[Marxism] "we now have very, very low propensity to enlist"

[Carlos A. Rivera]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David McDonald" <dbmcdonald at comcast.net>

> If you put this together with the information provided by Michael Hoffman,
> the situation for the military is far more dire than reported. Consider 
> that
> General Rochelle admits to a deficit of 6,600 recruits FOR THE ARMY ALONE.
> Assume that Air Force, Navy and Marine shortfalls probably make up a 
> similar
> number.

Actually not true. While the Marines and the Army have serious shortfalls, 
both the Navy and Air Force report "normal" recruitment, and the meeting of 
recruitment goals.

This has to do with the perception, among economic draftees, that the Air 
Force and Navy are "safer":

GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM - OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM
March 19, 2003 Through May 7, 2005
BY CASUALTY CATEGORY WITHIN SERVICE

http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/OIF-Total.pdf

CASUALTY TYPE                    TOTAL  ARMY     NAVY     MARINES     AIR 
FORCE

Killed in Action                            938            593            19 
318                   8

Died of Wounds                           260            203              1 
56

Died While Missing in Action        7                    7

Died While Captured                    2                    2

TOTAL HOSTILE DEATHS    1,207             805             20            374 
8

Of course this is *official* data, which can be wrong.

And even the "mainstream" press reports this, and has for a while done so:

Recruits swamp Navy, Air Force
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-23-navy-air-recruits_x.htm

http://tinyurl.com/4m37y

For the FY 2003-2004, all branches EXCEDED their recruit goals, and it is 
likely we will see a repeat of this.

So in spite of them having a hard time doing it, they ARE doing it.

The real crisis is in retention rates, in particular of people who would 
otherwise become "lifers". This are NCOs who have 7-10 years and form the 
backbone of all figthing units. The Army and Army reserves were the only 
branches who didn't meet these rention goals last year, even with "stop 
loss" and what amounts to bribery in many case. They are also having a lot 
of problem retaining the most prized of all of their people, West Point 
graduated Captains. These are being headhunted in throves, when they are 
smack in the middle of their expected career time in the Army, and just 
after doing a tour in Iraq and becoming combat veterans.

In other words, they are losing 25-35 year olds like an hemorrage loses 
blood. And these are the people who RUN the show, not 18-25 fresh recruits 
or graduates or 35-60 year old lifers and top brass. So the Army has a 
crisis of leadership and logistical personpower, not really of recruitment.

If you ask me, this whole "crisis of recruitment" thing is actually a 
fig-leaf for the very real crisis of retention, and serves the dual purpose 
of hiding the crisis of retention and generating public support for a draft.

> My opinion is that the military itself is laying the groundwork for the
> resumption of the draft.

I agree. And we might also see more "creative" ways to channel economic 
draftees into the Army and Marines, such a inter-service "detachments" and 
sign-up bonuses. Ironically, this was a problem predicted by the Powell 
Doctrine generation, and some of the bolder "Joint Recruitment" proposals 
they floated around in the 1980s. The idea was to have a single recruitment 
point, wereas you couldnt choose the branch (much like what they do with the 
MOS in every branch), but would rather place you in whatever branch and MOS 
they wanted you in, and you were capable of. It is a good thing the US 
establishment has ignored that generation of unqualified military doctrine 
geniuses in preference of the idealist pie-in-the-sky neo-con ideologues. 
Every single one of the predictions all of them, including Powell himself, 
made about this war has become true, from the need to have at least 250,000 
troops to overwhelm the Iraqis, to recruitment instability, to industrial 
production standards, to logistical support crisis. Even the darling of the 
RMAists, Donald Runsfeld, is now a hybrid RMA-Neocon. A good thing indee. 
The USA would have won the war already.

BTW, If the draft gets re-instated, I think it will be a signal that Syria 
will get invaded.

Without a draft, I think they can't invade Syria and occupy it, even if they 
wanted to.

sks