Military Recruitment Problems

I found two interesting articles that reflect a growing problem of military recruiters enlisting volunteers to refill their ranks in light of the continuing war in Iraq. The first article is from the New York Times where parents have been opposing Army and Marine recruitment strategies within high schools. In another article from the Wall Street Journal, the Army is seeking ways to keep problem enlistees within their ranks, rather than washing them out of the service.

Both articles show the symptoms that the U.S. military has in filling its ranks with new recruits. In the Times article, the recruiters have been given major access to lists of student’s names and phone numbers provided by the schools as required by the No Child Left Behind Act. Parents have the right to opt out a student name from these lists, but most parents are not informed of this right. Thus, the recruiters go into the schools, then start getting in the faces of the most vulnerable students with high pressure sales tactics, showing off some of the major equipment and recounting exciting adventures which these kids could have if they enlist. Parents are slowly realizing that the No Child Left Behind Act mandates schools to give these lists to the military in order to receive federal funds and are starting to oppose the military’s access into the high schools. Even more interesting is that these parents are from the baby boomer generation who have either served in Vietnam or have protested against the war in the 1960s and 70s. The Journal article shows a different problem with the military. With recruitment quotas dropping, the military has been facing a shortage of replacements. The Army is trying to find ways to keep current enlistees from easily washing out of the service. These enlistees are of lower-quality soldiers—former drug users, high school dropouts, pregnancies, poor fitness, and unsatisfactory performance. Instead of having battalion commanders—who command 800 soldier units--make the decisions to wash these enlistees out of the service, the battalion commanders must send the problem cases up to their brigade commanders—who commands 3,000 soldier units.

The crux of the problem isn’t that the military can find new recruits, or to keep the current enlistees within their ranks. The real problem is that the military is starting to face a growing opposition to the war, and this opposition is reflected in the reduced enlistment quotas. Parents don’t want to see their children going through the horrors of what they went through in Vietnam—either becoming exposed to the brutality of war, or seeing their own family and friends getting killed there. And as the children are starting to listen to the lessons their parent’s have learned during the last controversial war, they are taking those lessons to heart in this current controversial war. They are starting to say no to enlisting into the service. With regards to the Army’s attempts of keeping problem enlistees within the service, rather than bouncing them out, this is just another example of the military trying to stop the hemorrhaging of warm bodies out of the service. As this war in Iraq becomes more unpopular with the parents and the public, more young Americans are going to avoid enlisting into the services, causing a greater shortage of manpower—especially as the war continues to be a drain on current military manpower. There are three possible solutions to solve the military’s recruitment problem. The first solution is for the United States to get out of the war in Iraq. The second solution is for the military to continue what it is doing in its recruitment policies, possibly utilizing a more direct sales strategy in enlistments within the face of parental opposition.

The third solution is to institute a draft. Iraq will become even more like Vietnam.