Word: sergeanting
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Marine Staff Sergeant Michael Robinson, 26, works as a career planner at El Toro Marine Base near Santa Ana, Calif., charged with persuading first-term Marines to reenlist. Now, ironically, Robinson himself is leaving the service after eight years, passing up a $10,000 re-enlistment bonus, to manage apartment houses. Says Robinson: "I like the corps but I can't get by with the low pay and the diminishing benefits...
...surprisingly, Robinson has found it harder and harder to persuade others to reenlist. Says the departing staff sergeant: "The job has become much more difficult in the last year...
...Staff Sergeant Joseph Cerce, 30, stares at the three gold hash marks on his left sleeve. Each represents three years in the Army, and Cerce does not plan to add a fourth. He will retire next March. Says Cerce: "The Army has changed for the worse. It's not a patch on what it used...
Then came the all-volunteer army and Cerce gradually became demoralized. A drill sergeant at Fort Dix, N.J., he saw instruction worsen and discipline decline. "These days we're just fooling around," says Cerce bitterly. "Basic training is a joke. My twelve-year-old daughter could go through it and pass...
When Staff Sergeant Louis Loman, 33, joined the Air Force in 1971, he did so mainly for one reason: job security. He had just been laid off as a mechanic at a paper mill in Hamilton, Ohio, and he never wanted to face such hard times again. Now he is undecided about signing up for another tour of duty in 1981. "I like my job," says Loman, a B-52 air craft mechanic. "I don't want to get out. But I've got to go where the money is to make a living for my family...