There are a handful of over-strength military occupational specialties in the Army right now, so Human Resources Command is asking some soldiers to either reclassify themselves, or have it done for them.
Some soldiers in the engineering, aviation, medical and other fields who are looking to reenlist might be forced to reclassify starting May 30, according to Milper message 19-154.
“Ideally, the Army wants soldiers in the overage MOSs to reclassify into the shortage MOSs,” the message said.
The following jobs are affected:
- Junior enlisted plumbers.
- Junior enlisted interior electricians.
- Junior enlisted technical engineers.
- Junior enlisted carpentry and masonry specialists.
- Junior enlisted aircraft pneudraulics repairers.
- Junior enlisted orthopedic specialists.
- Junior enlisted petroleum laboratory specialists.
- Junior enlisted watercraft engineers.
- Human intelligence collectors with Hebrew, Serbo-Croatian or Thai specialties.
- Cryptologic linguists with Modern Standard Arabic, Arabic-Sudanese, Hebrew, Serbo-Croatian or Thai specialties.
“Soldiers not in their reenlistment window, as defined by Army G-1 Retention, are highly encouraged to submit voluntary reclassification requests through their commander via the RETAIN system,” the message said.
RELATED
Soldiers recommended by their commanders for reenlistment in these MOSs will have to submit a second request to HRC, processed by their career counselor, which will decide whether to approve it, approve it with a reclassification, extend the current enlistment or deny continued service altogether.
The message also includes a list of shortage MOSs that guarantees specialists a promotion to sergeant after graduating training, as well as retention bonuses.
For more on those, a new selective retention bonus update also goes live on May 30.
There are big bucks on the table for a wide variety of jobs, including junior enlisted fire control specialists (between $9,000 and $29,800), unmanned aircraft systems operators ($11,300 to $37,300) and cyber operations specialists ($14,100 to $46,600).
A complete list is published in Milper 19-155.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
