Army's new battle: finding enough new, fresh recruits

WASHINGTON—With the Army expecting to be thousands of recruits short of its goal this fall, and next year's recruiting prospects looking even worse, the United States' largest military service will likely be an older force, facing more frequent missions and struggling to fill key jobs, say analysts and former officers.

Moreover, if the recruiting trends continue for the Army and its reserves, the U.S. military will be made up largely of volunteers from the nation's rural areas and the South.

Despite pledging tens of thousands of dollars in sign-up bonuses, sending thousands more recruiters into the streets, and mounting a new ad campaign aimed at encouraging parents to support recruitment, the job for recruiters seems to be getting more difficult.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, told Congress recently that 2006 "may be the toughest recruiting environment ever." Besides the active Army, the Army Reserve and the National Guard also are expected to miss their yearly goals and fall thousands of recruits short, officials said.

The rising casualty rate in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with a stronger economy that is creating better jobs at home, has 17-to-24-year-olds, who might otherwise join up, thinking twice. And Army polling data show that parents have increasingly soured on letting their children take part in the war on terror.

A senior Army officer said privately that the best recruitment tool would be a reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq. But President Bush said last week that no decision has been made on when the 138,000 troops will start to come home.

Lt. Col. Mike Jones, deputy recruiting and retention chief for the National Guard Bureau, said Guard recruiting is finally starting to pick up, spurred by more recruiters and increased bonuses. But Guard officials concede that they won't be back to full strength—about 350,000 soldiers—until next summer. Army officials predict that the active-duty force could fall short by 7,000 to 9,000 recruits when the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30, the first time it has missed an annual enlistment quota since 1999.

At the same time, Army officials are beginning to see the effects of long and repeated deployments. Young officers, principally Army captains, are beginning to leave at higher rates, although specific percentages were not available. The Army is considering a number of incentive packages to persuade them to stay, officials said.

And last month, the Pentagon asked Congress to increase the maximum age for military recruits to 42 for all branches of the armed services, up from the current age of 39.