Army, National Guard fail to meet recruitment goals

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11365643.htm

CHICAGO - (KRT) - Cortnee Smith, a lanky high school honors student, last year had her mind set on joining the National Guard. Her parents supported her. Friends in the Army told her what to expect. Smith took a military aptitude test and told school counselors and a recruiter she planned to join after graduation.

But last fall, her father, Michael Smith, himself a former National Guard recruiter, quashed those plans.

"He was like, `No, no, don't go,'" said Cortnee Smith, 17, now a senior in high school. "`Tell (the recruiter) to stop contacting you.'" snip

The active Army was 2,150 recruits short of meeting its March goal of 6,800 new troops, and the Army Reserve fell 739 short of its 1,600 goal. These shortfalls were worse than those in February, when the Army and its reserve components failed to meet recruiting goals for the first time since May 2000.

Army Secretary Francis Harvey said he expects recruiting to fall short in April as well.

more

[Anakin Skywalker]

1. Doh! I Wonder Why?

[nytemare]

2. It's not Dubya's National Guard any more!!

:)

[rzemanfl]

3. Al Quaeda met theirs. n/t

[MADem]

4. Wait until they start missing shipping goal

And that is gonna be soon, friends. They can't keep raiding the DEP pool to fill up those recruit training blocks. Eventually, there will be significant holes in the force, and then, we'll likely see some (very) selective service.

[UpInArms]

5. does anyone else think it feels drafty

our here?

[bemildred]

6. This is getting like the "explosion in the Green Zone" story.

A regular feature.

[xray s]

7. just say no

[Joey Liberal]

8. Don't let your kids join!

Don't let your kids join the Army or Marines. It's not worth losing them for Iraqi oil.

[wakeme2008]

9. the Air Force and Navy are not much better

they are training Air Force personel in weapons for use in guarding trucks in Iraq. So some AF/Navy types are already filling the places of some Army types.

[pfitz59]

10. Doonsbury is running a series on this....

Mike's daughter has 'sipped the cool-aid', and he's trying to get her to spit it out!

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Army General

we are cutting deploymets to nine months and bringing some troops home (just the other day)

Press did not ask the obvious questions:

HOW

WHen is the draft starting?

[NNN0LHI]

12. kick