Re-enlist, play GTA 6: US Army reportedly offers time off for the game’s launch

More money, additional vacation days or support for further education – employers come up with all kinds of incentives to retain employees for the long term. The US Army's 9th Engineer Battalion is now reportedly offering a perk aimed specifically at gamers: four days of special leave around the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI. The catch: Soldiers have to commit to another term of service. The information comes from a memo currently making the rounds online. It was apparently first spotted by the Facebook page “US Army WTF! Moments.”

The document is said to originate from the 9th Engineer Battalion at Fort Stewart in the US state of Georgia and reportedly bears the signature of commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Ryan D. Hodgson. Hodgson did in fact only recently take command of the battalion, making the memo seem at least plausible. However, it has not yet been officially confirmed. At this point, there is no way to determine with certainty whether the document is genuine or whether someone has gone to considerable lengths to pull off a joke.

Less unusual than it sounds at first

The Reddit community is largely unimpressed by this unusual re-enlistment incentive. The top comment in the thread by u/Maximum_Effort points out that the offer is actually not all that unusual:

 “A four day (Friday/Monday off) for reenlisting is pretty standard. This battalion command team is marketing it in a fun way, but this is in no way out of the norm. Command teams have pretty wide latitude on reenlistment incentives, this is not that out there.”

Several users who say they have served in the US military themselves agree with this assessment: Extra days off are apparently a common perk for re-enlisting. The battalion seems to have simply tied the usual incentive to the launch of GTA 6 (available for pre-order on Amazon) – generating considerably more attention than a simple announcement of a long weekend would have.

Whether it is actually a good deal is widely questioned by the community. Reddit user u/Fomdoo jokes that, in addition to the special leave, he would at least want a PlayStation 6 and a copy of the game. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments.