The drastic increase in bonus amounts for recruits in 11X, the infantry military occupational specialty, went into effect in mid-May, according to U.S. Army Recruiting Command officials, who said that the service still needs to fill about 3,300 infantry training seats by Sept. 30.
"We saw this coming in May; we immediately went to the senior leadership and said, 'look, we need to max out the bonuses for 11Xs,'" Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, commander of Army Recruiting Command, told Military.com Tuesday.
"If you sign up to be 11X and you sign a six-year commitment -- $40,000."
Before May, the maximum bonus amount for infantry recruits was $15,000 for a six-year commitment.
Last summer, the Army ran a pilot at Fort Benning, Georgia that resulted in the service extending infantry one station unit training (OSUT) from 14 weeks to 22 weeks. The extended infantry training is designed to give soldiers more time to practice key infantry skills such as land navigation, marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, fire and maneuver and first aid training.