COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch
Military offers cash for lives
Lacei Amodei, Party for Socialism and Liberation
September 21, 2007
Desperate to recruit, bonuses offered to kill and be killed
Without U.S. military recruiters, there could be no Army. Without an
imperialist army, there could be no imperialist war.
The plunging rate of enlistment in the U.S. Army is causing great
concern among the warmakers in the White House and the Pentagon. As
Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, head of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command,
pointed out, the Army is not an all-volunteer army, but an
all-recruited one. It is a draft of a new kind. "Not many folks are
just walking into the recruiting station saying this is what they
want to do," Bostick said.
Due to consistent failure to meet existing quotas, this year the Army
greatly reduced its monthly recruitment projections. But faced with
growing opposition to the Iraq war, they still fell short through the
spring and summer.
According to the Pentagon, only 16 percent of young people say they
plan to join the military: a historic low. Although 40 percent of
mothers and 50 percent of fathers were willing to send their children
to the Army in March 2004, now those numbers have dropped to 25
percent and 33 percent, respectively.
The drop in recruitment levels is most drastic in the African
American community. According to Pentagon data, there were nearly
51,500 new black recruits for active duty and reserves in 2001. That
number fell to less than 32,000 in 2006, a 38 percent decline.
The African American community has one of the highest unemployment
rates in the United States, making it a main target for recruiters.
Historically, African Americans who make up 13 percent of the
country's population have been disproportionately represented in the
armed forces. In 2001, African Americans made up 20 percent of
military recruits. That number is now down to 13 percent.
As the rate of enlistment continues to drop, the Army has resorted to
ever more desperate tactics to fill its ranks and meet its fiscal
year goal of 80,000 recruits.
To entice working-class young people, the military started offering
greater financial incentives than ever before. With the "Quick Ship"
bonus, recruits are promised a $20,000 bonus if they agree to ship
out to basic training by the end of September. The program began on
July 25; within three weeks, the Army had enlisted 3,814 new
recruits. In addition, recruits have been bribed with iPods and
backpacks to enlist right away.
Over the last year, the Army spent $1 billion in recruitment
incentives. Still, the Army barely made its August quota.
Newer, lower entry requirements
As a way to lure in young people who have dropped out of high
schools, the military has discarded or downplayed longstanding
education requirements. A year ago, only 16 percent of enlistees had
failed to graduate high school. Now that figure is up to 27 percent.
These are teenagers with very limited job opportunities. They are the
military's easiest prey.
The latest desperate recruitment tactic is to recruit young people
who have not even secured a GED. In the past, they would be
discharged from the military, but now the National Guard will offer a
GED educational program as part of boot camp.
To cope with falling recruitment numbers, the U.S. military has
employed another tactic manipulating the contracts of enlisted
soldiers to make them stay in longer. With the stop-loss program, the
military prevents soldiers from returning home once their enlistment
is finished. Over 150,000 troops have had their tours in Iraq
involuntarily extended in this way.
But soldiers have begun to fight back.
Evan Knappenberger, 1st BDE, 4th Infantry Division, challenged his
officers when they told him he had to remain in service despite the
completion of his four-year active-duty tour. For daring to stand up
for his rights, the Army gave him a general discharge without benefits.
While in Iraq, Knappenberger stood guard for 97 nights in a tower at
the edge of his base. Now he is back in the United States. As a
protest against the stop-loss policies, he initiated a Tower Guard
Vigil on a scaffold at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Knappenberger has referred to the stop-loss program a "substitute for
conscription in a political war under the pretense of a non-existent
national emergency." He pledged to maintain the vigil in military
uniform for a full week.
The inability of the military to recruit clearly stems from the
widespread anti-war sentiment reaching every corner of the United
States. The people recognize that the war was based on lies, and have
lost all belief in the president and his generals when they speak about Iraq.
A second factor in the military's failure to recruit is the
intervention of the organized anti-war movement, which exists in
every city, and many smaller towns. Iraq war veterans have become
some of the movement's most prominent voices. Testimonials about
their personal experiences inside the military pose the most direct
challenge to the lies and tricks of military recruiters.
On Sept. 17, as part of the Sept. 15-21 Week of Actions in
Washington, D.C. against the war, Iraq Veterans Against the War led a
National Truth in Recruiting Day. IVAW and activists with the ANSWER
Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) shut down Washington's
main recruitment center that day.
As Adam Kokesh, co-chair elect of IVAW, said in a July 21 open
letter, "It is time to confront the lies that this war is based on
with those whom they affect the most."
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