Army misses recruiting goals again

WASHINGTON - The Army expects to miss its recruiting goals again this month and next, Army Secretary Francis Harvey said Wednesday, and that's led to some creative thinking: a sales pitch that appeals to the patriotism of parents, and raising the enlistment age for Army National Guard and Reserve recruits.

In February the Army missed its monthly recruiting goal by 27 percent. That was the first time it had fallen short for any month since May 2000, and it underscored the difficulty the Army faces in signing up young men and women during time of war.

The Army is forecasting that all three elements — active, Guard and Reserve — will fall short of their targets for March and April. That means they will have to make up the lost ground this summer — traditionally the best recruiting season — to meet their full-year goals.

At his first Pentagon news conference since becoming the Army’s top civilian official in November, Harvey said the Army doesn't expect to meet its monthly recruiting goals for March or April either.

Orders to get innovative
Harvey said he was not particularly concerned about monthly results, so long as the Army reaches its full-year target of enlisting 80,000 people. It has not missed its full-year goal since 1999.

“I’m clearly not going to give up,” Harvey said. “At this stage we still have six months to go” before the recruiting year ends Sept. 30. “I’ve challenged our human resource people to get as innovative as they can. And even as we speak we’ve got a number of new ideas.”

One of those is designed to persuade more parents to steer their children to the Army.

“We’re going to appeal to patriotism,” he said.

That might be done through a new advertising campaign, he said. He also is encouraging more members of Congress as well as senior Army leaders and Army boosters to spend time in local communities touting the benefits of military service.

The Army also has increased the number of recruiters on the street by 33 percent and is offering bigger signup bonuses. Last week the Army announced that the National Guard and Reserve were raising the maximum age for recruits from 34 to 39 to expand the pool of potential enlistees. The regular Army could not raise the maximum age without congressional approval.

Some have suggested the Army could ease its recruiting crunch if the Pentagon altered its “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” policy that permits gay men and women to serve only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves. Harvey, however, said he opposes changing the policy.

“I don’t see any need to change it,” he said.

No draft
Whether that boosts enlistment numbers or not, Harvey said he sees no chance of a military draft.

“The ‘D’ word is the farthest thing from my mind,” the former defense company executive told a Pentagon news conference, his first since becoming the Army’s top civilian official last November.

Because of the military manpower strains caused by simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some in Congress have raised the possibility of re-instituting the draft, although there is a strong consensus against it among Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the military chiefs.

This is the first time the United States has been in a sustained period of combat since the all-volunteer force was introduced in 1973. The Air Force and Navy, which have relatively smaller roles in Iraq and Afghanistan, have no recruiting problems, but the Army and Marines are hard pressed.

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