Army recruits at record lows?

[Bill V]

A quick question for those of you who are more familiar with the military and current recruiting than I am--



Anytime any discussions about the war, or a possible reinstatement of the draft, or other related military topics have come up on this site, one or more people have chimed in that it's a volunteer army with as many people enlisting these days as we had before Iraq/Afghanistan.



But according to this story (and it's not even the main focus of the story--it's mentioned in passing near the end of the story), 2005 was one of the toughest recruiting years ever since the all-volunteer military was set up in 1973, with recruiting goals being missed by nearly 10%.



So which is it? Are we having high numbers of recruits and re-enlistments as some here have suggested? Or are we struggling to keep sufficient quantities?

 

[Timmy-The-Ute]

So why don't you support our troops, Bill. sorry i forgot about the "s".

 

[Larry Phillips]

Here in the Air Force, we're trying to kill the numbers down by about 50,000 in the next few years.



They're talking about retraining alot of people into less desirable career fields or sending them to the Army if they want to continue on in the military. I fought to get my retrain into Air Traffic Control and Landing systems, and I'm going to be upset if I get booted out of it or out of the Air Force.

 

[Bill V]

Timmy--



Huh? Who says I don't support our troops? I just saw the report that I linked, which had information that seemed to contradict some of the info that others have posted here, and I wanted to see if anyone had any information on why that is.



Or was that tongue-in-cheek--your use of "troop" instead of "troops" meaning to infer that enlistment is so low that there's only one soldier left? If so, sorry, I completely missed your attempt at humor.



--Bill

 

[Johnny O]

Couple things I think. The number of people of military age may be going down, i.e. the "baby bust" as opposed to boom. Also military enlistment tends to vary inversely with the strength of the economy, meaning that the worse the job situation is the more people sign up with the armed services and vice versa. Right now the economy is pretty strong in most parts of the country despite what you hear from the liberal media.

 

[James B 3]

That article is only addressing the Army, at one point other branches where meeting or exceeding thier goals. I served in the USAF and I assure you, if was not 40 and a single parent of a 3 and 5 year old. I would rejoin. I believe in these guys over there. If you read alot about the ones serving they believe in what they are doing. I am a Bush supporter. however, I don't necessarily agree with all the reasoning for the invasion but, I believe these guys deserve our total support without question.



James

 

[walter clark]

Strong economy????? :huh: Oh thats why our company is seenig sales drop off lower than normal and managment is talking about potential lay offs and OT is not to bet had.. I'm struggleing to make bills because of runaway inflation at the pump, the grocery store and about every where else. Oh yea not to mention my investments in the last few years doing the worst they have in a long time. I would realy hate to see a weak economy happen. I have four family members serving right now and two of them are reup's at that. My family has always supported the Millitary but when your own blood tells you things arnt looking good over there (from experencing it first hand) and that it's worse than even the press lets on. Then why would a young american want to go help people that dont want our help??? Especialy with this so called wonderfull economy were experincing now???



Removed smart alec remarks at end

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Walter, what line of work are you in?



Regarding the widespread runaway inflation you describe...I am not seeing that and the economic indicators for 4Q05 and so far 1Q06 don't show widespread runaway inflation.

 

[Johnny O]

GDP growth, job creation, and employment numbers are nearly identical to those in the late-90's when all you heard was how good things were (but a Democrat was President then, so it was different).

If you're investments are doing poorly, well that's the type of thing you have to keep an eye on and change up once in a while. I moved my 403b into Fidelity's Energy Services and Value funds a while ago and the for the past year I'm kicking butt.

That said, I see where Walter is coming from because the local economy where I live has sucked since 1980 when all the steel mills started closing down due to a combination of bad management, onerous environmental laws, high labor costs, and cheap imports.

As far as the war, Bush is going about it all wrong IMO. I'd have nuked Mecca on 9/12, carpet-bombed the rest of them, and stolen their oil a long time ago. Wuss.

 

[Mark Grumpy]

I can't talk specifically about recruiting goals but I can talk first hand to volunteerism in the Air Force.



My official title is: Manager, Command Contingency Plans and Programs. In a nut shell, I receive all the wartime taskings for my career field (occupational specialty) within my Command which consists of 13 major installations.



Now, it's not a large number as we are a relatively small career and each Major Command is allocated deployments based on the "fair share" principle, i.e 1 for me 1 for you, but we sent 66 folks "over there" last year. "Over There" is just about any place you read about in the news and some places you don't.



Anyway, all this to tell you that we have many folks that are disappointed - not because they go but because they volunteered and didn't get selected. I have one guy leaving next week for a year, an officer no less that volunteered.



The Air Force does not have any manning or volunteer issues when it comes to the current mission.



On a side note - we just had a Purple Heart medal presentation right here on base this morning. The recipient is an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) expert and lost his arm and suffered injuries to his legs in Iraq late last year. His only desire is to remain in the Air Force. It appears the AF is going to accomodate him and assign him as an instructor at the EOD school.



grump

 

[Larry Phillips]

Grump, I heard about that one. I think I was still in Iraq when it happened.

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

The recruitment of people for the military has always been better for one than the other. (Army vs. Navy, etc.) Main reasons are because of different recruiting tactics. (ie= college money, sign on bonuses, etc.) Also, after a couple of good years of recruiting (right after 9/11 for example) the bar is raised so when the "let's go kick some ass" to "if I sign up, I'm going over there to do guard patrols". The hype after 9/11 was pretty high and alot of kids signed up because they felt they needed to be a part of the solution. Times change. The problem is now that the need for recruits is still there, except now, with the way things are over there, there is less enthusiasm. The "tattoo" policy was alway stupid to begin with. I can understand not on your face or anything racial, but on hands and forearms and such, what's the big deal. Won't change much as for the recruiting effort though.

 

[Timmy-The-Ute]

Like I said, we should all support the troops. Us veterns need to encourage the young people to step up and support the war effort. That girl you want to land first will just break your heart. God bless the USA and our President.

 

[Gavin Allan]

Support the troops!



I would be in favor of mandatory national service of some sort. Doesn't always have to be military--could be community service, etc. Young adults (all: male/female) should learn to contribute to our country and learn to appreciate the cost of our freedoms.



As for the economy, things are going well here. We have lots of new construction. Lots of new jobs coming. Interest rates are still very low. Real cost of gas is still very reasonable. Health care costs are getting under control. Utilities (except fricken cable TV!) are very reasonable. I don't see what the fuss is about the economy--it seems pretty good to me. Even poor people have cell phones, Air Jordans, Cadillacs, IPods, computers, and dress very nice.

 

[Bill V]

Like I said, we should all support the troops.

No, Timmy, that's NOT what you said. What you said was,

So why don't you support our troops, Bill.

That's a far different statement. One is encouraging people to show more support. The other is accusing me of taking a stance that couldn't be farther from the truth of my opinions.

 

[Dale Carlson]

Bill V, to answer your original question:



The military has recruiting goals to meet what they call end-strength troop levels. Those goals are used to meet "expected" levels after you subtract troop attrition factors like separations, medical outs, regular retirements (generally between 20 and 30 years of service), and deaths. The goals are set kind of like insurance companies set your life and car insurance - based on historical data and trying to predict the future. High (re-)enlistment rates are spikes that get normalized after time.



Sometimes the goals are hard to meet because of several factors. The military now is a highly technical place - even for grunts on the ground. They're looking for men and women who can actually do more than walk and chew gum at the same time. Unfortunately for the military, those particular young people are more and more choosing technical careers or college. The military also expects at least a minimally fit person coming in - and as far as I know, the weight standards haven't changed all that much in 50 years. But the average body fat of the average American teenager has, for the worse. You couple those factors with a decreasing population size (for the target age group), and you get a lot, lot smaller pool of eligible young people to recruit from.