Recruiting trend continues

This is just basically the same thing we've been seeing about how the military can't sustain its force readiness because intake is too low. I think the only real thing to note in this article is the alleged connection between the Iraq war and low recruiting numbers. I say alleged not because I don't believe it, but I haven't seen any solid numbers to support it yet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40469-2005Feb20.html

This is the relevant passage:

Driving the manpower crunch is the Army's goal of boosting the number of combat brigades needed to rotate into Iraq and handle other global contingencies. Yet Army officials see worrisome signs that young American men and women -- and their parents -- are growing wary of military service, largely because of the Iraq conflict.
"Very frankly, in a couple of places our recruiting pool is getting soft," said Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the Army's personnel chief. "We're hearing things like, 'Well, let's wait and see how this thing settles out in Iraq,' " he said in an interview. "For the active duty for '05 it's going to be tough to meet our goal, but I think we can. I think the telling year for us is going to be '06."


I'm fairly certain that if you hear the recruiters saying it, it's probably true.

What's really ironic is the fact that we need those soldiers because of Iraq, but we're falling short of recruitment goals because of Iraq. Fortunately this seems to be a defacto method of controlling our government's aggression because it's not likely that we'll allow the draft to be brought back. I may be overly-optimistic, but I think before too long, anti-war sentiment will reach a degree that even Bush (with his capacity not to hear things he doesn't want to hear) will be forced to notice.

Also, notice once again that even though the administration has claimed they don't want to increase the size of the standing army, recruiting goals are for an increase of 30k active soldiers. And we only need the increase if we go through with the plan to be there for several more years. Hmm...