Fighting for what you believe in

All the military services met or exceeded their recruiting goals. Here is the breakdown:

* The Army hit 101 percent of its goal of 6,000 accessions with 6,066.
* The Navy hit 100 percent of its goal of 2,909 accessions with 2,909.
* The Marine Corps hit 137 percent of its goal of 1,632 accessions with 2,234.
* The Air Force hit 100 percent of its goal of 2,093 accessions with 2,093.
* The Army National Guard hit 100 percent of its goal of 6,040 accessions with 6,048.
* The Army Reserve hit 121 percent of its goal of 3,543 accessions with 4,304.
* The Navy Reserve hit 100 percent of its goal of 865 accessions with 865.
* The Marine Corps Reserve hit 100 percent of its goal of 553 accessions with 553.
* The Air National Guard hit 121 percent of its goal of 784 accessions with 946.
* The Air Force Reserve hit 100 percent of its goal of 719 accessions with 720.

If the war was as unpopular as the traditional media in this country would have you believe, would a total of 26,136 people sign up to go fight the terrorist? Seriously people...

Good to know.

During what timeframe? How do the goals compare to previous years? What about their retention goals vs actuals?

Any statistics presented in a vacuum can be made to seem impressive, especially when shown as percentages.

Well, they've lowered the criteria too - there was a radio piece on how they are giving out unprecedented numbers of passes for things like criminal activity.

Of course, ten years ago they wouldn't let you in if you had a reckless driving or a tresspassing charge, or got into a fight when you were 18 or owed back taxes.

We'll see if they have more discipline problems in the next few years because of this.

These stats are just for the month of March. Note that the actual numbers of people are shown to back up the mere percentages and that the total people volunteering to fight in the war in one month is over 26,000.

Reenlistment rates are published separately and evaluated at a different time. I don't have recent rates for you.

26,000 enlistees in a single month is pretty impressive.

Yep, my buddie's kid is going Army and he has a felony charge, but he is restricted to certain jobs.

My other buddie's kid is going Air Force and he once attempted suicide (and I think has some criminal activity but I'm not certain).

Not quite so impressive in a month where 80,000 civilian jobs were lost. Flushing the economy down the crapper is a very good way to boost enlistment.

I think the numbers are impressive as well, but I do question the exactly matching numbers like they just went home when they got the last one or perhaps a little bar movement may have happened.

And that has what to do with the price of tea in China?

Uhm, people who can't get civilian jobs are more likely to enlist. I'm sure even you figured that one out on your own.

Its probably going to do both of them good.

They'll walk away better people.

I really hope so. While most "good" kids who come in the military stay that way, many times (after the fact) when a servicemember ends up in major trouble (drug dealing, grand larceny, aggravated assault, rape) it turns out they had a long history of criminal activity but just eventually get caught.

A lot of it depends on who you associate with too, in my experience.

Oh so we're back to the disenfranchised-poor-can't-get-a-job angle now? That was quick, but not entirely unexpected to be parroted.

I can't for the life of me figure out how the concept of people actually loving their country enough to put their asses on the line and defending what THEY believe in is so unacceptable especially coming from someone who would never dream of making such a sacrifice.

It's called cowardice in my book.

Despite all your posturing, there is some truth to the concept. If the economy is in the tank, unemployed workers are more likely to enlist than they would be in a robust economy. And I do not see anywhere that [-]Aurora[/-] Pardot is indicating that ALL the enlistments were for that reason. To imply that would be quite foolish, as would trying to imply that ALL the enlistments were for strictly patriotic reasons--which I'm sure you're not doing.

Obviously the reality lies somewhere in the middle.

Usually the answer is always in the middle.

I'm sure some people enlisted because they couldn't find any other job, same with some students enlisting after college because there wasn't such a great demand.

But there is NOTHING wrong with that.

The problem isn't at the bottom, it's in the middle. Your senior NCOs and Os have already made their bed and put up enough money and you can always get new people to sign up.

The problem is your Senior E4s, your 5s and 6s. And your Captains and Majors. Right now those are REALLY hurting. You send people away for 12/15 month back to back tours (sometimes without even a full year between deployment) and it's gonna hurt retention. It is hurting retention.

Right now the points for 11B are 350 for E5.

Of course it does, the "postering" as you call it was just a response to his shot and general attitude towards the ones who are enlisting for their country.

Not everybody is enlisting 'for their country'. Many are enlisting 'for themselves'. Which, very often, means that they have no other perspective.

What "shot and general attitude"? I see none here...

He states a fact.

What?

Are you making the 'there are no selfless acts' argument?

Knowing her, probably.

And before I forget, this would also be more impressive if criminal background waivers hadn't recently hit all time highs, tripling since the war began, and if the percentage of recruits without even a high school degree hadn't also been more than tripling to nearly 30%.

The military had recruiting problems so long as it maintained standards for recruits and the economy was doing okay. It's easy to meet recruiting goals by dropping standards and taking advantage of people being out of work.

Better the military than an overcrowded prison.

Rehabilitation? Enlist.

I'm sure the dynamics of all of them could be classified into a pigeonhole but they ultimately get stuffed into two bags, those that have their country at the head of the interest and those who don't. That they are doing it for themselves does not particularly drop them into either bag. The impression you leave with this is that someone doing it for their country are just in it for the kill, whereas they have to get training, training that usually carries over into real life carrers.
Both bags get something to take home. To some it's secondary
I'd bet that there are some in the mix that are doing it as a step to a career change. That's fine and dandy and more power to them.

I got no problem with 'go to war or go to jail' contracts. Couple of friends got in on them.

Military life has a good record of straightening those kind of people out and making productive citizens of them.

As Azure pointed out, a much better record than our penal system.

It's the same argument whether you are talking about one person, many, or all. You are saying that b/c someone is doing it for themselves it can't be for their country.

Killin' me here....