"Though concerns are being raised ... the committee is compelled to fully fund the Army's request at this time by an urgency to address the significant challenges the Army now faces," a report accompanying the bill states.
And one of those significant challenges is better described as a developing problem. That is recruiting even though many continue to deny it.
This chart, I just received, shows military end strength decreased the last 5 months of last year (read the top line)...even as we were attempting to increase it by 30,000 troops.
web1.whs.osd.mil
This chart shows the goal of recruiting 34,058 into the active and reserves, in the first four months of FY 05, has not been achieved. Only 26,843 were recruited. That projects to a 21,645 recruiting shortfall for the year. And we were supposed to increase our strength this year.
usarec.army.mil
I found the smoke. The services have been reporting meeting recruiting goals through FY 2004 and they did. Some started out meeting goals for this year. The smoke is in the fact that the recruiting goals are now set to low to sustain our current force much less increase it by 30,000. The first chart proves that, even as we were meeting set recruiting goals, our end strength was decreasing when it should have been increasing. That means more folks were getting out than originally projected when the recruiting goal was set...the goal was too low.
I have stated repeatedly that recruiting has always dropped off in the third year of a war and history proves itself right again.
There is a hidden factor that makes continued shortfalls a given at least for the near future. Recruiters often recruit men and women for delayed entry programs. That allows them to finish high school or wait to attend the military school they enlisted for. The delayed entry pipeline is shorter right now than it has been in years.
It remains to be seen if the new reenlistment bonuses will keep folks in.
To keep from upsetting a few vociferous opponents, I won't even mention the draft.
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