The Army is looking for soldiers who are cavalry scouts and military police to move into other positions as the service looks to meet its retention and restructuring goals for 2024. (Melissa N. Lessard/U.S. Army)
WASHINGTON — The Army is looking for soldiers who are cavalry scouts and military police to move into other positions as the service looks to meet its retention and restructuring goals for 2024.
Referred to as precision retention, the program highlights overcrowded military occupational specialties, or MOSs, such as 19 Delta Cavalry Scout and 31 Bravo Military Police. The new guidance issued last week also includes incentive bonuses and promotion opportunities if soldiers consider reclassifying.
“These MOSs are not going away. There’s just going to be less of them,” said Sgt. Maj. Tobey Whitney, a senior Army career counselor. “So, we have to be very careful and very particular in making sure that we don’t have too many people reclassify.”
Whitney said any 19 Delta who are airborne qualified and serve at Fort Liberty, N.C., can reclassify to infantry 11 Bravo without having to attend any kind of formal training. The same is true if a soldier is a 19 Delta and wants to reclassify to 19 Charlie — a Bradley Fighting Vehicle crew member. A soldier could do so without having to attend any training at Fort Moore, Ga.
The Army in fiscal 2023 reclassified about 3,000 soldiers, said Sgt. Maj. Jonathan Uribe-Huitron, the senior enlisted soldier overseeing personnel policy.
Between the two specialty groups of cavalry scout and military police, Whitney said the service is looking at slightly more than 3,000 soldiers who will need to reclassify. This will not be executed in one year but over time.
“Over the past few weeks, just by getting the word out through the career counselors, over 100 soldiers from those MOSs have already requested reclassification and gone into something else,” he said.
The Army said last month that the service would slash the size of its force by about 24,000 troops as part of restructuring changes, as well as in response to recruiting shortfalls. About 3,000 of the cuts would come from special operations forces, but the plan adds about 7,500 troops in other critical missions, including air-defense and counter-drone units and five new task forces around the world with enhanced cyber, intelligence and long-range strike capabilities.
“We’re moving away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. We want to be postured for large-scale combat operations,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters at the time. “So, we looked at where were there pieces of force structure that were probably more associated with counterinsurgency, for example, that we don’t need anymore.”
As part of the announcement, cavalry squadrons were expected to be included in the 10,000 posts cut as well as Stryker brigade combat teams, infantry brigade combat teams and security force assistance brigades.
The Army in the new guidance is also offering reclassification bonuses based on several factors that include a soldier’s years of service, rank and how many years for which the soldier plans to reenlist.
A specialist, or E-4, cavalry scout could make anywhere from $5,900 to $72,000 if the soldier switches to Patriot fire control operator, or 14E, according to the guidance.
In addition to offering reclassification bonuses, the guidance pointed out jobs as offering a greater chance of promotion to sergeant or staff sergeant. For corporals or specialists hoping to reenlist and be promoted to sergeant, options include High Mobility Artillery Rocket System crewman, electronic warfare specialist, counterintelligence agent and armor crewman.
Soldiers looking for another way to reach staff sergeant sooner should consider becoming a HIMARS crew member or M1 armor crewman, the guidance said.
