IDF units that have experienced low levels of registration in recent years, and to encourage more soldiers to serve in those units, the army will allow recruits to choose three other soldiers to serve with them. “I believe that in the coming months we will see positive results from this program,” said Udi Medina, the IDF officer who is in charge of the program. “The true test will be in the July recruitment.”
The targeted units are the IDF's Armored Division, Engineering, and Artillery units, which are notoriously short-staffed. With most recruits preferring combat units like Golani or Givati, or preferring a “close to home” support role, the IDF has decided to try a “friends bring friends” program to beef up recruitment.
Speaking to NRG, Medina said that while infantry units get all the glory – and hence the attention of recruits – there are a lot of positive things about the units in question as well. “The artillery and other units are not the same as they once were,” he said. “There have been a lot of developments there, technological and operative.
Artillery, for example, is responsible for drones, and the engineering corps got a big boost in status and budget after Operation Protective Edge, as they had to demolish the tunnels Hamas built to invade Israel.”
As part of the recruitment program, soldiers from the various units have visited some 100 high schools, in an effort to present what the units have to offer to 12th graders who will be entering service next year.
“We are concentrating on schools where the level of recruitment is low anyway,” said Medina, because there is likely to be more responsiveness to the “friends bring friends” program, providing an additional incentive to soldiers to sign up.