Via Intel Dump, we find out that the DOD is playing some games with the June recruiting statistics:
The Department of Defense “officially” released June recruiting statistics today for each of the services and reserve components.
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The good news is that all four services, including the Army, and four of the six reserve components met or exceeded monthly goals.
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But what the monthly numbers don’t say is that the Army’s June goal was actually the lowest so far this year, despite the fact that this month of high school graduations traditionally marks the start of prime recruiting season. As the graphic from the New York Times’ June 30th reporting shows, the number of Army June accessions, 6,157 would not have met the goal of any month to date this calendar year. And the problem looks even worse when viewed by fiscal year, the military’s actual counting period. To date, the Army has managed to attract 47,121 new soldiers out of a stated requirement for 80,000. With just three months remaining, that means the service must bring in approximately 11,000 men and women each of the next three months, almost twice the June goal.
Look, it should be no surprise that recruiting is down with the military engaged in a war without a motivating purpose. I think “spreading democracy and freedom” doesn’t get the blood pumping and the recruits down to the recruiting station as well as, say, if the military campaign actually, you know, was vital to our safety.
July 11th, 2005 at 11:41 PM
Recruiting Issues Exposed
As all of my readers know well, I predicted early in September/October of 2004 that Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney were going to ruin the all volunteer Army with the war in Iraq. First it was a matter of what the heck are we doing there in the first place. Then …