Troubled recruiting battalion gets new command

[unhappycamper]

Troubled recruiting battalion gets new command
By Rich Matthews - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Feb 20, 2009 17:25:32 EST

HOUSTON — An Army recruiting battalion in which four soldiers committed suicide was placed under new leadership after an investigation into those deaths, Brig. Gen. Frank Turner said Friday.

Turner, who met with U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and recruiters from the Houston Recruiting Battalion, said the cluster of suicides were the result of a number of factors, but some of the command’s practices were outside Army regulation.

Some recruiters and their family members had complained that recruiters, already subject to long hours and pressure to meet quotas, were threatened and humiliated when they failed.

“Some of the leadership practices occurring here in Houston by a couple of individuals — not all but a couple — were clearly outside the acceptable practices of leadership inside the Army,” Turner said.

The new leadership seems to be improving the climate, he said, and it will be reviewed by June.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/02/ap_recruiter_suicides_022009/%2e