GILEAD – The Bog Brook Training Site welcomed 157 new Maine Army National Guard recruits recently for a weekend of training as part of the Recruit Sustainment Program.

The program is designed to prepare new recruits for basic training by exposing them to elements and situations they may face while there. The program is administered by the Recruiting and Retention Command.

Maj. Lance Gilman, commander, said the attrition rate for new recruits has been reduced due to the program. In the past, upon enlisting, recruits would be sent to their unit of assignment.

“We couldn’t do anything with them because they haven’t been through basic training yet,” said Gilman. The recruits often felt out of place and singled out because they could not train with other soldiers and, in some cases, they left the guard.

The Recruit Sustainment Program was conceived in the summer of 2005 to help lower the attrition rate of new recruits. RSP soldiers now train together in Augusta, Bangor or Portland instead of with their respective units. Many of them are high school juniors who have joined the guard earlier in the year and will be going to basic training this summer.

At Bog Brook the recruits had the opportunity to rappel down a 35-foot wall. Pvt. Megan Davis, a petite 17-year-old junior who attends Brunswick High School, was apprehensive about rappelling. When asked how she overcame her nervousness, Davis replied, “I didn’t look down.”

Davis and other recruits spent the weekend at Bog Brook traversing a confidence course and trained in conducting military operations in urban terrain using paintball guns.

Maj. Gilman said Maine’s Recruit Sustainment Program is rated number one in the nation.