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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Ulrich who wrote (97563)	1/29/2005 11:33:45 PM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793750

Services Meet 2004 Active Duty Recruiting Goals I agree and know that the the Army (active and reserves)recruited 100.5% of their FY 2004 quota. I just got in some hard current numbers for the Army for FY 2005. Add this to the Commanding General of the Army Reserves comments and the recruiters in NC and ID I spoke with. US Army active duty recruiting quota year to date: 26,670 Total recruited: 19,506 Army Reserves recruiting quota year to date: 7,400 Total recruited: 3,904 Total Army shortage YTD 10,660. The total Army quota for the year is 102,175. In addition, the National Guard has announced their first recruiting shortfall in 10 years. This short fall may not seem like a big deal, but as I mentioned yesterday, the cumulative effects are a killer if this really is a trend. At the current rate of recruitment the Army will be 31,980 recruits short of its goal at the end of FY 2005 (that is 8 months from now). That is a serious manpower shortage. Project that shortfall out 2 or more years and it becomes a gigantic problem. History tells us this should happen and it should get worse. Another leading indicator of future recruiting trends is the number of delayed entries. I know the Army's is much lower than last year. That means far fewer recruits are lined up to come in. That makes it much more difficult to fill future quarters' quotas. I heard or read the USMC delayed entries are on par with last year. I don't know if the USMC is meeting their overall recruiting goal YTD or not. I do know the USMC was authorized and funded for 12,000 additional slots and only plans to fill 1,000 of them this year. I can't imagine why they would turn down the manpower unless they know they can't recruit the men. A number of solutions have been offered on this thread: Kholt wants to hire foreign mercenaries. CB wants to increase recruit pay 5x. Michael wants to offer fully funded 4 year scholarships for three year enlistments. I said bring back the draft. Perhaps there is a solution in the works we don't know about. The one thing I hope we don't do is pretend 2005 is going OK just because 2004 was OK.