How many months in a row will it take for the Army and the Reserves to miss their recruiting goals before we start to hear serious talk of a draft?
We're at three now.
WASHINGTON - The Army missed its recruiting goal in April, marking the third consecutive monthly shortfall.
Col. Joseph Curtin, a spokesman for Army headquarters in the Pentagon, said Monday that as of April 30 the Army was on a course to achieve only 85 percent of its target for the full year.
More below the jump.
Col. Curtin is making all the right noises--we'll still make our yearly quota, we'll make up the difference this summer, blah blah blah, but the numbers look grim for recruiting.
Curtin said he did not have specific figures for April but that it fell short of the monthly goal of 6,600. In March the Army had hoped to sign up 6,800 recruits but fell 32 percent short. That was slightly worse than in February when a goal of 7,050 was missed by 27 percent.
snip
The Army National Guard and Army Reserve have had even more trouble recruiting. In March the Army Reserve signed up barely half the 1,600 soldiers it sought. It has not met a monthly goal since December 2004, and for the period from October 2004 through March it met only 82 percent of its goal.
And this is with recruiters becoming more and more aggressive. We've heard reports of physical threatening, of lowering standards for entry, and of course, lying to tempt young people into signing up.
Obviously, this can't go on, not if we plan to meet our military commitments worldwide. So the question is--who'll be the first to blink? Who's going to be the first to seriously talk about a draft and take the political hit that results from it?