Is it true that re-enlistment is high?

[serryjw]

my friend sent me an email saying this...any website going to tell us the truth?

[Hokie]

1. I think the stats have been rigged

I read a thread a while back explaining that they keep lowering the targets to make it appear they are meeting the recruiting goals. I will post a link if I can find it.

[Cha]

2. Oh yeah, they're just

dying to go fight in Iraq.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. All of the branches of the military have been forced to reduce their....

...recruitment goals because, on average, they were falling 40% below their goals. If they are meeting their goals now, it's because they are at the new 40% lower levels.

[blonndee]

8. Not only that, but they've lowered their standards so that almost

ANYONE can qualify per their tests.

[Gloria]

4. Article in our paper the other day about how the Natl Guard

wasn't having trouble finding recruits in our area (Southern NM). I suspect it's the folks without college who are enlisting....and we're also in a military area (White Sands, Ft. Bliss, Holloman AF base)

[insane_cratic_gal]

16. National Guard wouldn't have problems

they are stoplossed, the guys that are there are on their 4th and 5th tours.

The only way out is a loss body part or death.

See when the economy goes south enlistment rises.

when you cut college funds enlistment rises.

Both of these are happening as we speak, and I think it was intentional. Drop the economy put pressure on the middle class, cut funding for eduction for the middle class, cut programs for the poor, all seems too well wrapped. How else can you run with tax cuts in this country during a time of war? It's insane, unless your planning on squeezing the class-ism lines. Since the rich usually don't enlist I can only draw some ugly conclusions.

Air force and Navy are doing fine with recruitments but they've had their numbers slashed.

Army.. Marines not so good.

I find myself just feeling sick by all of it lately. Public opinion about this war has been in the gutter for months, and still they propaganda runs rampant on the tv.

Sorry most of this is just ranting.. not at you but at the body and context of the entire subject matter.

[beam me up scottie]

5. A lot of guys are reenlisting.

They are offering substantial bonuses, not to mention many of them don't want to leave their brothers in Iraq.

It's an honor thing.

[blonndee]

9. You're right about that...my friend is going on his third tour (this one

to Afghanistan again) and he says he just wants to try to help the best he can and not let down "his guys." He did say he's glad to be going to Afghanistan and not Iraq (which was his second tour) so that he can "actually do some good before it gets blown up again."

[beam me up scottie]

12. People forget that a lot of them don't come home with

their unit.

If they don't re-up, they actually have to leave their brothers behind in the field.

That's a powerful motivation.

[pitohui]

6. heard just the opposite

heard no one w. any skillz would re-up because they can sign up as an independent contractor and see their pay go up by 10 times for the same job

don't have any numbers for you tho

[HeeBGBz]

7. It's kinda like Hotel California

You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.

[Silverhair]

10. Amazing how many responders here are confusing...

REENLISTMENT with INITIAL RECRUITMENT. Don't they teach reading comprehension anymore?

[beam me up scottie]

11. I wasn't going to say anything...

:D

[blonndee]

18. But don't those "recruitment" figures count re-enlistments? Correct me

if I'm wrong, please, but that's what I thought.

[beam me up scottie]

19. No.

Retention and recruiting percentages are counted separately.

[blonndee]

20. Well, that's good to know. Now I can study them a little better. Thanks!

[beam me up scottie]

21. You're welcome.

Here's a link I just found to a DOD News Release from November (it was buried in with all my other bookmarks).

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2005/nr20051110-5089.html

[proud patriot]

13. Re-enlist w/ bonus or Stop loss'd w/ no bonus

you pick :grr:

[Nicole]

15. Exactly

My neighbor told me her husband made that very choice last month. He went with the bonus.

[LaPera]

14. There's more private contractors, (mercenaries) than they need, there's so

many that want to kill and get paid the big bucks,BushCo doesn't have to worry about ever having enough killers, with our tax dollars and they don't have guidelines like the miltary... they can kill and do as they please.

[EST]

17. The military issues you a family.

The shared experiences and the common hazards one faces with that family go far beyond the relationship one develops with an actual family simply from growing up under the same roof. It is no surprise that a normal person would choose to reenter harm's way in order to serve with, protect, and participate in the rewards of and with the people who have shared in the most alive experience a human being can create. The cost and the ugly illegality of that reality are of little import in such a theater.
High re-enlistment is a natural consequence of a non-conscript army that shows up only rarely in a cannon fodder draftee military.

[libodem]

22. I believe I read somewhere here on DU

that those who don't re-up are more likely to get hazard duty or be placed in dangerous positions where they might be even more in harms way.