Army's recruitment crisis deepens May 26, 2005 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Retired Army Lt. Col. Charles Krohn got himself in trouble with his superiors as a Pentagon civilian public affairs official during the first 3-1/2 years of the Bush administration by telling the truth. He is still at it in private life. He says not to blame the military recruiters for the current recruiting ''scandal.'' Blame the war. ''Army recruiting is in a death spiral, through no fault of the Army,'' Krohn told me. Always defending uniformed personnel, he resents hard-pressed recruiters being attacked for offering unauthorized benefits to make quotas. In a recent e-mail sent to friends (mostly retired military), Krohn complained that the ''Army is having to compensate for a problem of national scope.'' The Army's dilemma is maintaining an all-volunteer service when volunteering means going in harm's way in Iraq. The dilemma extends to national policy. How can the United States maintain its global credibility against the Islamists, if military ranks cannot be filled by volunteers and there is no public will for a draft? Krohn's e-mail describes the problem: ''Consider the implications of being unable to find sufficient volunteers, as seen by our adversaries. Has the United States lost its will to survive? What's happened to the Great Satan when so few are willing to fight to defend the country? Surely bin Laden et al are making this argument, telling supporters victory is just around the corner if they are a bit more patient. And if they're successful, the energy sources in the Mideast may be within their grasp.'' Krohn says this reality is accepted by recipients of his message. It also meets agreement from active-duty officers I have contacted but who cannot speak publicly. They ponder how an all-volunteer force can be maintained when generals say there is no end in sight for U.S. troops facing an increasingly sophisticated insurgency. Krohn's message goes on to say ''the recruiting problem is an unintended consequence of a prolonged war in Iraq, especially given the failure to find WMD.'' He therefore calls for a ''national consensus to address the root causes'' of the recruiting problem -- that is, the war in Iraq. But the focus at the Defense Department has been on the excesses of desperate recruiters, 37 of whom reflected their frustration in trying to meet quotas by going AWOL over the last 2-1/2 years. The official response was a 24-hour stand-down in recruiting to review proper procedures. It also has been proposed that enlistments, now usually three to four years with a minimum of 24 months, be cut to 15 months. The recruiting guru Charles Moskos, professor emeritus at Northwestern University who once suggested an 18-month tour, now says shorter enlistments will not help. He proposes restoring the draft, but that is a political non-starter. Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, who as a drafted soldier won the Bronze Star in Korea, is one of the very few members of Congress who advocate the draft. He does not hide his motive: A president would be politically unable to take a conscript army into wars such as Iraq. In contrast, Krohn is a lifelong Republican who actively supported George W. Bush's presidential candidacy in 2000. He specified in his e-mail that ''I'm not now blaming'' President Bush or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the situation. ''We have a problem that transcends politics,'' Krohn added. The current Iraq war is America's first prolonged conflict fought entirely with volunteers. It is a more professional and in every way a better army than the conscript army of Korean War vintage in which I served, or the conscript army that fought in Vietnam for seven years. The problem was signaled when the 9/11 attack on America did not generate the enlistments expected. Three and one-half years later, willingness to face personal peril in Iraq has faded. That means the problem goes beyond mechanics of recruiting and the details of volunteer service and is found in the war itself. Paraphrasing Rumsfelds' comment about going into battle with the Army we had, Charles Krohn said: ''The war we have now is not the war we started off with. It's much more serious.'' http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak26.html
Et tu, Novak!! If Batman wrote the article, he would be accused by TJ of demonstrating that he loves the terrorist and wants to see our troops loose and be killed. Go ahead, TJ, and accuse Novak of being in league with terrorists. It is a b****. Even the US cannot fight a stupid unnecessary war with volunteers, or as they know, with draftees. Of course that is the way it should be. Faith in President Bush is not enough reason to fight a war. Conservatives learned the wrong lessons in Vietnam. As Colin Powell, Schwartkopf and the other actual soldiers concluded (not chickenhawks revisionists like Cheney, Bush, and gang) you can't fight a war very well when a good part (or as now a majority )dont support the war because it is stupid and unnecessary. The conservative revisionists and the neocons instead concluded that if you lie and keep the facts from the press and therefore the people, so they won't know the war is stupid, unnecessary and not going well, you can fight it anyway. You can fight stupid unnecessary wars for a few weeks or a few months, but not indefinitely. Case in point even supposed diehard supporters like Hayes, TJ, and Bigtexx etc. will not voluntarily fight in a stupid war that isn't that necessary.
With respect to public support, the main difference between Vietnam and Iraq is the topic of the draft. You have a small percentage (aka the neocons) that genuinely and legitimately support the war. These are the people who believe in the cause and would happily make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of restoring freedom. On the other side, you have a small percentage (the radical left) that genuinely and legitimately protest the war. And then, you have a huge chunk of people in the middle who baselessly support the war or are against the war because they have nothing to lose. If they are red state people, chances are they are pro-Bush and hence pro-War. Similarly, your blue state folks are probably anti-War. If you reinstate the draft, all of a sudden, that huge chunk in the middle has a stake (aka Vietnam). The young population of the 1960's and 1970's were a lot more activist because they had a lot more to lose. If we have a draft again, then I'm sure a lot more people will question where the WMDs are and a lot more people will educate themselves on Saddam's ties to Al-Qaeda and the whole nine yards. That is why Cheney and Bush are successful while Johnson and McNamara were not. Even if the majority is against the war, I don't think it will change things all that much because the people who are fighting the good fight are the people who voluntarily joined the military and these are the people who believe in the cause (for the most part at least).
With respect to public support, the main difference between Vietnam and Iraq is the topic of the draft. And then, you have a huge chunk of people in the middle who baselessly support the war or are against the war because they have nothing to lose. The young population of the 1960's and 1970's were a lot more activist because they had a lot more to lose. If we have a draft again, then I'm sure a lot more people will question where the WMDs are and a lot more people will educate themselves on Saddam's ties to Al-Qaeda and the whole nine yards. These statments are so true.
Not only did you have the draft during Vietnam but you had a lot more deaths. I'm sure many more Americans, especially young people, knew a casuality of Vietnam more so than Iraq. I think a lot of people are simply not concerned with Iraq because they feel it doesn't affect them or anyone they are close to.
You're correct. However, one thing to keep in mind was that Vietnam was not a death trap (relatively speaking of course) in its early stages. If I recall correctly, the casualty numbers started skyrocketing when LBJ flooded Vietnam with troops in 1965 and 1966. In relation to the topic at hand, Iraq is just like Vietnam in terms of death numbers 3 years into the war.
Before the troops were sent in I worried that we would win the war and lose the peace. Iraq is better off without Saddam, but I worry that the Army will not be able to maintain the troop levels necessary to keep our forces over there. My brother-in-law is in the Army so from day one I was against invading Iraq. He is scheduled to go back to Iraq this year for his second tour of duty. He can't leave the Army because he has too much invested. He is just hoping to make it to retirement, 20 years of service.
Why Do Most Americans Feel the War Is "Not Worth It"? link The latest poll from Gallup shows that 57% of Americans do not believe the Iraq war is "worth it," yet there is little public protest. No matter where you stand on the war, you've got to wonder: What's going on here at home? Yet few in the press have set out to explore this gap between what appears to be wide public anger and apathy. By Greg Mitchell (May 29, 2005) -- There is a strange disconnect in America at the moment, with the press partly to blame but in the position to do something about it, or at least explain it. You may be surprised to learn that nearly 6 in 10 Americans feel the Iraq war is "not worth it," according to a recent Gallup poll. Exactly 50% feel that President Bush "deliberately misled" them on the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and virtually the same number call the war an out-and-out "mistake." More than 56% now say the war is going badly for the United States. Gallup also recently found that 46% of those polled say we should start withdrawing troops. Yet there are few marches in the streets (or anywhere else), and even fewer editorials in major newspapers calling for a phased pullout or setting a deadline for withdrawal. But that's not my main concern here. No matter where you stand on the Iraq war, you've got to wonder: What's going on here at home? Yet few in the press have set out to explore this gap between what appears to be wide public anger and apathy: the enormous number of Americans who support our troops while, at least indirectly, devaluing their service by claiming this is a war not worth fighting. For months, E&P Online has tracked various Gallup polls on this subject, and watched the numbers rise and fall. After the Iraqi elections in January, public opinion briefly shifted in a more positive direction, but that was quickly reversed with a return of wide violence and a rising American death toll this spring. Yet despite all the front-page coverage and punditry in the papers, it still seems that the war, and any deep feelings about it, are stuck in slow motion, or in quicksand. That's why every week when we consult Gallup, I'm always surprised to find the growing public doubts about the war. Most of the time, in our work and play, you'd hardly know a war was going on. There is more opposition to this war than there was in 1968 with regard to Vietnam, yet far less public and editorial protest. That 57% of Americans say the war is "not worth it" is haunting: such clarity, and such acceptance. But still, the media continue to look at opinion on the war in a black-or-white, red state/blue state way, when it is much more complicated than that. With so little exploration of this public ambivalence or ambiguity in the press, I turned to an expert, Dr. Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. He seemed a bit perplexed himself, saying that it may be "unknowable why they think the war is not worth it. ... You can say it's not worth it without getting emotionally involved" -- that is, if you don't have a son or daughter serving over there. Pondering it a while, he explained that "short term, they don't think it's going well." Then he brought up a more compelling point, mentioning that on several occasions his organization has asked its sample if they think the war will leave the Iraqis better off. Here a majority say yes. So Americans seem to buy the notion that our invasion may be "worth it" for the Iraqis, but not for us. Americans "are essentially doing a cost/ benefit analysis," Newport said, weighing what the United States may gain versus what we will certainly lose (many more casualties, world prestige, and so on). The verdict: The war is not "worth it." Well, that's part of the "unknowable," anyway. But why so little public and editorial protest, given the poll numbers? Newport offered the standard explanation: unlike with Vietnam, there is no draft, and comparatively few young Americans are coming home in boxes. But this means the press, despite its ample news coverage, often seems to feel that concerns about the war lack a certain ... salience, unlike, say, the debates over Social Security or judicial appointments. But Newport disagrees: "I believe it's more important in people's minds than many think it is. It's incredibly important to people, a sleeper issue, perhaps on the verge of a tipping point." He pointed out that Iraq shows up as the No. 1 issue in every poll. In a recent survey, people were asked what subject they would bring up if they got to spend 15 minutes with the president, and Iraq easily ranked at the top. "The average Joe or Jane is very concerned about Iraq," Newport observed. "They may be saying, 'don't fix Social Security or worry about judicial appointments, but do something about Iraq.'" He added, "You know, we found the approval rating for Congress is now very low, about 35%. Maybe that's because people feel Congress is arguing over things they don't care about when you have a war going on." He didn't say it, but I will: You might say the same thing right now about too many editorial pages.
Perhaps if we'd stop court martialing our own troops for doing their jobs, more people would be willing to serve.
I think we haven't court martialled anyone for doing their job, but rather those that have broken rules of engagement and dishonored the armed forces. Perhaps if we had an elite fighting force that wasn't made to suffer the dishonor that has been allowed to go on sometimes with approval from our administration more people would be willing to join. People don't seem to want to rush out and join a group with some folks that will be murdering prisoners and using Saddam like torture methods on folks. Another reason might be they dont' want to serve under an administration that uses its armed forces to attack even when our own nation isn't at risk, and they aren't fighting to save the U.S. I think if we asked people who considered joining but decided not to, that fear of being court martialed for doing their job would have been pretty low to non-existent of reasons why they didn't join.
I hope you're kidding. That has next to nothing to do with the recruiting problems. Iraq has everything to do with it. And it was a very predictable result of the invasion and occupation, in my opinion. Only in the fantasy world inhabited by those close to Bush and Bush himself would have thought otherwise. The nightmare continues, we grow weaker, and the world's perception of our country continues to be damaged. It will take a generation or two, like it did with Vietnam, for the United States to recover it's standing before the world and for our military to recover... that's if we manage to get out of Iraq with a semblance of honor and are given time for the military to recover. My main hope now is that we are able to prevent a return to the draft. Has any of the supporters of Bush's mad adventure considered just how insane it has been for the Administration to both cut taxes and claim that we don't need to increase the size of our voluntary armed forces? Has Rumsfeld got off of his absurd stance that any increase, "should only be temporary... it would be too expensive to maintain a larger Army indefinitely, and is unnecessary." Last I heard, he was still maintaining that stance. We should be spending whatever it takes to both recruit those men and women we need, and to retain those serving now. Instead, we have tax cuts. Insane... just insane. Keep D&D Civil!!
Here's something I read after I made my last post. It's worth reading. From the NY Times: May 30, 2005 Too Few, Yet Too Many By PAUL KRUGMAN One of the more bizarre aspects of the Iraq war has been President Bush's repeated insistence that his generals tell him they have enough troops. Even more bizarrely, it may be true - I mean, that his generals tell him that they have enough troops, not that they actually have enough. An article in yesterday's Baltimore Sun explains why. The article tells the tale of John Riggs, a former Army commander, who "publicly contradicted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by arguing that the Army was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan" - then abruptly found himself forced into retirement at a reduced rank, which normally only happens as a result of a major scandal. The truth, of course, is that there aren't nearly enough troops. "Basically, we've got all the toys, but not enough boys," a Marine major in Anbar Province told The Los Angeles Times. Yet it's also true, in a different sense, that we have too many troops in Iraq. Back in September 2003 a report by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the size of the U.S. force in Iraq would have to start shrinking rapidly in the spring of 2004 if the Army wanted to "maintain training and readiness levels, limit family separation and involuntary mobilization, and retain high-quality personnel." Let me put that in plainer English: our all-volunteer military is based on an implicit promise that those who serve their country in times of danger will also be able to get on with their lives. Full-time soldiers expect to spend enough time at home base to keep their marriages alive and see their children growing up. Reservists expect to be called up infrequently enough, and for short enough tours of duty, that they can hold on to their civilian jobs. To keep that promise, the Army has learned that it needs to follow certain rules, such as not deploying more than a third of the full-time forces overseas except during emergencies. The budget office analysis was based on those rules. But the Bush administration, which was ready neither to look for a way out of Iraq nor to admit that staying there would require a much bigger army, simply threw out the rulebook. Regular soldiers are spending a lot more than a third of their time overseas, and many reservists are finding their civilian lives destroyed by repeated, long-term call-ups. Two things make the burden of repeated deployments even harder to bear. One is the intensity of the conflict. In Slate, Phillip Carter and Owen West, who adjusted casualty figures to take account of force size and improvements in battlefield medicine (which allow more of the severely wounded to survive), concluded that "infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966." The other is the way in which the administration cuts corners when it comes to supporting the troops. From their foot-dragging on armoring Humvees to their apparent policy of denying long-term disability payments to as many of the wounded as possible, officials seem almost pathologically determined to nickel-and-dime those who put their lives on the line for their country. Now, predictably, the supply of volunteers is drying up. Most reporting has focused on the problems of recruiting, which has fallen far short of goals over the past few months. Serious as it is, however, the recruiting shortfall could be only a temporary problem. If and when we get out of Iraq - I know, a big if and a big when - it shouldn't be too hard to find enough volunteers to maintain the Army's manpower. Much more serious, because it would be irreversible, would be a mass exodus of mid-career military professionals. "That's essentially how we broke the professional Army we took into Vietnam," one officer told the National Journal. "At some point, people decided they could no longer weather the back-to-back deployments." And we're already seeing stories about how young officers, facing the prospect of repeated harrowing tours of duty in a war whose end is hard to imagine, are reconsidering whether they really want to stay in the military. For a generation Americans have depended on a superb volunteer Army to keep us safe - both from our enemies, and from the prospect of a draft. What will we do once that Army is broken? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/opinion/30krugman.html Keep D&D Civil!!
I thought of bolding that, FB, but I didn't want folks to think it was the point in the column I was most interested in. In my opinion, this has happened a lot to those who have dared to speak up, which is not something Bush/Iraq War supporters want to hear. They will just trot out a quote or two from a general who's more interested in furthering his/her career than telling what should be obvious to the blind, deaf and dumb. If you tell the truth about what's happening in Iraq from the perspective of a top-ranking officer in the know, you may as well kiss your career goodbye. What is most important from my perspective as a parent with a 14 year old son (god, I'm going to be ancient when I have grand-kids!) is the increasingly real chance of a return to the draft. That would be a disaster for our superb volunteer military, the brass don't want it, and it would provoke a sea-change in public opinion towards the GOP... which is NOT how I want Democrats to return to power. Until fairly recently, I thought a draft to be a very, very remote possibility. With the now impossible to ignore crisis in recruiting a volunteer Army and Marine Corp at needed troop levels, an on-going host of tax cuts, an enormous budget and trade deficit, the refusal of the Bush Administration to face up to reality regarding paying what's needed to maintain and increase troop levels, and the on-going war in Iraq, what choices are going to remain? I'm very worried and very depressed about it. Damn it, the draft will be a cancer for the military and the country. Damn Bush and his stupidity. We should have stuck with Afghanistan and kept our powder dry for the real threat of Iran and North Korea with nukes. We will have to do something about that crisis, which is real and growing. Iraq wasn't going anywhere. Iraq was no threat worthy of an invasion and occupation. Iraq could have waited. Keep D&D Civil!!
That is one of the points I was trying to make in another thread. If it was about the Bush administration just making mistakes regarding the resistence after the war, the amount of money it would take, the presence of WMD's etc. some changes might have been made. Instead those that had the right ideas before the invasion were all fired, and in many cases trashed by the administration through the media. Those who were wrong like Wolfowitz and others were actually promoted or given higher appointments despite being wrong. It is an amazing thing, and I have yet to see any war supporter/Bush supporter who maintains that it was mistaken intel, or hindsight by the anti-war crowd etc. explain why this trend exists. I didn't mean to derail the thread about the decreasing volunteer army, and the possibility of a draft. That is depressing to be sure. In addition to that it makes me question whether or not the Iraq invasion has made our country safer. If because of the invasion we can't field a sufficient fighting force then it would seem our country is less safe, and since we have long been the world's police force, the rest of the world isn't as safe either. Nothing is definite yet. We don't know how much of these blunders can be reversed by future administrations, so I won't make any definitive predictions, but it does cause me a lot of concern.
Maybe army recruitment is down because potential recruits are worried about having covert information that could endanger their safety published by Novak to settle personal political scores when directed to by the white house.
