Posted on 03/03/2005 10:31:20 AM PST by Righty_McRight
WASHINGTON - In what could be a troubling sign for the military, the active-duty Army missed its February recruiting goal by more than 27%. It was the first time in almost five years that the Army has failed to meet a monthly target.
The Army signed up 5,114 recruits in February, 1,936 fewer than its goal of 7,050. The last time the Army missed a monthly target was in May 2000.
The February shortfall is especially worrisome because it comes as the Army is trying to lure recruits with the largest enlistment bonuses it has ever offered: up to $20,000 to some recruits willing to sign on for four years. The Pentagon (news - web sites) has also been adding thousands of recruiters for the Army and other branches.
Doug Smith, a spokesman for U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox in Kentucky, attributed the shortfall in part to competition from the improving economy and parents' fears that their children could be injured or killed in Iraq (news - web sites). As of Wednesday, nearly 1,500 U.S. servicemembers had died in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003.
Smith also said the Army has used up many of its "delayed entry" recruits - people who agree to sign up, but whose enlistment is delayed until later for their convenience or the Army's. Last year, the Army rushed several thousand recruits in the delayed entry program into basic training to meet its 2004 recruiting target. Normally, those recruits would have been available this year to boost recruiting numbers.
"It's just going to be a rough year," Smith said.
The Marine Corps missed its monthly target in January for the first time in nearly 10 years, but it met its February goal.
David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland who monitors personnel trends, said the Army's February numbers reflect the extraordinary demands on the nation's ground forces and the uneasiness many Americans feel about the war in Iraq.
"We all knew this was coming if you looked at what is happening in the Army Guard and Army Reserve," Segal said, pointing to recruiting problems in those two part-time military forces. "The question was not whether it would happen to the Army, but when."
The active-duty Army needs to recruit 80,000 new soldiers this year - 3,000 more than last year - to replenish its ranks. Segal said he does not think the Army will achieve that goal.
Guard and reserve recruiting has lagged. Through January, four months into a recruiting year that runs from October 2004 through September 2005, the Army Guard was almost 24% behind its recruiting target. Figures were unavailable for February. The Army Reserve was about 10% below its recruiting target through February.
The Army National Guard and the Army Reserve are part-time forces made up of soldiers who train typically one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer in peacetime. That has changed dramatically, however. Guard and reserve troops now make up about 40% of the full-time U.S. troops in Iraq.
February's results are the first sign that recruiting problems plaguing the Guard and reserve are spreading to the active force.
Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va., said several Army generals told him last year that recruiting was likely to "fall off a cliff" in 2005. "I think this spells a major recruiting shortfall for the Army," he said.
Yeah, your question (about money) makes sense. And I agree with you that for most people, money is a relatively small part of the motivation -- the kind of folks who are qualified for military service are the same folks who can make a very nice living for themselves in other ways also.
It can't possibly have anything to do with the threat of prosecution for shooting a terrorist or making him wear panties on his head, can it?
If the MSM broadcasting this kind of information doesn't meet the definition of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, I don't know what does. It baffles me why we haven't cracked down on these traitors.
A couple of years ago Rumsfeld decided to reduce the Air Force and Navy in order to prop up the the Army and Marines. When they do that 40,000 Sailors and Marines don't just show up for work the next day as Sailors and Marines. Budgets have to be adjusted and the recruiting and training pipes need to get ready for the flood. It would seem to me that this is about the time that they have the go ahead to start recruiting those new troops.
I hope thats the case anyway.
Oops
"When they do that 40,000 Sailors and Marines don't just show up for work the next day as Sailors and Marines.
Translation: When they do that 40,000 Airman and Sailors don't show up to work the next day as Soldiers and Marines.
As one poster said above - we can do what we can to counteract the negativity of the MSM by trying to persuade kids in our families and communities that now is the time to step up to the plate and enlist.
Seemed like a simple enough question.
There are lots of ways to draw people in: Extra recruiters; extra advertising; extra pay; extra bonuses; extra education assistance; upgraded living standards at military bases; more flexibility with medical standards, legal standards, intelligence/educational standards, and physical strength standards; more flexibility for prior service folks who want to re-join, etc, etc.
And there are also a bunch of ways to help retain the people we already have -- good retention can help counter-balance soft recruiting results.
I wouldn't say "people aren't volunteering." Even with our extremely tough entrance requirements, the Navy and Air Force are at or over 100%, while the Army and USMC are still recruiting between 80% and 100% of their goal. And there are a hundred ways to open the spigot a little wider if we want to.
A common denominator among my fellow Marines was poor economic conditions at home. None of us came from well-to-do families and most of us came from broken homes and grinding poverty. For us, the military was a chance to escape our environments. But for those from properous families, they would have to be nutcases to sign up for what we went through (unless they went in as officers which is a whole different world).
With the phenomenenal economy we are now enjoying as a nation, it should come as no surprise that enlistments are down. The lower classes are probably tapped out so far as military recruiting. Thus, we need to attract some middle-class recruits by increasing pay and improving living conditions on base.
That's what I thought, but then I remembered...there's no simple question or answer on an anonymous forum, especially this one...
Most of those items have been implemented since 9-11. Extra recruiters would appear to me to be counterproductive. Seems to me I've read where the Army is augmenting the recruiting command with 7-800 additional recruiters. As far as I know, recruiters are NCOs. How many line units are being deprived of the leadership those NCOs possess?
I admit I have biases. My first 12 years in the Army (61-73 -- PVT to CPT) I trained with, served with, and even trained a BCT cycle that included some of the last draftees. Between the knee-jerk reactions of Ford and Carter, we lost something in the Army and the country when the draft was ended.
Bottom line is that we are not meeting the quotas and there is no way a person can be forced into the recruiter's office.
As far as I can tell, your bottom line is correct.
My company misses our recruiting goal too!!! Infact we have been unable to come close to recruiting a mere 30 new drivers to fill the vacancies. Why do they have to post only ARMY misses the recruiting goal? Why don't they tell the OBVIOUS, which is lower unemployement rate? Low unemployment rate keeps most companies, businesses, etc. from getting people at the door. NOT ONLY THE ARMY!!!
Oh
Does this mean Americans don't want to be prosecuted for murder for killing terrorists in combat ?
I feel honored. You have made a total of four posts on FR in the last three years and you made one to me.
It really would have been interesting had your post been relevant.
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