Soldiers Offered Four Days Off to Play Grand Theft Auto — If They Reenlist

AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File

An Army commander in Georgia is offering soldiers four days off to play Grand Theft Auto VI as an incentive to reenlist for up to six more years, according to ABC News on Wednesday.

The report revealed that Lt. Col. Ryan Hodgson, commander of the 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion at Fort Stewart, approved the special four-day pass for soldiers who reenlist between Aug. 1 and Nov. 14. The time off is scheduled to overlap with the game’s highly anticipated Nov. 19 release.

Soldiers who accept the offer must commit to between two and six additional years in the Army. Twenty have done so thus far, according to Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division, which includes Hodgson’s battalion.

“The battalion has a new career counselor who approached unit leadership with an idea for an updated creative incentives program,” Tomko told ABC News.

The offer was detailed in an internal memo obtained by the outlet after it was first published by “U.S Army W.T.F! moments,” an online community popular among service members and veterans.

As ABC notes, the Army commonly uses incentives to retain soldiers nearing the end of their contracts, including cash bonuses, new assignments, time off, and opportunities to pursue different career paths. The outlet added, “While the armed services have struggled with recruiting in recent years, those problems have largely eased, and retention has generally proved less of a challenge.”

The 3rd Infantry Division, which consists of roughly 15,000 soldiers, was recognized last year for having the most successful reenlistment campaigns in the Army, according to Tomko.

This news comes, of course, as President Donald Trump’s war with Iran continues. While the Defense Department’s casualty count listed 18 U.S. service members killed in the conflict in late July, it’s since been edited to 14, with three military officials telling The New York Times that the exclusion of four troops was because their deaths occurred after Trump declared a since-failed ceasefire in April.

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