Recruiters struggle to find an Army

[babylonsister]

Recruiters struggle to find an Army
By Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Friday, November 9, 2007


THURMONT, Md. — The Army is struggling to find volunteers for an unpopular war, despite recruiting bonuses of up to $20,000 and pay increases for enlistees that have beaten inflation by 21 percent since 2000.

It met its numeric goal of 80,000 recruits last year, but it paid a price in terms of declining numbers of high school graduates and lower scores on skills and physical tests. The percentage of minimally qualified Army recruits, known as Category IVs, has quadrupled since 2002, and the percentage that required special health or moral waivers has risen sharply as well.

And many recruiting problems preceded the Iraq war.

So what's really making good Army volunteers so hard to come by and, in a larger sense, sapping America's ability to fight a ground war or occupy foreign soil?

Pentagon and outside experts cite these factors in order of importance:

* While risks to U.S. troops are far lower than they were in most previous wars, young adults and their parents find them unacceptably high.

* Parents who went to college want their kids to go to college. So do parents who didn't. As the college-bound percentage of high school students has risen to two-thirds, the percentage that intends to enlist in any branch of the military has fallen by nearly two-thirds.

* Draft-era veterans, who for generations provided role models for military service, are dying off. A Pentagon study projects a 14 percent decline in high-quality recruits from a 10 percent drop in the veteran population.

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/21203.html

[jtrockville]

1. "duty to country isn't an important value"

Maybe because honorable service has been twisted into a liability for political gain?

[LiberalEsto]

2. Our country feels no duty toward us

We have a mismanaged neocon government that feels no sense of duty or obligation toward its citizens, and in particular to the wounded veterans who languish in seas of red tape.

This government doesn't care if little poor kids can't get medical care. It doesn't care if our jobs get sent overseas, leaving tens of thousands of Americans unemployed.

It doesn't care if corporations like Enron rip off ratepayers, then rip off its own employees and retirees of their life savings and pensions.
It doesn't care if corporations permit the poisoning of our food, air and water.

It doesn't care if huge pharmaceutical corporations make needed medicines unaffordable to average people, and then prevent us from exercising free choice in the marketplace that would help us buy less expensive medicines from overseas.

It doesn't care if it encourages torture and the bombing and shooting of innocent civilians.

It doesn't care that it attacks nations that have not threatened us with acts of war.

It doesn't care that it arrests people without probable cause and ships them to secret prisons without access to legal representation or a fair trial.

Since our country, under bush & cheney, doesn't feel a duty to any Americans except the wealthy and powerful, how on earth can rational Americans feel a sense of duty to this farce of a government?

[daa]

5. AMEN

[blondeatlast]

7. Exactly, and there is no longer hiding it as anything else. nt

[provis99]

3. the real question is

Why have they gotten ANY recruits?

[riverdeep]

4. Who the hell would volunteer to be turned into sausage?

And for nothing, a pointless conflict to enrich the elite? I wouldn't be surprised if they start relying more on foreign soldiers. I know they already use some with the promise of citizenship. Our armed forces even, being outsourced.

[Blackhatjack]

6. Add to this story Hagel's Statement that a Draft Will Be Required....

It sure looks like things are going to change and quickly.

Either we are going to start deploying out of Iraq or we are going to have to find more warm bodies and recruitment is not cutting it.

I am very concerned that Hagel may well be right.

[ThatsMyBarack]

8. K&R for LiberalEsto!

:kick: