Reply #2: Within a month or six, they will start missing shipping goal [View All]

[MADem]

There are two goals in recruiting--one is accession goal, the number signed up who promise to go to boot camp at some point in future (up to 12 months out, this is a popular measure for high school seniors) and there is shipping goal--butts on the bus, as it were, who are on their merry way to basic training.

The way they fill the 'holes' in shipping goal (when someone unexpectedly refuses to go, gets sick, is otherwise disqualified, etc.) is to "bump up" someone in the DEP (delayed entry program) pool. You find a kid who has signed up to be one thing, but really wanted to be something else, and you wave that in front of him to get him to move early. If you are lucky, you find someone who got kicked out of his apartment, or his drunken pa kicked him out, who NEEDS to go early, and then you don't have to screw up the advanced training school accession schedule. Or, you get super lucky, and find a slam-dunk (DEP and ship the same month--these are rare as hen's teeth).

There comes a point in time, though, that you cannot keep robbing Peter to pay Paul. When they start missing shipping goal, the next measure WILL be a draft. And it will be framed as a National Security issue, and anyone who votes against it will be tarred with the 'unpatriotic' brush.