The Army met its expanded recruiting goals for fiscal 2007, and StrategyPage notes:
The army recruiting effort is unprecedented for wartime. Never in American history has a war this long, been sustained with only volunteers. Party politics and media concentration on that has prevented the story behind this from getting out much.
SP also lists the reasons for the Army's continued success -- and they might not all be what you expect. (Poor, lazy students too stupid to stay out of Iraq not mentioned. John Kerry must be fuming.)
Another recent Strategypage article discusses some of the ways the Army has been achieving their quotas, including accepting high school dropout. Apparently they're taking more these days.
The thing is that they've developed ways to seperate the wheat from the chaff, and determine who is likely to do well in the Army, despite being a dropout. Apparently there's more than a few likely lads out there, which I consider a rather damning indictment for many of our public schools.
I think one related factor is being overlooked. Instapundit recently mentioned his concern about the approval numbers for politicians being at an all time low with no sign of improving.
That same public holds the armed services in very high regard. Despite the efforts of the political left (and their stooges in the MSM) most reasonable people still see the military as the highest form of public service.
I know that if I was 25 today and fresh out of college (or even/especially a high school dropout) that I would be very interested in what a military career could do for me and my future... as well as my country.
I think that 5 years on it would be (in most cases) one hell of a resume enhancer.
2 cents..
