I served during the end of the cold war. We had no problems making numbers. I joined around the time Gorby took over in the USSR. We had a larger military. What is the problem with our youth? Seriously. Our nation was attacked, and we can't get people to join. We thought that nuclear war could happen. Worldwide conflict, yet we joined. Now, with a smaller military, huge cash bonuses (that would have come in handy for me), we are now looking to oursource to foreign labor.
"I served during the end of the cold war. We had no problems making numbers. I joined around the time Gorby took over in the USSR. We had a larger military. What is the problem with our youth? Seriously. Our nation was attacked, and we can't get people to join."
That is the real issue, where are the millions of young men?
Part of it is, I think, our entitlement mentality, and part is perhaps the idea that they don't want to risk their lives in Iraq when they don't (due at least in part to the media) see it as directly related to the war on terror.
On the other hand, I know a number of fine young men & women who are making, or plan to make, a career of the military. I'm in the rural South, however, where military service has always been regarded pretty highly.