COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Personnel Crunch
Ongoing war, likely boost in active-duty forces create headaches for Army, Marines
Dogen Hannah, Tri-Gally Herald
March 21, 2007
Paula Anguinao has been tempted to join the military. So has Brian Dominguez.The East Bay high school students, Junior ROTC classmates, like the
self-discipline, teamwork and leadership the military instills. They also
like that the military helps pay for college.
Yet both have decided against serving in the armed forces. As long as the
nation is at war, neither wants to risk being sent into harm's way.
"I don't want to get hurt," said Anguinao, a 16-year-old sophomore at
Alameda's Encinal High School. "I don't want to lose my life."
Said Dominguez, a 15-year-old Encinal freshman: "Getting hurt or dying
really wasn't the choice for me."
The unexpectedly long and increasingly unpopular Iraq war, which has
claimed the lives of about 3,200 U.S. service members and began its fifth
year Tuesday, has made it tougher to persuade prospective recruits to enlist.
Now another recruiting challenge looms: President Bush wants to permanently
boost the size of the Army and Marine Corps.
The proposal, unveiled in January in the State of the Union address, would add
92,000 soldiers and Marines in the next five years. That would increase by
more than 13 percent the Army and Marine Corps' combined active-duty force
of about 691,400 people.
Bush's plan, which requires congressional approval, would make it more
difficult for recruiters to find enough willing and qualified people to
fill the ranks during wartime, said military experts.
Army recruiters are likely to have the hardest time meeting higher
quotas, said Michele Flournoy, a national defense expert who is the
president and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security, a
Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
"It is going to be a real challenge for the Army to meet the higher levels
of recruiting required for expansion while at the same time maintaining the
quality that's essential for today's military," she said.
Recruiting pressures
The Army, which has been bearing the biggest and bloodiest burden among the
armed forces in Iraq, has largely rebounded after missing its recruiting
target for the 2005 fiscal year.
This fiscal year, which began in October, the Army is on pace to meet its
goal of recruiting
80,000 active-duty soldiers, according to Army recruiting statistics.
However, the Army missed four of the first five monthly targets for this
fiscal year's goal of recruiting 26,500 reservists.
To attract new soldiers, in the past few years the Army has added
recruiters by the hundreds, raised some enlistment bonuses by thousands of
dollars and raised the maximum enlistment age in some cases.
It also has enlisted more people with less education, a low military
aptitude test score or a relatively serious criminal record.
"It's true they've been making their numbers for recruiting," said defense
analyst Cindy Williams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's
security studies program. "But they've done that at a very big trade-off
between quality and quantity."
For instance, fewer Army recruits have graduated from high school, which is
troubling because those without a diploma are less likely to complete their
enlistment, Williams said. Also, scores on the armed forces cognitive
skills test, used to evaluate recruits' potential, have been falling, she said.
Meeting goals
Other military branches have not been under as much recruiting pressure.
The Marine Corps, the smallest of the branches, with an active-duty force
of about 179,000 troops, has continued to meet its recruiting goals. The
Air Force and Navy have been streamlining their forces, partly because they
have been investing in weapons systems and other new technologies that are
less labor intensive.
Still, when it comes to Afghanistan, Iraq and the global war on terrorism,
"there's no real technological substitute for boots on the ground in some
situations," Flournoy said. So, retaining sizable Army and Marines Corps
forces remains vital to national security, she said.
Not all military experts are concerned about the quality and quantity of
recruits.
James Jay Carafano of the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation said
the enlistment of lower-scoring and less-educated people is not a cause for
worry. He discounted the assertion that only the most-educated and
highest-scoring recruits make good soldiers.
"People make too much of that," Carafano said. "I think if you look at the
actual performance of military units in the field, that's not the case."
Recruiting faltered because the Army, which had cut recruiters before the
Iraq war, was still reinforcing its recruiting force in 2005, Carafano
said. Also, a relatively strong national economy has given potential
recruits more opportunities for civilian employment, he said.
Now that extra recruiters are on the job and the Army has increased
enlistment bonuses and made other adjustments to fill the ranks, the
military should be able to reach Bush's goal of increasing the size of the
Army and Marine Corps, said Carafano.
"We're actually in pretty good shape," Carafano said. "If anything, we've
had a shooting war for several years now, and we've been recruiting people
just fine."
Weighing the risks
Even during wartime, many people see the military as a good opportunity.
For Gerald Oldfield, enlisting in the Army was a way to end a streak of
dead-end jobs and to start a career that could support his wife and his
4-year-old stepdaughter.
"I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I just decided: You know
what, I'm 30years old; I'm not getting any younger," Oldfield said. "If I'm
going to make the move, I need to do it now."
The move brought the Kings County resident to Mountain View one day last
month. His destination was one of the nation's 65 Military Entrance
Processing Stations, where recruits are screened and officially enlisted.
At the station, recruits undergo a medical exam, background check and
aptitude test to determine their suitability for service. If qualified,
they pick a military job, sign an enlistment contract and swear an oath to
defend the Constitution.
As he sat in a lounge awaiting test results, Oldfield said he was leaning
toward a job, such as helicopter mechanic, that would provide him with
skills he could employ outside the military. In any case, he said, he was
eager to enlist and attend basic training.
"I'm hoping to go tomorrow — as soon as I can," Oldfield said. "I just want
to get out there and do what I have to do."
Oldfield said he was prepared to accept the risks of military service,
including the possibility of being sent to war.
Eager to serve
If called on to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, as Bush has
proposed, the military probably would continue to use more recruiters,
higher enlistment bonuses and relaxed standards, said Beth Asch, a senior
economist and defense manpower analyst at the RAND Corp. think tank in
Santa Monica.
"I think it will be a combination strategy," Asch said, noting that such a
strategy would continue to trade at least some quality for quantity. "I
don't think numbers will be a problem. It will be the kind of recruit they
get."
At the Mountain View military entrance processing station last month, those
recruits included Ian Kummer and Jason Rixey. Both said they were eager to
serve in uniform and willing to go to war.
"I don't want to kind of sit back here and not do my share," said Kummer,
an 18-year-old Martinez resident and high school senior who enlisted in the
Marine Corps. "I want to be involved, no matter how it turns out."
Rixey, who enlisted in the Army, was no less enthusiastic. The 20-year-old
construction worker from Kelseyville said he plans to be a cavalry scout
and is counting on being sent to fight.
"I want to go to Iraq," Rixey said. "I want to go over there and see it
firsthand. ... Everybody says war is glorified. I just want to find out for
myself."
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