Meanwhile, those people who get their information about the military and about Iraq secondhand, from the media, are not willing to sign up.

I think this is a big issue. I've seen folks insist that it doesn't need to be addressed because we can throw money at the new recruits and all the bad PR in the world won't matter. Maybe so. But I do think it's a fairly big factor.

One thing to note, (a military blogger...Lee, I believe...shared this with me) is that the enlistments are at a high for recent years, and the reason we're missing the mark is because the Army's desired size has grown. This means we are asking for far more troops to enlist than in the past, and there is where we fall short...we are falling short compared to our goals, but not compared to recent history.

Still means we're not where we need to be, but it's a little better than it seems at first glance.

The thing is Tex "if" you remember, the numbers lee gave us say this is "dead" wrong! The army is "over" their goals and enlistments are up NOT down. The army is not missing it's mark at all. The are projecting that they will meet or exceed their recruitment goals for the year! Here they are but not lee's these are from the DOD:



Accessions
Goal
Percent
Army Accessions Goal Percentage
6,157 5,650 109
Navy 4,566 4,529 101

Marine Corps 4,156 4,051 103

Air Force 2,400 2,370 101



Link

drmiler: It's PUBLISHED FACT that the enlistments are not meeting the goals. In fact, goals have been lowered and STILL not met.

Actually NO it's NOT a "published" fact, as can be seen by the figures at the link provided. They are NOT coming up short! That is unless you're calling the DOD a bunch of liars.

Link

From an article I wrote June 10th:

While the May recruitment numbers were not available until today, according to a cnn article, the Army fell about 25% short of its recruitment goal (6,700, lowered from an original target of 11,050).

Army Times (must be a subscriber to access the linked article, my apologies), reports that "eight months into the fiscal year, the Army has enlisted 40,964 soldiers out of a year-to-date goal of 49,285, a shortfall of 17 percent." Army Times also confirms May's 25% shortfall.

I generally get my information on recruitment numbers from Army Times. Guess where THEY get their numbers? THE DOD.

What you are referring to is the numbers for the month of June. What I am referring to is the numbers for the past few months, which have been consistently problematic.

I agree, the most recently released numbers are encouraging. But the Army has a big challenge before them if they want to catch up with the goals they've set for the fiscal year.

The question remains... If we our troops are stuck in such a hellatious "quagmire", why are those who have experienced the most reenlisting in such high numbers?