it’s their wedding anniversaries.
Stanley announces her anniversary is also that weekend. Cole tells her to stay home as well.
Stanley has been married to Jason since 2007. The two met in November 2005 on the air of a local radio show. Jason, who had recently returned home from Iraq with the Marines, donated a Marine plaque to the radio station’s on-air charity auction. The radio host teased him for being single and encouraged listeners to email the station if they were interested in going on a date with him.
Stanley, who had also recently returned home from Iraq with the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, called into the station. The two exchanged phone numbers, had dinner the next night and got married two years later. Stanley said she’s lucky her husband understands the military and the demands of her job and that she takes effort to balance her career and her family.
“Recruiting can destroy your family if you let it,” she said. “If things are going well, it’s easy to think, “I love my job and want to do it all the time. But doing it all the time can have a negative impact on family life. It all comes down to priorities and balance.”
It’s a balance Stanley constantly strives to find. Some nights she gets home after her kids’ bedtime because a potential recruit might not be able to meet with her during regular business hours. She no longer keeps her work phone next to her at home. But it’s always on her kitchen counter when she’s home, though she now only responds to calls from her boss and new recruits.
Since she sets her own schedule, she’s able to drop off and pick her daughters up from daycare every day. But her kids are able to tell the difference between her work phone and personal phone and know to let her finish her phone conversation when she’s working.
10:30 a.m.: Change of plans
After the meeting ends, Stanley plans to return to MEPS in time to watch her new recruit enlist. However, she receives a call as she’s walking to her car. Her recruit disclosed a previous injury to the doctor that wasn’t included in his initial paperwork. His parents came to watch him swear in and will instead drive him home. He will not end the day as the Idaho Army National Guard’s newest Solider.
By the time she reaches her car, she’s already rearranged what’s left of her morning, making sure every minute of her day has purpose.
On the way back to her office she makes a stop at a local jewelry store. The mother of a Soldier she recruited last year works there. Stanley enlisted her daughter into the Idaho Army National Guard and now her son is considering joining the Navy and she wants to ask Stanley a few questions about the recruiting process.
Stanley sees the Navy as her biggest competitor in her area. Statistically, it’s been the U.S. Army for the past year. Before that, the Navy was the state’s top branch, which offers a lot of technical jobs, something that Stanley said interests most of the students who attend technical charter schools. The Navy also has a strong national marketing campaign. The Idaho Army National Guard has to take a more local approach to building its brand.
Without a national marketing campaign, Stanley relies on social media, her personal and Guard networks and her own story to sell the organization to potential recruits.
“I can’t lie to them,” she said. “I live here. I run into their mothers at the grocery store.”
She maintains an active presence on social media with more than 1,500 friends on her Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat accounts, all people she’s met as a recruiter. Almost every day she posts videos or photos of National Guard units training. She also highlights the accomplishments of her recruits as they advance through their careers and posts videos of her talking directly to potential recruits, from everything to upcoming training events to her new haircut.
“I try to show I’m not all Army, all the time,” Stanley said. “I try to show them I’m just a normal person.”
Inside schools, she tells both students and faculty members how the Idaho Army National Guard has helped her and she arranges for her fellow Soldiers to visit the school as guest speakers when teachers are looking for particular subject-matter experts.
12:30 p.m.: ASVAB interpretation
At 12:30 p.m., Stanley drives over to Meridian Technical Charter High School with Staff Sgt. Spencer Showalter, who also works at the Meridian store front. Students at the school took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test last week and are receiving their scores today.
Though the lady from the test company recognizes her instantly as a recruiter, Stanley is quick to point out she’s not at the school to recruit. The students who took the test are in 10th grade and will need to retake it in 11th grade or later for the test scores to be valid for enlistment into any military branch. Stanley often goes over scores with potential Soldiers and she’s visiting the school today to see how someone else facilitates the ASVAB interpretation to see if she can learn any tips on how she can do it better herself in the future.
The lady going over the test with the students tells them that the test was given more than 700,000 times last year. The ASVAB is a multiple-aptitude battery that measures developed abilities and helps predict future academic and occupational success in the military. All recruits are required to take it and the score can affect which military occupational specialties future service members are eligible for. When she’s completed her review, she asks how many students might be interested in joining the military.
Only two hands shoot up out of about 25. Another student slowly raises his hand while another puts his up about halfway, not sure if he should fully commit to raising it all the way.
In October, Sgt. Maj. Anthony C. Bowers, operations sergeant major for U.S. Army Recruiting Command, spoke at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition. In his remarks at that event, he said that within the Army’s acceptable age range of the U.S. population of 33.4 million, only 5.7 million are qualified and available to serve in the military. Only 136,000 of those say they have a propensity to serve in the Army. Almost half of people between the ages of 17 and 35 aren’t even able to name all four services of the Department of Defense.
While Meridian Technical Charter High School has a small number of students compared to larger high schools in the area, Stanley knows that the majority of the students there are interested in technology and that active duty recruiters trend to stick to the large schools. Active duty recruiters also tend to stick to the state’s largest cities, but because the Idaho Army National Guard is located in nearly two dozen communities in the state, Guard recruiters are able to go to schools and cities that their counterparts do not.
2:30 p.m.: Always to go
On the way back to her office from the school, Stanley makes a stop at a local fast food place to grab lunch. The worker behind the counter asks her if her order is to stay or to go.
“To go,” she said. “Always to go.”
She talks briefly with local law enforcement officers holding a community fundraiser in the store’s lobby as she waits for her order. She isn’t making a random lunch stop, she’s making her lunch break count by interacting with members of her community at every opportunity she can.
When Stanley and Showalter arrive back to their office, they are greeted by a set of parents who have questions about the Idaho Army National Guard. Their son attends high school at one of the schools Spencer is assigned to, so he answers their questions.
Their son is 17 and wants to be a pilot. Spencer explains the Idaho Army National Guard has aviators and is equally honest about the organization’s education benefits as he is about the unit’s probability of getting deployed in the future.
As Showalter talks to the student’s parents, Stanley gets a call from her potential recruit. She goes over what medical documents he will need to collect in order to return to MEPS. He spends the afternoon collecting them and will return to MEPS the next week to enlist into the Idaho Army National Guard. He is Stanley’s sixth new Soldier of the year.
A potential recruit shows up for an office appointment at 3 p.m. This is the third meeting between the two and the recruit has provided Stanley with all of the required paperwork for her to enlist. She wants to be a 92F petroleum supply specialist, which currently includes a $20,000 enlistment bonus, but will need a waiver from the state’s commanding general due to a minor law violation several years earlier.
Stanley said that the process for each recruit is different. Some recruits require only a couple of appointments to have everything ready to go to MEPS while some might need a few months to gather all of the required information, get any necessary waivers or make their minds up.
After the recruit leaves, Stanley finishes up some paperwork for another recruit before calling it a day at 5 p.m. She needs to pick her daughters up from day care and make a stop at Walmart on the way home to keep her promise to her daughter that she’d make her a horse cake for her birthday over the weekend.
“I love my job,” she said. “Every day is different. I’m in my third year and I feel like I’m just finding out how to do be successful.”
| Date Taken: | 07.06.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 07.06.2018 18:19 |
| Story ID: | 283492 |
| Location: | BOISE, IDAHO, US |
| Hometown: | BOISE, IDAHO, US |
| Web Views: | 935 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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