« Previous · Home · Next »
Army Recruiting Soaring
By John
U.S. Army Meets Expanded Recruiting Goals....Again:
October 4, 2007: The U.S. Army again achieved its recruiting goal (80,000 new recruits) for fiscal 2007 (that ended on September 30). That will also be the goal for 2008 as well, unless the army is given permission, and several billion dollars, to speed up their expansion of 13.5 percent (from 482,000 to 547,000), by doing that in four years instead of five.
The army recruiting effort is unprecedented for wartime. Never in American history has a war this long, been sustained with only volunteers. Party politics and media concentration on that has prevented the story behind this from getting out much. There are several reasons for the army recruiting success.
Anti-war types, always the military experts, love to write these positive numbers off as the Army "lowering its standards." Nice, huh? Those dudes support us so much it hurts.
In reality, it's a mix of things. Enlistment bonuses, heightened sense of patriotism since 9/11, more effective recruiting campaigns, etc. One that's often overlooked is the fact that the Navy and Air Force are shrinking faster than the Army and Marines are expanding. That drives potential recruits over to the grunt services, while programs like Blue to Green allow Airman to trade their blue uniforms for green Army ones.
Strategy Page also cites an interesting argument for the favorable numbers, low casaulties:
Although the media gets obsessed with U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reporting tends to ignore the fact that those casualties are the lowest in history, any army's history. Put simply, troops are half as likely to be killed or wounded in Iraq, as they would have been in Vietnam or World War II. A combination of better equipment, training and leadership made it happen. These are trends that have been going on for decades. The lower casualties make a big difference, especially for troops who have gone back to Iraq or Afghanistan several times. But the recruiters know that there's enough real danger there to attract young men looking for some adventure, but not so much that most potential recruits would be put off by it. "Extreme" (very dangerous) sports have become much more popular in the last few decades, and for many young men, modern combat is in that league, plus you get to kill people. Most reporters have forgotten how teenage males think. The recruiters haven't, and the U.S. Marine Corps consistently exceeds it recruiting goals by emphasizing the danger and challenges. The end result is that it's more difficult to recruit for support jobs, than for the combat ones.
Hotel Tango: Steve Green, who titles the story "Buried somewhere on page B14.."
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://op-for.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1251
Comments
"Those dudes support us so much it hurts."
Indeed.
Yeah, yeah! see ARMY WRONG http://www.armywrong.net to get another view.
I'm not so sure I follow your logic about the Navy numbers. Most people who join the Navy are really keen on joining the Army. And I'd be curious to look at the Blue to Green numbers real closely. Most people I know, give the same answer about the program. "NO WAY-NO HOW".
Also if my Army friends in Korea are to believed...there is a certain lowering of standards to make quota-at least based on the number Article 15's they are dealing with.
Then again that could be because USFK treats all military on the Penisula like children.
Post a comment
Potential comment conditions listed here. Oh, and you may use basic HTML for formatting.
Always good to see these numbers going up. Good overview.