War takes toll on Guard retention, enlistments

In the face of repeat deployments and the havoc on family lives and jobs, some Guard members are not reenlisting and recruits are becoming harder to find.

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, September 29, 2004

BY TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writer

Air National Guard Master Sgt. William Laroque called home the other day from Kuwait and spoke to his mother in East Providence. The news was the weather -- 115 degrees -- and his growing fatigue.

"This is his third time over there, and I think he's had it now," Doris Laroque said yesterday. "He's supposed to be home again in another couple of weeks, then go back over in January, but he's going to try to get out of it."

By then, Laroque, who is 51, will have served 20 years in the Air Guard, his mother said, and he has no intention of reenlisting.

"He's had it," she said.

For National Guard recruiters locally and around the country, Laroque's story is an increasingly common one.

Facing repeat deployments and the havoc they wreak on family lives and jobs, some Guard members are opting not to reenlist and new members are becoming harder to find.

"It's a number-one concern," said Lt. Col. Richard J. Kaley, recruiting and retention commander for the Rhode Island National Guard.

The Providence Journal